The Association of Thai Software Industry (ATSI) is working to penetrate the Laos market with a set of software products developed by local software companies.

The association has asked for a budget of Bt5 million from the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) to support the project and assess the Laos market.

ATSI president Somkiat Ungaree said the association plans to package a set of Thai software products related to e-governance, e-industry, e-commerce, e-education and e-society for the Laos market.

"The software components for the suite for the Laos market will be selected from local software companies. These will have to be localised for that market," he said.


This year, the association plans to assess the market's requirements and will start a pilot project with a few software applications.


"We also have to assess the telecommunications infrastructure in the country so that we can customise the software suite to work according to the capabilities of the infrastructure available," Somkiat said.


If the telecommunications infrastructure proves to be a problem, the suite will have to be sold as a shrink-wrapped package.


However, if the infrastructure is good enough, the network could be used for delivery.


The association hopes to assess the market requirements to be able to choose a few software applications. It will also start the localisation process by developing Laos fonts to be ported on to the applications.


Next year, the association hopes to get the complete software suite and business model, and will enter the market.


"Since Laos is still new to IT, we hope to help the country catch up with information and communications technology," he said.


Somkiat said that the Laos software market could be worth Bt5 billion a year and this is a big business opportunity for Thai software companies. He said the initial targets will include the education, government, business and manufacturing sectors.


After this project, it is possible that individual software companies could start to break into Laos on their own, Somkiat said


Laos will be the first country that ATSI will target as part of taking software to the global market. If the model succeeds, the association plans to expand to other countries such as China, Vietnam and Bhutan.


Additionally, ATSI is working on a project with the Laos government with assistance from Sipa Khon Khan.


Somkiat said Sipa Khon Khan is collaborating with the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry in Laos for IT development. Through this collaboration, ATSI will help Laos's ICT Ministry in developing IT infrastructure for the Sea Games 2009.


Laos will host the competition next year. The association will work with the Laos government to set up the infrastructure and software systems for management of the games.

Pongpen Sutharoj


The Nation

-- Edited by samakomlao at 14:47, 2008-06-01