I decided to create this blog to share my experiences working with local software companies in Latin America. I moved down here pretty much on a whim in 1995 (@ age 31) and never expected to stay so long. As my parents were from South America, I wanted to "pull a Roots" and check it out for a while. Nevertheless, after getting married a few years ago, it looks like I'm here for the long haul, especially since I'm enjoying it thoroughly. :)
What's this Blog About?
Now that I have a bit of the boring background out of the way, time to get down to business. Basically, I've been seeing some interesting stuff down here. Even though ISVs in Latin America don't have nearly the access to things like Venture Capital funding, globally trained executives or a large local market that values advanced technologies, several ISVs are doing some pretty cool things (e.g., AJAX front-ends, SOA, etc.).
As John Hagel's recent book points out, the future holds much promise for companies (of all stripes) that have experience competing in developing markets. Developing markets present challenges in terms of volatile economic environments, constantly changing regulations and strong pricing pressure. Companies able to compete in this environment are able to acquire many of the qualities that are becoming more and more valuable in developed economies (e.g., USA, Europe, etc.).
Though many Latin American ISVs need to upgrade their management capabiliities, I have seen them create some amazing technological solutions that solve real business problems. To give you an idea (more on this later), one ISV in Colombia is currently integrating .NET and AJAX components on the front-end (with Oracle on the back-end) to create a highly configurable web-based treasury application. Another ISV in the same country (recently merged with a Spanish company) has developed full J2EE/AJAX applications for Healthcare and Construction/Real Estate Management with an amazing Google Maps mashup.
In other words, I feel that there's quite a bit to talk/write about. To answer the subtitle's question, this blog will treat topics along one or all of the following vectors: 1) Enterprise software transformation employing web 2.0 technologies. 2) Implications for ISVs, particularly "South of the border" (Latin America).
