Crystalsoft SAP Thailand

Last week we saw a picture of the changes occurring in the software market, with two of the largest companies in the software market, Oratech and PeopleSoft, joining together to form SAP to become the largest software provider in the market now.

Personally, I think it’s more of a cooperation between 3 companies because PeopleSoft just acquired JD Adworks, the fourth largest software company, not all that long ago.

From this point, I would like to expand the discussion about SAP, a global software development and distribution company; not an American company, but a German company.

That European companies rank first in software sales around the globe is not typical, but this company is innovative and offers products in a convenient fashion. This makes the company a shining star and is, in a way, the pride of Europeans; knowing that they can beat America, aside from Nokia and European Luxury Automobiles.

SAP was established 32 years ago in 1972 in Mannheim, Germany by 5 five previous employees of IBM. Today the company employs over 30,000 people, has over 22,600 employees from every industry, and SAP software has been installed at over 76,100 places. SAP currently has total sales of 7.8 Billion US or 300 thousand million Baht.

The company’s early goal 30 years ago, back in the days of the mainframe, was to make software that would work in real time (back then software and computers would work in batch) and the first product offered was called R (Real) , like R/1, R/2, and the program that really made them become known, R/3.

SAP has divided their software into four main periods, the mainframe period of the 70’s, the mainframe period of the 80’s, the client-server period in which PC’s and LAN made a splash onto the scene and completely changed the face of software development from all-inclusive programs to 3 specialized products: Database, Application Programs, and Interface Programs, and our period today. SAP is able to adapt quickly, they can adapt their accounting software from mainframe to networks.

The results of being able to forecast the market and adapt their product has made this company a world market leader (not just a European leader) and a reputable company with customers increasing from a hundred to thousand (only a thousand, but with customers that have spent a lot of money). In 1998, or 6 years ago, SAP listed in the New York Stock Exchange, increasing both their reputation and capital at the same time and created interest among American companies for SAP software.

The fourth era, the era of the internet and e-commerce and SAP, aside from their traditional product offerings, also rent software services that have been used by many dot-com companies.

At the time SAP was developing software for this new era, the American media decided that SAP was encroaching too much on the American market and began to attack the company by stating that Microsoft is the future, the fifth era, and that SAP doesn’t have any new or exciting products (if you search in American websites you will find that they say SAP is behind in XML technology and dot net and that they are no longer important and have no new or innovative products).

In my own opinion, accounting software should be a closed program, meaning that only authorized individuals are able to access information, should keep information secret, and should be trustworthy. In this day and age business is becoming more global and it is important for businesses to be able to connect through the internet to allow all employees to use the same software and database in real time and correctly. Dot net is too heavily dependent upon Windows, and it is well-known that Windows has many holes, is vulnerable to viruses and is unstable. On the other hand, using a web-based interface allows for contacting users or the interface easy and efficient. Network software still works well with Windows; therefore true dot net is not technology that large companies should rush to embrace.

I think that this is a good company and has proven to the world that non-American companies can be successful and develop quality software. Aside from this, SAP accounting and business software is well-known and of great quality, especially their accounting software for Enterprise Resource Planning. You can find out more about ERP in the Computer World Thai Magazine, June 16-30.

At this point, many people might be wondering what this has to do with Crystalsoft, a Thai company. What I want to say is that Crystalsoft has evolved much in the same way as SAP. They began by producing accounting software for DOS, through the LAN era, and into Networks. Since then they have become the first Thai developer of accounting ERP software and are currently used by over a thousand Thai companies, large and small.

This is the pride of Thai people, that they too are able to develop a top-rate, sophisticated software program. Most importantly is that this software has been developed according to Thai Accounting Standards and it completely separates modules (some international software programs can’t do this; you have to install and use each module separately, which works but it costly because you have to buy modules that aren’t necessary).

From the Thai point-of-view, this is a company that has been around for a long time and the actual number of users is incredibly high (higher than some international brands). Aside from this, this software is many times less expensive than international programs.

I would like both the Thai Government and the Thai people to consider this company so that there will be a serious push in development and so that there will be an ERP Software program specifically for Thai people that has a chance at capturing a share of the world market, much like Germany has done.

 

Source: Bangkok Business Newspaper, IT section .