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Building Iran's Software Industry: An Assessment of Plans and Prospects
Author(s) -
Nicholson Brian,
Sahay Sundeep
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
the electronic journal of information systems in developing countries
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.41
H-Index - 18
ISSN - 1681-4835
DOI - 10.1002/j.1681-4835.2003.tb00086.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , government (linguistics) , software , strengths and weaknesses , business , informatics , engineering , marketing , engineering management , computer science , geography , philosophy , linguistics , archaeology , epistemology , electrical engineering , programming language
A number of aspirant, late entrant countries such as Jordan, Argentina and others have attempted to develop strategies to enter the global software and offshore services marketplace attracted by the experience of other nations and buoyant international demand. The Iranian software industry has high levels of domestic demand and potential in some international and regional markets. The reformist government has engaged in diplomatic missions and developed an informatics plan, a component of which aims to develop the software industry. It is hoped that a strong software industry will reduce the ‘brain drain’ of Iran's young, low‐cost highly educated people. However, regional and domestic instabilities, a USA imposed trade embargo, outdated technologies, lack of international quality standards and endemic piracy present significant barriers to success in this endeavour. Drawing on empirical data from interviews, secondary literature and a model of software export success, this paper contributes by presenting an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Iran as a software export nation. Iran is largely unexplored in the information technology literature. Secondly, the paper provides an assessment of the software export success model in relation to the Iranian context.