| 'Local software makers
should prove they have good products'
By BISI OLALEYE
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
 |
•
Don Pedro Aganbi
Photo: Sun News Publishing
|
|
Don Pedro Aganbi, the man behind the prestigious Titans
of Tech award, recently said the award was meant to appreciate
the players in the industry, who had paid their dues, withstood
all odds to ensure that technology in the country is taken
to another level.
Aganbi lamented that the government was not doing much in
the areas of piracy, a thing he said killing most business
in the country.
While stressing the fact that Microsoft’s software is
not expensive because it is a big player, he added that what
the sector should strive to achieve was the encouragement
of indigenous software developers.
Why IT
I came into IT because of the interest I developed in Information.
I was quite young in the industry. I started hearing about
Millennium Bug, that computers will crash, in year 2000. That
caught my curiosity as I was in the entertainment industry,
producing and presenting entertainment programmes on television.
I did this basically to create awareness about the millennium
bug to inform Nigerians that their computers may be in danger.
I remembered I wrote many proposals to a few IT companies
that were in existence at that time and most of them were
really not convinced until I went to a company called Data
Sciences, where I met the Managing Director, Ladi Oguneye.
He accepted it as a good idea and he gave me a cheque of N30,000
at that time. It was a quite big money in 1996/1997. I remembered
I had a live show at 11.30p.m to 4 a.m. from 1999 to year
2000. People called in and told us what was happening to their
computers and laptops. Everybody that called, said their computers
or laptops were working fine, so it didn’t crash. When
I came into IT, a few persons were involved in it.
Titans of Tech
Titans of Tech is designed basically to grow the sector. It
has become the bride as it were. Nigerian IT sector has become
the toast of the international community. We felt that with
Titans of Tech we need to use it celebrate men, women, institutions
and organizations that are behind the technological wind of
change that is now blowing across Nigeria. Although we have
had awards, but Titans of Tech is quite different. It is different,
in the sense that we are saying that Titans of Tech is a feel
of distinction in technology. We know the industry; we know
who have done well, and popularized technology in the industry.
As at that time, nobody knew the IT sector would grow this
way. Titans of Tech is an annual event that we celebrate excellence.
Another beautiful thing about Titans of Tech is that we also
celebrate the up-coming Titans of Tech in Nigeria. Chief Don
Etiebet was the first Nigerian to bring mini computers to
Nigeria. I was around reporting the sector as at that time.
Also a man like late Prof. Tunji Odegbami helped to shaped
the Computer Association of Nigeria now Nigeria Computer Society.
His leadership quality was rare at that time.
The Nigerian Computer Society, if you knew it at that time
was always moving from one level of crisis to another. But
Prof. Tunji Odegbami was able to pull the association together
for so many years. He was amazing. The Titans of Tech is our
third edition. The IT industry and stakeholders have endorsed
it and they have accepted it as their own and that is how
they partner with us every year.
Between indigenous are and foreign softwares
I have ran series of shows on indigenous software and foreign
software, if your product is good, people will come for it
because we are in a global market. Let’s look at the
banks, they tell you they don’t want indigenous software;
we want a software that can compete globally. Now, our software
developers are saying, ‘give us the right platform’
we can compete globally. But why should we lobby government?
Is that done? In India, do they lobby the government, so that
the people must buy their software? Securities are also there.
They are wondering if Nigerians could be trusted? Can I give
Nigerians my code and they will not reveal it to someone else?
They believe that it’s better for someone in India to
have it than someone in Nigeria. You discover that multi-national
companies are careful. It is not because we don’t have
software running there. They do. The past governments have
also come to say, let’s put a seal. You must patronize
indigenous software. Is that the right approach to say government
should force indigenous software on the banking sector or
the multinationals? I don’t think so. I think the software
industry should look for a way to pass the message that our
product is good. I think the software industry should be an
avenue to penetrate the sector, not that government should
force it.
The software industry in Nigeria can form a pressure group.
They can tell the people that their products are good and
that the people should patronize them. But we got to balance
it. What are the banking sector saying? What are the indigenous
software people saying? The indigenous software people are
saying patronize our products. The banking sectors are saying
that can your products compete globally? The answer you readily
get is yes, it can compete globally. What they want is that
they should be given the same platform like the foreign software.
But the whole thing is the same mentality.
Microsoft software piracy
When people say Microsoft software is expensive, what do they
mean? Is it better to pirate software? Is it better to infringe
on somebody’s intellectual property? The answer is No.
I don’t think that Microsoft is deliberately making
their software expensive. Microsoft is a global player, it
is huge and if you say Microsoft is playing the ‘Big
Boy’ it’s big. Piracy is killing the business,
not just the software industry alone. It is also killing the
home video industry and the music industry. Somebody will
produce something and another person is feeding fat on it.
Some people say Microsoft likes to be monopolistic, they like
to monopolize. But these are impressions that everybody has
formed about Microsoft.
But I do not think it is good to pirate. We should not even
condone piracy. It is wrong. My jobs have been pirated and
I know how much I lost and how it feels. When I hear of piracy,
I always want to see the people involved and tie them to a
stake and wipe them out of existence. Microsoft is saying
no more piracy, go for the real one. The real one cannot be
too expensive for you not to afford because the people pirating
go for the real one and they pirate. It’s possible for
us to also get the real one. I don’t think Microsoft
software is too expensive.
Don’t forget that it is the Federal Government that
brought Microsoft to Nigeria. The former President Olusegun
Obasanjo brought Microsoft to Nigeria. At that meeting, I
remembered he told Microsoft. “Do everything within
your power to bridge the digital divide because this is our
last hope,” and Microsoft decided to do that. They may
not have achieved 50 per cent or 40 per cent of it but they
are trying to contribute their quota to the development of
the sector.
Future of ICT
We say we have emerging and technologies emerging markets
because technology is always evolving. Technology is about
innovation. It is not tangible, technology cannot be held
when you think you have relaxed on technology, if you relax
too long, you will become a dinosaur because something new
is coming up. Yesterday, we were talking about mini-computers,
today. We have our telephones as computers because our phone
is now our computer.
So, all these are technology. We use the Titans of Tech forum
with the theme, ‘Emerging Technologies , Emerging Markets’
to awaken the sector. We just finished the issue of one laptop
per charge stuff. It did not work out because the indigenous
manufacturers felt that they can do better.
|
