SAP is a very very extensive system - in fact it is so comprehensive that it is only suitable for the largest of enterprises with the most demanding business needs, using it for smaller companies will in many cases be a very choice since the complexity will be way too much for it to actually be used/implemented.
As one of the persons behind one of these local "ERP" solutions (Uhasibu), I can say that we do not consider SAP a competitor, Uhasibu can not and never will be able to do the job that SAP does. I am happy that the largest enterprises have SAP (and the overhead that comes with it), I am quite satisfied to address the needs of the rest of the market ;-)
In essence this deal is a great thing for SAP users in Kenya, having local support/consulting staff for them will reduce their overhead, which in turn will make them more competitive, and allow for them to grow Kenya's exports, so it is also great for Kenya in general.
So now that the large enterprises are sorted, what are we doing about the rest ? and about making them grow into becoming so large that they will need SAP ?
Agree with you. I think the deal is good and don't go against the open source deployment goal announced recently. To close the door to these guys when there is nothing out there that can replace then is impractical. For one, if we were to do that and throw as much money as the government can afford to have SAP replacement, it would still take years for the open source projects to come anywhere close to what SAP can do. So whats the local company to do between now and then? Also, its not certain it would work. I remember a while back reading about the Germany government throwing some serious money to ensure there is an equally good mail client that can replace outlook. Despite all that, I still don't see it widely deployed and everybody is kind of still using outlook. That, despite replacing outlook being far relatively easy to do compared to attempting to replace SAP In short, the easiest way for the government to fail in this goal is to be religious about open source and not entertain a deal like this with SAP. Heck, by working with them, they are already putting something on the table, which is a gain to the country. Forget about thinking what the current SAP deployment costed the country, its already a sunk cost and should not be allowed to affect the best decision going forward Regards, William
.. Michael Pedersen
On 9/21/12 12:37 PM, Evans Ikua wrote:
Mwendwa, this is where we have a disconnect. To build onto what you have pointed out, the Government would do good to actively support the development of the capacity of local developers who can be able to extend and develop local or open source ERPs, and any other systems. My big question here to Paul is, how much money do we lose in forex buying SAP and all the other software licenses annually, as a country? Can we get figures of how much a standard SAP implementation costs? How many are there in the country? How much of that money stays in the country and how much goes to Germany? Aren't we better off investing in our own developer skills so that we can keep some of this money within the country (and maybe pay teachers better)?
The reason why rich countries stay rich is because they have positive balances of payments. A poor country like Kenya has a negative balance of payments. This basically tells us that we need to import as little as possible, and export as much as possible. Then vision 2030 becomes easier to achieve.
Countries like Malaysia, Brazil, UK and Germany have come to this realization. They know what is in their best business interest and so they actively support local developer capacities, as opposed to having software engineers whose work is just to install packaged software from shiny discs.
Brain drain? When we have a situation like I have just mentioned above, the really good developers will never have an incentive to stay in a country where all they do is install software. They will soon emigrate to Germany (or Silicon Valley) where they can be employed by SAP to get involved in the exciting world where they can actually do the development. With open source, they would stay in Kenya and still get to develop exciting applications
On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:50 AM, lordmwesh <lordmwesh@gmail.com <mailto:lordmwesh@gmail.com>> wrote:
This is a great debate, but we should not trivialize what the ICT board is trying to do in helping build local SAP developers. Any movement forward is welcomed.
Although Great developers don't need any baby sitting, they will move and work with any platform may it be proprietary closed or Free open source.
The debate of what software an enterprise should use should be decided by the investors, after analysing all risks involved.
SAP has seen an opportunity to develop local talent, great.
Anybody who feels like me that local developers should also be taught to integrate Open source ERPs should sponsor them too. A lot of talk and no walk will not help anybody.
Kudos KICTB, Any movement forward is welcomed. ______________________ Mwendwa Kivuva For Business Development Transworld Computer Channels Cel: 0722402248 twitter.com/lordmwesh <http://twitter.com/lordmwesh> transworldAfrica.com | Fluent in computing kenya.or.ke <http://kenya.or.ke> | The Kenya we know _______________________________________________
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