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Published on November 27, 2007

The association is now working with the Technology Management Centre (TMC) through the Industry Technology Assistance Programme (iTAP) to develop the software road map.

ATSI's president Somkiat Ungaree said the association was now in the process of drafting a plan to set the direction for software development for the country towards the year 2020.

He said ATSI had also received assistance in the form of funding support through the iTAP programme during the road-map development process.

Run under the National Science and Technology Development Agency's Technology Management Centre, iTAP is a programme to bring science and technology to address the industry's problems.

Somkiat said the road map would draw a big picture for the direction of the industry. It is expected to be a key mechanism to help local software companies as well as government organisations which oversee local software development with guidelines and a clear focus to make all development work go in the same direction.

"In the past, we've never had any guidelines for local software development. Roadmap 2020 will be the first plan that gives us a much clearer direction," he said.

ATSI has assigned a team to develop the road map and it plans to complete the first draft next year.

Meanwhile, to help local software companies expand their markets overseas, the association also has a plan to join with Nectec for Thai software to penetrate emerging markets such as Bhutan.

"As Nectec has signed a memorandum of understanding with Bhutan, we hope to take advantage of Nectec's connection and penetrate the Bhutan market," Somkiat said.

ATSI will gather local software products from Thai software companies and customise them for the Bhutan market. The idea is to pack a number of Thai software items into one suite and sell it as Thailand Software Pack Version 1. The pack will comprise a set of software products for e-commerce, electronic-education or government which would be a foundation for the country to develop IT infrastructure. Instead of selling software off the shelf, the pack would be sold under the software-as-a-service model, Somkiat said.

"We plan to use Bhutan as a pilot for Thai software market expansion. If the project proves a success, we will move to other emerging markets like Laos and Vietnam," he said.

Somkiat said the association had also received assistance from the National Innovation Agency (NIA) with funding support to encourage the local software industry in the development of innovation.

NIA has set a Bt50-million budget to support local software companies which have innovation development. Somkiat said in the software field, NIA would provide funding for product innovation, process innovation, service innovation and business-model innovation.

Around 17 local software companies have submitted proposals to receive the support. As a part of the selection committee, Somkiat said the committee planned to offer support to around five companies this year.

Examples of models of funding support through NIA's assistance include grants, venture capital and interest subsidies. Somkiat said this support would be a key to promoting the local software industry and move local software development towards innovation.

He said that to help local software businesses capture markets, it is necessary to find niche areas where there were not yet big players.

"It's too difficult for us to develop the same software that already has big players in the market. Local software businesses need to enter the Blue Ocean area by developing software products to serve special markets and special needs," he said.

He speculated that potential areas for Thai software development were related to tourism, agriculture, food, automotive and fashion industries.

ATSI also plans to increase the market share for Thai software companies from 20 per cent to 30 per cent next year and 50 per cent in the next three years.

Pongpen Sutharoj

 The Nation