Taipei Software Ambition

Taipei has a MRT train station that named after its software park, Nangang Software Park station. She is developing its software to match her world strength in electronic hardware. She has a few popular software like yahoo and Trend Micro. Some of the benefits provided in the park that caters to small and medium companies are

- a office for marketing, technical support and to go public

- 15% tax deduction for R&D

- Grant for new product development

- Pay for engineers' salaries
- government commitment for small companies survival

She is focusing on software in area such as cloud computing. She is using her electronic advantage in Asus, Acer and HTC. Taiwan is aware of iTune and play marketing. However, I could hardly find any objective C books in Taipei major bookstores. 

It looks Singapore is behind Taiwan in local home enterprise. Singapore has many MNC software like Microsoft and oracle. But these companies are also present in Taipei. Only Taipei has focus on developing its local brand. Thinking of it, I fear Taipei ability. They have already dominate the world laptop and on less portion, smartphone. And software is their next growth engine that brings immediate profit. 

Software is actually an ideal industry for Singapore to focus on. The main reason is that software is digital. It does not require physical factor such as big land use as in manufacturing, water consumption as in semi conductor industry. All it needs is man and his laptop. And similarly, Singapore does not have extra land and water, it has only talents in the island. (5 million people in SG vs 2.5 million people in Taipei)

The market for software is world wide. It can be distributed easily over the internet. And many local people can start a software business in online services and apps. It will even be better there is a similar support like Taipei to support these small software companies in marketing, getting capital, technical support, paying programmers and going public. A thousand of small companies have a better chance to make it in a new industry. Being a helper instead of a competitor, the government stands to gain in tax and employment when these small companies grow big and go international.