Competitive edge for local software industry

The Technology Management Centre and Software Park Thailand have launched a Personal Software Process (PSP) Initiative Programme to increase the country's capabilities and opportunities in global software outsourcing.

The Technology Management Centre (TMC)'s director, Chatchanart Theptharanon, said the programme aimed to give the local software industry more competitiveness and greater opportunities in global software outsourcing by offering grants and specialised training for local software engineers wishing to attain PSP certification.

The project's goal is to produce about 100 PSP-certified developers by the end of this year.

PSP certification is a subset of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) processes and a part of the software process programme at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburg, USA. The PSP is a quantified method that aims to improve the quality and productivity of the personal work of individual software engineers.

"Recently, there were only 333 certified PSP developers in the world, so if we achieve the goal of having 100 certified PSP developers by the end of this year, Thailand will become a software country with a significant number of qualified developers. That will lead the country to the forefront of software outsourcing," Chatchanart said.

She said the plan provided for the development of 20 authorised PSP instructors by next year, and about 10,000 developers would then be encouraged to undertake PSP training courses at universities over the next five years.

"Today, we have only one authorised PSP instructor, Suchat Muangkaew, a lecturer at Naresuan University. He will train 100 developers under this programme. Software Park Thailand will also collaborate with universities throughout the country to train 30 lecturers from 16 universities this year to encourage them to become authorised PSP instructors next year," Chatchanart said. 

Certified PSP developers will give local software companies more competitiveness and help them to achieve the trust of prospective foreign customers. Along with the increasing number of CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration)-certified companies in Thailand - about 27 companies at present - Thailand will have a greater chance of attracting offshore outsourcing work, she said.

Under the programme, the centre will provide an initial budget of Bt8 million for training and certification examination - costing about US$250 (Bt8,834) each - for all 100 candidates, said TMC's assistant director Supat Poopaka.

There are two options: companies that send only one developer to join the programme will receive 50 per cent of the cost of the training and certifying process, but companies that send two developers will receive 70 per cent of costs.

"They will get the money back when their developers pass the PSP certification examination," Supat said. "They have to advance by themselves first."

He said the programme aimed to increase the revenue portion gained from software exports. Last year, this was only Bt4 billion out of total value of Bt60 billion.

"Certified companies' software processes alone are not enough. We want to help to accelerate the revenue benefits to individual software houses through PSP certification. Then, we will see significant growth in the software industry in the future, especially in the export and global-outsourcing markets," he said.