Yesterday, I
had an interesting lunch with Flavio Grynzpan, formerly president of Motorola in
Brazil. Now a
consultant who actively promotes the Brazilian IT industry internationally,
Grynzpan is one of those extremely well-connected people who have their ear to
the ground, so it was good to get some alternative views before hearing the
government pitch.
In essence,
his opinion is that despite
Grynzpan
reckons that Brazil has to find a unique selling proposition and its vast pool
of knowledge in open source software could be the real advantage of the local
IT industry and could lead to the country becoming a global leader in that
segment.
Evidence of
that potential is the work carried out by Serpro, the government-owned provider
of ICT services to the public sector and one of the largest organisations of
its kind in
In the
private sector, noteworthy companies working with open source software include
Metasys, which develops educational software based on Linux to promote digital
inclusion in schools. The company's software covers thousands of schools across
According to
Grynzspan, what started as a protest against Microsoft of sorts motivated
thousands of Brazilians to contribute with the development of open-source
tools. This market is now very well developed and is hugely attractive -
particularly for cash-strapped countries such as the
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