When it comes to buying information technology (IT) products, South African companies and organisations have tended to believe that "locally-developed" implies inferior and is associated with less functional products than those offered by global vendors.
Nothing is further from the truth, according to Mike Leeuwen, director of the PM Tech Holdings group of IT companies.
He claims that, very often, new solutions developed in SA are more feature-rich and functional than those of giant global competitors because they are typically based on the latest - rather than legacy - technologies.
"New products created using the latest development languages and on new standards-based platforms tend to be significantly more flexible and functional than those that were designed a decade ago and continuously upgraded," he says.
"They`re built for today`s technical and business needs which have evolved considerably from those of the past. Legacy systems which are constantly updated and adapted to meet current challenges are not as effective and are often compromised."
Leeuwen says a key benefit to users of SA developed software is the price. Compared to the US dollar-based pricing and licensing structures of imported software, locally developed options, priced in rands, are significantly more attractive from cost and return on investment (ROI) perspectives.
Leeuwen was commenting on his company`s accreditation as a Proudly South African company. He revealed some of his reasons for joining the local campaign.
The company`s software division, PM Ora Software, has developed an IT infrastructure monitoring and administration solution that has built up an extensive user base throughout Africa.
PM Ora Software was initially developed as a database monitoring solution for Oracle environments, but has grown to become a comprehensive suite of IT infrastructure monitoring and management solutions that is making major inroads into the financial, healthcare, telecommunications, corporate and tertiary education sectors throughout Africa.
The Enterprise Gauge and Enterprise Focus suites can now also monitor all popular databases, operating systems, underlying hardware and applications.
While initially based on the Oracle platform, they are now being designed to be repository-independent. IT staff can control their environments from anywhere in the world as the complete system can be managed from a standard desktop Internet browser.
"In becoming a Proudly South African company our aim is to make the local market more aware of what we, as a South African company, with locally developed products, have to offer.
"We believe accreditation is a stamp of approval that will enable us to widen our market base and help us meet our objectives of becoming a major, albeit it niche, supplier to South African industry and commerce and government IT infrastructures," adds Leeuwen.
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