Local is lekker

And with the upswing in IT investment has come a greater demand for code tailor-made for specific business ideas. Peter Schaub" rel=tag>Willy-Peter Schaub, technology specialist at local development giant Barone, Budge & Dominick, says there will always be a place for customised software.

"There will continue to be competition between off-the-shelf and customised software," he says. "Local and offshore clients often do not find an adequate match in off-the-shelf products and require software that meets their business needs."

Schaub says the local market is growing fast, which is putting pressure on skills.

"There is a definite shortfall of expertise in many areas," says Schaub. "Not enough is done to introduce and create readiness for new and future technologies, which is something we are trying to address through our Developer Readiness Program and the saArchitect community. The current and future political climate, and especially crime, is encouraging many IT experts to emigrate, something this country can ill afford in the current growth stage."

BB&D became one of the founding partners of the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) last May. The centre, which was established by the City of Johannesburg and the University of the Witwatersrand, boasts a number of partners in the software development arena, including IBM, Microsoft, First National Bank, Unisys, Oracle, Arivia.com, New Dawn Technology, Tata Consulting Services, BMI-Tech-nology, Psybergate, Entelect, Accenture and Fujitsu Siemens. The project seeks to boost the status of Gauteng and SA as a software innovator and a location for global IT outsourcing. And local companies are more sympathetic towards custom software development than they used to be.

"Fortunately, our clients are IT literate these days and, therefore, often understand the complexity and challenges," says Schaub. "They often assist with the analysis and specifications, ensuring that solutions have a better business fit when released."

HOME-GROWN CHALLENGE

But smaller developers of home-grown software still face challenges. Neil Blakey-Milner, lead developer at Cape-based Jam Warehouse, which produces a commercial open source document management system, says that locally developed solutions aren`t on many companies` radars.

"Established international players have a `nobody gets fired for buying IBM` attitude in our case locally" he says. "Overseas, we`re received a lot better, especially in Europe. But then we have had the opportunity to partner with some great companies locally to improve our product, so it`s not all doom and gloom."

Blakey-Milner agrees that there will always be a place for customised software.

"Mass-market products can`t cater for the needs of all organisations. The better products allow for a level of customisation without programming, but that is rarely sufficient. Integrators are custom developers who get these systems to do things not already envisaged. Also, as companies rely more and more on their computer systems and processes to provide better services and products than their competitors, using the same systems as your competitors doesn`t offer much of a benefit. A company should know how to go about their business a lot better than a software development company in another industry, geography, and audience." One such company looking to do more integration work is Johannesburg-based Linux specialist Obsidian. MD Anton De Wet says that the company is trying to steer its development efforts away from working from scratch and more towards improving existing open source software.

"We`ve done lots of custom development and we see more joy from customised open source products than from developing from scratch," says de Wet. "We`re getting to the point where we can say no to bespoke development and rather go the customised route. It`s better to build competence in specific areas than try and do everything. One of the problems with smaller development houses is that they get too much dependence on a single big client and if that client, for whatever reason, decides to stop or change the project, then you suddenly sit with huge exposure."

De Wet says his company`s current focus is on the Drupal Web-based content management system.

"It solves so many problems that we could probably get by on just that competence. Since we have combined training, consulting and development skills, we can bring all of them to bear on a customised development project. Implementation is a consulting job. You need to get people to actually use the software that is all about training, and then there will be a few changes required, which is where the development comes in. To make open source work, you need to offer a complete spectrum."

The demand for the complete spectrum is growing, and not just for training and consulting. Local companies are now more willing to give broader responsibilities to developers, according to Francis Judge, a Johannesburg-based contractor.

"As a contractor, it can be difficult to find those jobs where people will trust you enough to give you a broad portfolio," says Judge, who has worked at the Interactive division at MultiChoice and is currently developing a data aggregation system for local authorities.

"There seems to be a lot more interest in people who can add more value. But recently, I`ve seen an increasing demand for individuals and teams who can be a developer, a DBA, a project manager, and can discuss architecture and methodology."

But if companies want such multi-talented people to come and work for them, they need to market their available positions better, says Blakey-Milner.

"Companies need to market their positions properly if they want to attract this type of developer," he says. "Given just how much better the stronger and more experienced developer is than his colleagues, they`re not on the market often. Just like a bad CV may cause a company to pass over a potential employee, a bad job advert or poor recruitment practices may cause the potential employee not to bother with a company."