The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has awarded MIP Holdings, one of SA`s local software development companies, the first place in an award to medium-size companies for making the best use of a grant to generate foreign earnings.
According to Don Elliott, sales and marketing director for MIP Holdings, the road to gaining the award started 18 months ago when MIP applied for a grant under the DTI`s Support Programme for Industrial Innovation (SPII). This programme awards grants on a rand-for-rand basis, matching companies` own investments in projects likely to generate foreign earnings. MIP received a R700 000 grant for the development of Astra2, the locally produced development framework for the rapid delivery of enterprise-class e-business solutions.
Nasdaq-listed Progress Software, based in Boston, launched a project in March 2001 to integrate an Internet development framework into the Progress environment. This would enable the 100 000 companies around the world using Progress to develop systems on the Progress platform that can be run over the Web as well as over conventional networks as proprietary programs.
"A host of companies from around the globe were called to present their offerings in Boston in front of the core review team of Progress Open Source Software Exchange (POSSE), a panel of 35 judges," says Elliott. "A total of 33 of the 35 judges voted for Astra2, which was renamed Dynamics and integrated into Progress.
"Altogether, MIP invested R3 million in the development of Dynamics," Elliott continues. "It is the primary layer of development on which all systems developed at MIP are based. Its future-proof, component-based design cuts time to market by more than 60%."
The decision to integrate Dynamics into Progress and the assistance provided by MIP in this regard generated a substantial amount of foreign currency for MIP. In addition, the company has also gained new software development and training contracts from various countries in Europe, including Turkey, Belgium and the UK.
The DTI recently audited the 300 companies it awarded grants to in order to ascertain what had been done with the money and what foreign earnings had been generated. Nine finalists were selected, and Alec Irwin, the minister of Trade and Industry, last week presented the award for medium-sized companies to MIP.
A further development following this success is that MIP has taken a strategic decision to enter the open source market as a supplier of complementary products, such as AstraGen2 and AstraFin2, to the Progress development market. It will also operate as a supplier of services around the Progress open source environment.
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