ON THE last day of a conference to be held alongside the Faire, local IT and telecommunications suppliers will be talking about new technologies and trends that will shape the way companies do business in the future
Danny Naidoo, director of .Net and developer group at Microsoft SA, will look at the opportunities that exist for local software developers to take their products to the global market.
For example, mining houses are using locally developed software to work out optimum processing methods by analysing data from their plants.
"Software such as this has huge export potential and usually carries a large price-tag overseas," says Naidoo.
But while Australian software developers have succeeded in selling their products to the SA mining industry, SA products are not being used in this sector in Australia, says Naidoo.
"Local developers have highlevel skills and are producing world-class software, but, with a few exceptions such as Softline, they are not taking them to world markets," says Naidoo.
He says SA has the potential to be a global player, but it requires a change of mindset and a framework that will help people to broaden their horizons.
Through their global networks, multinational companies can help developers to do this.
Naidoo will tell delegates what Microsoft is doing to help this process along.
Dave Botha, country marketing executive at IBM SA, will discuss a framework for business that IBM is promoting that will allow for the integration of business processes and IT processes.
"This will provide a foundation that will enable companies to achieve an on-demand, payas-you-go IT environment."
For example, large corporations such as banks could reduce their costs by selling off IT capacity that is not being fully utilised by them to other organisations anywhere in world, as and when they need it.
At the same time, a company could opt for a small infrastructure and tap into another organisation's infrastructure when they need large processing power during peak periods or to run a specific job.
The journey to achieve a fully evolved e-business-on-demand scenario is evolutionary rather than revolutionary in terms of preparing a business and IT infrastructure to provide a platform for the framework, says Botha.
"It will need to done in bitesized chunks and will require the right business approach to measure and achieve early business results at various stages of the process."
Botha will provide an insight into what companies need to do to prepare for the different stages of building an on-demand framework.
Michael Silber, senior manager in the legal department of Deloitte & Touche, will examine some of the issues that revolve around legislation in relation to the IT and telecommunications sectors.
He will look at the Electronic Communication and Transactions Act and the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act.
In addition, he will discuss some of the changes to the Telecommunications Act that have already taken place and the changes that are likely to be made in the future as this market moves forward into a more liberalised environment.
He says the communications department is preparing for a policy review process to get feedback from the industry and the public for the way forward in the telecoms sector.
"The government wants to finalise the licensing of the second network operator and then start looking at the next stage of liberalisation in line with its undertaking to the World Trade Organisation."
During the conference, Tim Parsonson, director of Storm, will address issues that revolve around voice over internet protocol (VoIP) in the local market.
He will discuss how SA regulations have deprived the local market of the benefit of harnessing this technology to build an integrated voice and data network.
This is the result of regulations that explicitly ban the integration of voice and data traffic over the same network, says Parsonson.
However, imminent deregulation means VoIP will soon be allowed and this will reduce the infrastructure and running costs associated with telecommunications networks.
"It will also offer far greater functionality than is currently available," says Parsonson.
May 07 2003 06:49:53:000AM Business Day 1st Edition
Publisher: Business Day
Source: Business Day
Shaping the way companies do business in the future.
Posted On Wednesday, 07 May 2003 02:00 Published by eProperty News
Local products aim at global market.
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