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Mobile is probably the greatest thing that ever happened to Africa, and more specifically, tech in East Africa. With 64.3 million subscribers in 2010 and growing (50 million in 2009), it’s only sensible that tech businesses would focus on developing mobile products. M Pesa’s success has been hailed world over, it’s no suprise that every other app is called “m-something” or “m-the other”.

The question I feel the tech community needs to ask and answer is…

“Should we all be in the m-hype or are there other, more lucrative business opportunities?”

I  believe  there are gaps in software development that remain unfilled, but aren’t interesting or “sexy enough” for our techies, they don’t make good news items, and for that reason remain the reserve of off the shelf software makers and foreign software companies. In the 5 or so years I’ve been in finance, I’ve had to buy all the software off the shelf, save for payroll software, and it would be good to know why we don’t have local solutions for this, yet we have the talent.

Just to name but a few:

Accounting: Every business worth it’s salt buys an accounting solution, mostly off the shelf. Small businesses for example have QuickBooks as the only affordable solution. For Kshs 40,000, a business is able to buy a software that runs well but cannot be in any way customised to fit the business’ needs. In addition to this, the business has to invest a further 30,000 or more in a local payroll software which doesn’t “talk” to QuickBooks. Why hasn’t any techie thought of collaborating with an accountant to build a good bookkeeping software? A company I once worked in had a local solution, which crashed after 1 year of struggling with the provider to get him to perfect it, we never got a refund for the purchase.

Stocks Management: A few months ago I sent a tweet asking for referrals to local stocks management solutions. I got none. One of the companies I work in is about to spend in excess of  Kshs 500,000 on an off the shelf stocks management solution, and a tidy sum in monthly support. Why should this money go to a foreign company, yet we have techies working their heads off at the iHub every day?

Hotel Reservations: I’ have come across only one locally produced software for this, and as you may guess by now, it malfunctioned so much, the property had to replace it with the world standard software at a cost  of Kshs 1 million (in addition to Kshs 200,000 spent on the original software).

Others are ERPs, Virtualization Solutions etc etc

Allow me to digress a little; I don’t understand how software developers sell a product that doesn’t work well, and still expect payment when it fails. I just don’t. When I buy shoes at Bata and the heel comes off at the first wear, I will get a credit note refund, why can’t we get refund for software that crashes? International software providers will give you trial period, in Kenya that’s unheard of.

While I have nothing against mobile applications, I feel any sensible software developer should be looking into Business solutions for various reasons:

1. Businesses have actual software solution needs and are already paying unreasonable sums of money for it. This isn’t the case with consumers. The average mobile phone user will get all apps free of charge. To successfully monetize a mobile solution, you have to meet a need that’s common among almost all the mobile users in the region, and this is why M Pesa has succeeded. It is hard to build a different product with such universal usability. If you insist on going mobile, make sure that the customer actually NEEDS your solution, and it’s not something  you’ll have to create a need for.
2. Businesses are easier to sell solutions to. Most m-products are aimed towards the masses and require extensive user education and marketing for the users to adopt and start using. Consider mobile banking;  as much as banks have invested millions in marketing it, and the M Pesa rider has made it attractive, I can confidently say it’s not a money maker for the software providers (yet). I believe it’s much easier to patiently build a solution that works and get a few businesses to believe in you.
3. Mobile products are mostly focused on the Bottom of the Pyramid and for that reason have a revenue model that banks on their adoption by a large number of users. A business solution on the other hand has various revenue models; software purchase, licenses on number of users and support fees that a developer can slowly build on.

I’m sure there are other advantages but there’s a reason why most of our developers are going the  ”m-way”. My theory is that a business solution is too much work. To be credible as a local software developer, one has to:

1.  Research about the business. For example if you’re trying to build an accounting solution, you have to study accounting, understand how a CPA thinks and QuickBooks works.
2. Spend lots of time working on and testing the product to make sure it has zero errors.
3. Market the product to skeptical clients. Most of us have been burnt by locally developed software before and won’t give your solution a second glance unless it has a trial period.
4. Make a sale, train, and keep giving the client attention

“Yeah, that sounds like too much work, I’d rather make my widget, “m-something” or “m-other”. It will give me media airtime, win me awards,  get me invites to conferences, and if I’m really lucky a bank (or Safaricom, Google, Facebook, Twitter), will buy it from me in 5 years, then I’ll retire!”

In my opinion, whenever it sounds/looks/feels glamorous, there’s no money to be made. Companies that are doing real stuff are rarely in the news.

I’m I being harsh in my assessment of our tech community?