Lankan software engineers riding high

Director Sushena Ranatunga said that they were currently working with a few software firms globally with some of its main customers being Microsoft, PocketMobile in Sweden, Matrix in the US and the newly-established Cambio Healthcare Systems in Sweden. The company also has an office located at Deal Place in Colombo.

Entering into long term partnerships with these organisations, Creative Solutions caters to providing the necessary human resource talent from Sri Lanka picked from locally reputed universities like Colombo, Moratuwa, Kelaniya, Peradeniya and SLIIT with a degree in computer science or physical science with computer science as a subject.

Others in the talent pool possess qualifications at diploma level and have become trained graphic designers and web developers.

Ranatunga observed that they currently develop search engines, mobile applications and are also involved in customising applications.

In generating such business to the country it was pointed out that authorities needed to establish relevant infrastructure and help in reducing costs in a bid to ensure these companies would be capable of providing a more competitive service as the cost factor is of particular importance. Creative Solutions' software engineers are involved in the development of enterprise search engines used by large companies to search corporate data and assist in decision making. Currently these engineers are working on par with their counterparts in India, Bulgaria and Romania.

 The two latter countries are considered as competitors, according to Ranatunga.

Sri Lanka is capable of offering smaller numbers of personnel with quality talent.This is the main reason why some of the mid range companies are being targeted by Creative Solutions, in a bid to generate increased business.

Since most of these mid range companies require services from only a few experts, larger service providers might not concern themselves with small time projects in the global market.

In this respect, Ranatunga observed Sri Lanka had the skills and personnel to meet these requirements.

However, he noted that currently with only around 1,000 IT graduates passing out from local universities and a total of approximately 2,000 available in the market, it was imperative that Sri Lanka seriously thought of increasing its capacity.

Only about 10% of those in the job market could be considered as the best in their field, he explained.

"Our expertise is working for small to medium scale organisations," Ranatunga said.

In working for PocketMobile it provides mobile applications by developing software catering to the logistical, financial, service and automobile sectors.

The development work is carried out by adding pluggable modules to a pre-built framework used for customising mobile application services.

These applications are made to be compatible with Windows Mobile as Creative Solutions uses Microsoft.Net while the architect is service oriented in terms of offering mobile functionality.

Currently the organisation is looking at a separate component to be plugged in with a plan in place to absorb open source platforms. In this respect, by the end of this year, the company intends on absorbing five resource persons and adding on a further 10 by January in addition to 20-25 developers and quality assurance personnel by April next year.

The software engineers are also involved in focusing on developing customised applications for the service industry with special attention on service management. Creative Solutions engages itself in providing an intensive two month training programme on the fundamentals of building a search engine that has proved to be a good exposure for fresh graduates added to inculcating soft skills such as assertiveness and how to work within a cross cultural theme.