But that shouldn't be the case, maintains Glen Gill, head of local company Info Group, which has sold its software abroad and is part of a local community of developers sponsored by Microsoft.
Info Group is one of several Information Communication Technology (ICT) companies based at the University of Technology (UTech) Technology Innovation Centre (TIC) business incubator. TIC this year awarded Info Group its annual Innovation Award for software providing a range of solutions from organising bauxite production to tracking the treatment of sickle cell patients.

The tide may be turning believes Gill, suggesting that a recent business inquiry he received from the United States could have been influenced by the strong performance of a team of student software developers from Northern Caribbean University (NCU) who placed a creditable third at the worldwide annual Microsoft-sponsored Cup competition.

"Think of what happened with this Imagine Cup team," Gill told the Business Observer. "The Microsoft guy from Puerto Rico was telling us that the entire region was shocked that a team from Jamaica came third and it made people start to look up and realise there are people who can do software development and is helping to change people's perception," he said.

Since being sold to the Sickle Cell Trust, that software has been successfully marketed as far afield as India and has attracted the interest of health authorities in Bahrain. It allows doctors at sickle cell clinics to monitor a patient's case history and data, which at the same time also contributes to a valuable database for research purposes.

Regarding bauxite, that software is currently being implemented at one mine in Jamaica and Gill wants to market the product elsewhere in the developing world - what he believes is a valuable future market for local software developers.

"We are looking south to other developing world companies. Millions of US dollars are being spent in Jamaica on software developed in America and Europe - why can't we produce that software and also target Africa, the Caribbean and South America? We aren't necessarily going to America because we don't see that as having a high potential for our products."

But based upon that recent inquiry from the US he also believes that more companies may be looking for local software developers as 'near-shore' partners instead of outsourcing to the much-touted but much-further, Indian market. Although in that case, being too small and too stretched meant Info Group was unable to take on the extra business.

"It showed me that a lot of American companies are, for whatever reason, turning away from India and looking for somewhere near-shore and even Jamaica . I do know that at the same time Indian companies are looking to establish business in the Caribbean and South America. I met with one Indian company and that's something we want to look at the possibility of for next year."

The potential of Info Group, now in its fourth year of business, is not unique within the Jamaican information communication technology (ICT) sector, believes Gill. He estimates 30-40 similar-size, local software companies, each of them employing three to four people.
He cites a recent gathering of the Microsoft Information Technology (IT) Community Group and meeting Bits and Bytes, a young software company, which among other solutions, has developed technology to buy and sell event tickets via SMS text messaging.

"At the last meeting there were 22 people from different companies and I am always meeting different people," said Gill of the group.
But, he contends, what will continue to hold back the industry, is sufficient faith from financiers in the viability of Jamaican software development, as demonstrated from other companies such as Innovative Solutions and Learning Systems and Aura Technologies - two TIC-hosted businesses past and present. He says that without adequate financing to market its software, Info Group is forced to concentrate on consulting.

"When the Intec Fund, offering $1 billion of funding (eventually disbursed by Government to nine companies in 2000/1) came about, we started a group to lobby on our behalves but most of the money went to call centres, which is fine because they employ a lot of people," Gill added. "But I don't think people understand the value of intellectual property. Microsoft's value is in the software rights that they own - that is where the real wealth is in this industry."

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