In Sri Lanka it's one of the most vibrant IT cultures you will see (if I don't consider the inflation).

 

Just like Singapore for a person it looks saturated but it is actually not. There are people who even don't beleive what Exchange 2007 can do. The knowladge sharing is very slow and the passion to IT from the new generation is very low. ecause of this very few in the feild takes the credit and fly with colors.

 

Most of the customers don't like to get original software due to price. The value on licensed products is yet to be realized and yes government has laready begun raiding illegal shops.

 

We do not see much of Zimbra movement in the country (I think it's becuase of IMAP based) but Lotus is heavily developed with 40year experience of IBM in Sri Lanka. Still Lotus is also having the same issue with few technologically compitant individuals who run the show. SendMail and POP based e-mail solution are fast growing but it's actually nothing in it.

 

Microsoft in the other hand uses thier own skilled consultants to swap the market and it is being a success up to now. It is absolutely essential to have local partners skilled. But I really don't know how to get there or any movement of growing the partner base.

So far the market analysis is pretty interesting . . . . Exchange 2007 is taking off. IBM is pushing hard for Lotus Notes 8, and other providers like Google, and Zimbra are making a case for the "other" guy. :-) We find that companies are making decisions about what email system to use for a number of reasons. In some cases they are going off of cost, which leads them down the hosted route (MSOnline, Google, Zimbra). In some cases they are looking for a big-boy development platform that with some highly-skilled developers can perform MANY different types of application and database roles (Lotus Notes). In other cases companies are looking for a standard, feature-rich messaging platform that integrates best with their pre-existing enterprise software (Microsoft Exchange 2007).

 

Service providers need to be focused enough to really bring the expertise and experience to the customer for their niche. In M3 Technology Group's case, that means keeping out eyes on the enterprise messaging world, and staying away from the work that we are not the experts in.

 

So what is the IT culture like in Sri Lanka?