Strategy to support the software industry
- 1. Jan Softa - CEO of Somerco Research Ltd. Draft proposal - Enhance EC member states competitiveness in R & D - Part 2: Strategy to support the software industry Abstract: In this paper I discuss how the ITRE committee and the Commissions Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry can develop its work towards the software industry in order to achieve a high usability of these companies software and how software companies that rely on IP-rights can be helped by crowd sourcing if their IP-rights are protected. And if EU has a clear legal framework that protects software company’s IP-rights when they use crowd sourcing as a work method, it can develop into a competitive advantage against other parts of the world. Background Helping geniuses! Our slogan sums up who Somerco aims to help. Somerco are a company that target to help researchers and innovators so that these geniuses can create prosperity and jobs in society. In order to achieve this aim, it is important to also help governmental officials in international and national governmental agencies. In this paper, I discuss three topics when it concern EUs development of highly competitive European software companies. The focus is on cooperation, usability and crowd sourcing. Introduction The discussion about cooperation between EU and the software industry present a way forward for how EU can enhance the European software company’s competiveness. The discussion about how EU can work with software companies to achieve the highest usability in software is specific for the software industry. Finally, the discussion about crowd sourcing is about a work method that suits the software sector that can be further developed. Cooperation Should EU take on a leading role when it concern enhancing the support for software companies? There are many reasons to answer: - Yes! By using the Parliaments ITRE committee and the Commissions Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry EU has a broad platform for their cooperation with the software industry. It is important for these to have a direct dialogue with the software industry and bring in new work tasks that create opportunities for these companies to succeed. The software industry is important in many aspects. A factor to discuss is Europe’s vulnerability due to our dependency of importing IT products. Moreover, the software has a growing job sector and in just a few years it is estimated that there will be a shortage of 1 million employable workers. Good reasons to have cooperation in order to help. In this suggestion, I focus on how EU can cooperate in order to make the software industry more competitive. In Europe we have many highly talented people in this sector, but still very few large software companies in comparison to our size. There are no company in the size of Microsoft or Google. Now also software companies from India and China is catching up or perhaps even surpassing the European software companies. The race is on – what can we do right now?
- 2. Jan Softa - CEO of Somerco Research Ltd. I believe it just not important, it is vital that the ITRE committee and the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry play an important part of helping this industry. In order to help them there is need for cooperation. In this cooperation it is important to acknowledge what challenges the European software company’s face and seek solutions they can adopt in order to grow and compete on a global market. Below I pinpoint two focus areas I believe will help the software industry to grow. It is usability and crowdsourcing. Usability Usability is a key focus in order to become a future successful software company. To achieve the highest usability it is important European software companies let their software integrate into other company’s software and share info between software’s. I believe it is the best way forward unless you are big as Google, Microsoft or Apple who can afford to do much on its own. A concrete example between the different approaches is online file storage, which have become a popular function. Dropbox and HiDrive are companies specialized on online file storage.1 The popularity of this function among people has been embraced by Google, Microsoft and Apple and they have developed their own similar file storage solution. Google call their Drive. Currently, I cannot see that European software companies can have this approach; instead they should let HiDrive become an integrated part of their own software. It is important to acknowledge that the European software companies need to work after a different approach to increase the usability of their software. In other words, to achieve the highest usability you need to integrate. Normally, people discuss software in the categories SaaS - software as a service and PaaS – platform as a service. Both of them are used in the development of end-user software, meaning software used when we read, write, calculate, play games and so on. To make it easy to understand what I focus on in this suggestion I have divided software providers into three different categories. Developers of regular software are used by anyone in work or at home. An example is Microsofts Windows. Leisure software developers are focusing on game development and music services like Spotify. Work software developers are focusing on helping professionals in their work. Examples of work software are SAGE software for bookkeeping and SAP who have procurement software and Dessault Systems who have their information intelligence software Exalead. When it concern regular software like windows and excel it is not common to find these types of software integrated into other companies platforms such as Salesforce.com or social networks. The software giants that own these types of software do often opt for integrating them into their own platforms. Google have Docs with their own version of windows, excel and power point on their own platform. European software companies have few of these software’s, but the ones who exist should opt for a different approach and integrate them into Salesforce.com and into social networks. In leisure software European companies has started the process to integrate into other platforms. One example is Spotify with their integration into Facebook. In their case it 1 Dropbox and Hi Drive provide an online store place where you save your files instead of on you computer because you want access to them from anywhere without bringing your personal PC. The files can be pdf-files, movies, music, etc.
- 3. Jan Softa - CEO of Somerco Research Ltd. has meant that they has increased their usability and dramatically increased its user base. It is companies like these who will become winners now and in the future. When it concern European work software providers like SAP and SAGE it is considered of utmost importance to integrate into platforms as Salesforce.com and social networks. Some of their work software is already on these platforms because they want to be where they customers are. In turn, it increases their software’s usability. The ITRE committee and the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry should map out more exactly what European companies that have come furthest in the process of integrating into other platforms. Invite them to discussions and explore if there are new possibilities to share information between their software’s. And when possible, these companies should opt for developing their software so that others can integrate their software into theirs. I believe the software companies who are the furthest with this approach will become most successful. These could be used as locomotives that pull other European software companies forward. EU could have an outspoken strategy with the software industry to push this development forward. Crowd sourcing2 As discussed above, in order to increase software’s usability integrating one company’s software into another is one way to increase the European software company’s competiveness. What more can be done in order to increase this competitiveness? I want to point to crowd sourcing as another approach, but what is it? I start with giving an example outside the IT sector. The car manufacturer Renualt buy different parts from subcontractors. The steering wheel comes from one company, the clutch from a second and the seatbelt from a third and so on. Renualt takes these parts and build a car. Crowd sourcing is not a new approach in software; it is the essence in open source code projects as Ubuntu and Wikipedia. But let us discuss if crowd sourcing has a future when it concern commercially run software companies who rely on that IP- rights will protect their income sources. I believe there are a huge potential in crowd sourcing also for these companies and that there are benefits in working this way. The technology to cooperate this way is already here. However, there are a few uncertainties that EU could sort out in order to boost and develop this work method also for companies who rely on IP-rights. What should EU focus on in order to make crowd sourcing even more interesting for these companies? Software companies should be able to let/invite talent outside the company to work for them on projects whenever for a fee, salary or bonus. It is a solution I believe will become increasingly used in the future if it is clear who holds the IP-rights. Another focus area for EU and the software industry to look into is when crowd sourcing can be used when multiple companies are involved in the development of software. It means that different companies should be able to join in whenever on projects. It is a more open approach than the traditional way of cooperating between companies where you have a legal agreement in place before a project starts. The ITRE committee and the Commissions Directorate General for Enterprise and 2 Crowd sourcing is distributed problem solving. By distributing tasks to a large group of people, you are able to mine collective intelligence, assess quality and process work in parallel.
- 4. Jan Softa - CEO of Somerco Research Ltd. Industry should discuss, clarify and later adopt laws that pinpoint who have the IP rights in such an open work environment that crowd sourcing are. It is important that there is a common interpretation of legislation in place throughout Europe that protects the IP rights for these companies. If EU has a clear legal framework that protects these company’s IP-rights, it can develop into a competitive advantage against other parts of the world. Final thoughts I believe a high usability by integration and having a clear legal framework in place that protect software companies IP-rights when they use crowd sourcing is two key factors that will create successful European companies and thereby new jobs. The software sector and EU can take on a leader role in the development of a clearer legal framework for crowd sourcing. It would not only benefit this sector but the whole work sector in society – including R & D as a whole, retail, etc. There are other key factors that will create successful European software companies. A success factor for US software companies is their willingness to acquire other companies in order to gain growth versus European company’s larger focus on organic growth. But since EU is pushing and implementing new laws that make it easier for cross-border investments for venture capitalists and business angels I have left it out of the discussion. A final remark: When software companies apply for funding in Horizon 2020 should they also have a discussion if they can integrate and share information with other existing software?