Hard for ICT to work in Sabah

It is hard to find local software houses / Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in Sabah. KL sure, Johor yeah, but in Sabah? The ones that call themselves local ISV here cannot truly be called that; they are more like hardware vendors with a small interest in software. Name 1 company in Sabah that deals ONLY in software, and is homegrown; not a small branch of ISV's coming from KL. I cannot recall any. Why is that?

My guess is the drives to reach a high standard in ICT in Peninsular with initiatives like MSC, MDeC, and all other crap are passed over in this State. I mean look at MyKad - it is supposed to be able to be run on 30 applications that ranges from agriculture, healthcare, socio-economics, transportation, and logistics. Look at MyKad usage in Sabah. All they do is tell you if you are a PTI or not (PTI do not carry MyKad, supposedly).

Some people say MSC is overrated money-loser designed to copy-cat the Silicon Valley. They said that Silicon Valley was actually started half a century ago by independent engineers/university students in their garage and hit it big in ICT with silicon chips manufacturing. Then the get rich quick vampires slap the title Silicon Valley recently to impress the Wall Street cows with stock growths before sucking them all dry during the Dot-Com heyday. I say, so what? These engineers/students gets the chance to grow big due to funding from Venture Capitalist (VC) in their area. The only VC I know in Malaysia are those from MSC/MDeC. If there are skilled engineers/students with good invention, well hey, by all means, let MSC/MDeC fund their start up. Now the question is why aren't they here in Sabah?

The other thing that is holding back ICT in Sabah is lack of skilled software engineer. Any Tom, Dick, and Harry can become a developer/programmer. These same people may be a good programmer, but if they do not apply engineering principles in their project, that project is doomed to failure. A software engineer are programmers who apply engineering approach to software development. These are systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of a software. Since the last 2 years I was trying to hire people and the first thing I ask is "do you know what is Software Development Life Cycle?" Some answers was "tak tau oh (no idea)", "macam itu Lion King Circle of Life ka? (is it similar to Lion King's Circle of Life)". I FAINT. I shit you not my friends. I don't know if whether the problem lies in the individual, the university that hands them their degrees/diplomas, or if this is the current trend. It has got to stop. One does not go about making software just like that. It has got to follow waterfall process; Requirement Analysis, Design, Implementation, Verification, and finally Maintenance. This is a basic 101 course that all engineering student must take, whether you are software, civil, electronic, or whatever. Don't be fooled by phrases like "oh the system is very small, written in dbase 10 years ago, very easy to do, 1 week you sure can finish it". Especially if the guy who said it is your boss. Until you do a Requirement Analysis, you WILL NOT know how big and complicated the system really is. And when it fails, you are the one conveniently blamed for it. So where are these ISO Compliant Engineering guys hiding?

The final thing that is holding ICT back in Sabah are lack of competent programmers. The last batch of chaps that I talk to only knows 1 or 2 programming languages, usually VB. I've asked "ok I got a MMORPG server called World of Kickasscraft running on RedHat Linux with MySQL as the database. It is basically a C++ program that is started using a Python script that basically acts like a batch file. Oh ya the MMORPG uses LUA to script the events and NPC actions. The client download link, the webpage, signup and registration form is in JSP are hosted using the J2EE GlassFish application server. The client is written in C#, and hey, you want to get some burgers or something to eat?" I usually lose them at RedHat where their eyes start to glaze over and they look straight through me and keep nodding their heads in a clockwork fashion. So does anyone want to make an MMORPG?