Due to the stunning performance of the industry the goverment steps up with a law that provides tax benefits to software exporter companies. In the last six years this sector had the highest growth in Argentina.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, president of Argentina, will enact the “Law for the promotion of the software industry and computer services”. Among many advantages this law gives greater tax benefits to the exporter companies and encourages the entry of SMEs (small and medium enterprises). These incentives will eventually translate in reductions in operations cost and rates for its clients. Read more »
Promulgation of the Software Law
Posted on August 19th, 2011 by Andrea SanchezSmartphones Market Trends
Posted on August 11th, 2011 by Andrea Sanchez
Smartphones are part of our everyday reality. If you want to order a pizza, book a flight ticket, hunt a job or connect to friends you can just do it with these high tech devices. Furthermore, for companies they are an excellent tool to engage clients in real time.
Mobile devices allow to access applications with a higher level of personalization than Web and Desktop applications, for example applications that base their functionality around the current location of the user.
Mobile applications are characterized by covering one specific functionality, with simple and define interfaces. Applications categories include: online shopping, travel, finances, internet, communications, music, among others. Many of the most popular web-based applications such as Gmail, Google maps and Skype already have their version for mobile devices. Read more »
Preventing lack of IT resources
Posted on August 3rd, 2011 by Andrea Sanchez
22,500 is the number of students that every year enroll for undergraduate courses related to computer science according to the Chamber of Software and Computer Services (CESSI) in Argentina. This industry employs more than 62,000 Argentinians and it is still rising. The IT market has full employment and it is growing to an extent that most students begin their professional experience before they graduate.
Due to authorities fear of the future lack of human resources many plans are being applied to prevent this. The Ministry of education has encouraged the creation of technical careers and short programs of two years in 80 universities and graduate study centers. Also, it has also launched a scholarship program for students for computer careers computer science careers.
“Many licenses are totally ridiculous”
Posted on June 29th, 2011 by Andrea Sanchez
Linus Benedict Torvalds (Helsinki, Finland, December 28th, 1969) is the creator of Linux. Linux can be installed on a variety of devices: mobile phones, tablet computers, routers, and video game consoles, mainframes and supercomputers. The development of Linux is one of the most famous examples of free and open source software collaboration. Normally all the underlying source code can be used, modified and redistributed, both commercially and non-commercially, by anyone under licenses such as the General Public License.
The creator of Linux tells in a recent interview to Página 12 (a recognized local newspaper) how after two decades of its creation it went from being the heart of an open source system to a friendly desktop environment and the center of Android for cell phones. Read more »
Argentina Outsourcing Competitiveness in Nut-shell
Posted on June 21st, 2011 by Ricardo Farias
I came across a very good website called “Sourcingline” that provides data, tools and directories and reviews on global outsourcing providers. I found useful information about outsourcing locations especially regarding the country competitiveness.
Argentina is ranked number 11 in the global locations´ cost competitiveness and the country has the second largest IT market in Latin America. Also it has the largest number of bilingual agents serving clients in the US. and European markets.
Furthermore, the site presents detailed data about the IT outsourcing competitiveness of Argentina. As an example, according to SourcingLine and PayScale, in 2010 an Argentinean software engineer wage was around 19.1 % of an US engineer. In other words, for every US in-house resource you can have nearly 5 in Argentina.
It sounds like a no-brainer to me, but of course there are many other reasons why to outsource software development than just the cost, don´t you think?
The Cloud
Posted on June 17th, 2011 by Ricardo Farias
Some years ago the idea of using “the cloud” came up as an option to host our software developments, but what it’s the cloud about?
The Cloud Computing concept refers to the computational resource (software, storage, processing) that can be accessed from anywhere through a WAN network and why not from the internet. Many of us use every day, and since long ago, services such as webmails, google docs, dropbox.com, etc. These are the first generation of services in the cloud. Read more »
It’s the end of the world as we know it
Posted on May 9th, 2011 by Juan NavarroWe are all familiar with Moore’s law
. At least all of us in IT. It’s the empiric rule that tells us that every two years; advances in technology should allow squeezing the same amount of computing power in half the space, at a similar cost.
I first heard of this law when I was entering college around 20 years ago. It was the beginning of the personal computer revolution. Writing code still required punching cards (at least in my case!). Yet, that law sounded very aggressive to me and my professors of the time. People were saying that there was no way that trend could continue for more than just a few years. And here we are. The “law” is still alive and kicking. Read more »
To win the future, you have to start in middle school
Posted on February 28th, 2011 by Juan NavarroLast week, we were discussing with Santiago Ceria about some of the differences between the US and Argentina. We briefly touched on the subject of his recent blog post, the need in both countries to boost the number and quality of science and engineering professionals.
science fair
In the US, they are taking the matter very seriously. Just take a look at Obama’s recent State of the Union address. It’s available online and from the White House site. In that speech, Obama set a goal of preparing 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, over the next 10 years. Just the priorities defined by picking those four fields are revealing. This is a key step of the race to “win the future”, as Obama defines it.
I was also struck but another component of that same strategy when I attended the first “Science and Engineering Festival” (www.usasciencefestival.org), last year in Washington DC. Over two days, visitors of the festival had access to dozens of booths hosted by US Agencies (from NASA to the EPA or the Department of Energy), private corporations (from Lookheed Martin to the Science Channel), and Universities. It was a fascinating experience, where kids could interact and explore science on a fun and educational environment. There were maglev train prototypes, NASA spacesuits and rovers, energy efficient generators and much more. Read more »
Is Agile the next step for the US Federal Government?
Posted on February 22nd, 2011 by Juan NavarroA few months ago
I was referred to the recently published plan to reform the US Federal Information Technology Management. You can read it at:www.cio.gov I found it quite revealing of the needs for change not just in the US Government, but probably in many large organizations.
The study points out that in the last decade, and even after investing more than $600 billion, the US Federal Government is still facing quality and productivity issues. Research has shown that many projects have become obsolete even before being deployed. To some degree, this is not surprising. Big budgets exist because issues are large and complex and involve a myriad of entities and interests. On the other hand, business needs change fast, and technology, faster. So how do you tackle an issue involving many intricate interactions and huge amounts data, when those issues and the technology available to solve them change constantly?
Much of the strategy the plan proposes is related to reducing asset investment and redundancy, by relying on cloud services that can be accessed by many different agencies. Other plan components call for human resources skills improvement in program management and procuring. The component that called my attention had to do with software development. Read more »
Listening to John Von Neumann
Posted on February 3rd, 2011 by Santiago Ceria
While at Carnegie Mellon in 92-93 I became very interested in the history of computing. Jim Tomayko, my advisor and good friend, was the editor of the IEEE Annals on the History of Computing, and recommended me Herman Goldstine’s book “The Computer, from Pascal to Von Neumann”. Goldstine, one of the key persons on the ENIAC Project together with Mauchly and Eckert, met by chance John Von Neumann on a train station in 1944 and told him about this incredibly fast calculating machine that he was working on. The rest of the story is well known; Von Neumann became extremely interested in the project and added key contributions to the development of digital computers that last until today.
Von Neumann is also known for his amazing intelligence. In his book, Goldstine dedicates a few pages to describe some of the things his incredible brain could do, including a total recall of books he had read and doing sophisticated calculations in his head. If you have a chance to read this book, don’t miss it. Read more »