More Ideas needed to Jumpstart the Software Industry

A lot of the buzz coming from the IT industry was that more BPOs and outsourcing centers will be starting this and the coming years. This has been regarded as angelic news as not that it will only bring new jobs but invigorate the overall economy as well. Just pass by Salinas drive in Lahug, Mango Avenue in the uptown and Archbishop Reyes Avenue going to the north. The once empty and dilapidated structures has been replaced and lighted with commercial buildings, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, convenient stores and more. Those places has been completely reborn. Indeed, a sign of a growing economy.

This has been a success stories for much of the BPOs. The software industry on the other hand is still in a surviving state. With very small if stagnant progress in the last ten years. While BPOs include companies in software businesses (specifically doing outsourcing and customized solutions), the software industry are those companies who create and develop their own products, with their own trademarks. The number of these companies is decreasing for a lot of reasons (exodus of local talents, low number of technopreneurs, lack of business minded engineers, lack of innovators, etc). For Cebu and the country's software industry to be noticed outside, it should look more to doing more than an outsourcing outfit. We need to create more software products (a byproduct of an idea) instead of services. This is something we can learn from India and the software companies in the Silicon Valley.