The Korean government will expand the purchase of public commercial software (SW), realize the 'maintenance rate' which is the cost of software operation, provide customized support for excellent SW projects to advance overseas, and create a SW promotion complex for the growth of local SW industry.
On June 17, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced and proposed the 'SW Ecosystem Innovation Strategy' at the National Current Issues Review and Coordination Meeting held at the T-max R&D Center in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, presided over by Prime Minister Bu-gyeom Kim.
Since last December, the government has been implementing the government amendments to the SW Promotion Act such as △preventing the changes of unpaid task, △allowing remote development, and △expanding separate orders for commercial software. The innovation strategy was prepared to revitalize the commercial software ecosystem, which is the industrial foundation.
The government is to recommend improvement to purchase developed commercial software rather than direct service development to public institutions. Currently, the purchase ratio of commercial software is 10.7% in the public software market.
The government will promote private innovative software development by reducing the concentration of service construction and raising the purchase ratio of commercial software. Open SW, which could not be registered in the Nara Marketplace, will be improved so that it can be purchased. Through this, the government plans to extend the purchase ratio of commercial software in the public software business plans to 20% by 2025.
The government will also realize public maintenance rate, which is the ratio of the cost to support operation and management after software purchase. If the maintenance rate is 10%, 100,000 won per year will be paid to the software company as a maintenance fee after a product of 1 million won is purchased. As of last year, the maintenance rate for domestic software in the public sector was only 11.1%. The private sector will also be paid 12.4%, which is a higher ratio than the public sector. It is less than 15% of the standard set by the government. Not many places follow 15%, since the public sector calculates the cost according to the situation to pay it even if the government sets thestandard maintenance rate. The government will conduct a joint public-private situation survey and push for a step-by-step increase in the actual payment rate in the second half of this year.
Customized support such as quality advancement and localization will be provided so that excellent cases such as 'Doctor Answer', an AI medical software developed through the Digital New Deal, etc. can advance overseas.
The government will also secure human networks by linking recruitment and study abroad through developercontests for overseas and domestic talents (including international students) and by and nurturing local partners.
To support the growth of the local SW industry, five SW promotion complexes will be established by 2025.
To promote SW convergence, these regional complexes will discover and support convergence tasks such as △ the digital transformation of key industries, △nurturing software talents and job creation in areas linked with firms and universities, and △the division of labor and collaboration among regions.
The industry requested speedy policy enforcement. A CEO of a software company said, “Promoting the purchase of commercial software and raising the software maintenance rate are the issues that we have been persistently requesting for more than 10 years. We hope that the government raises the execution power so that the SW industry can immediately feel the effect of policy enforcement.”
Prime Minister Kim said, “The government revised the SW Promotion Act at the end of last year for the first time in 20 years and laid the foundation for responding to changes such as the 4th industrial revolution. For the public sector to actively adopt creative and innovative commercial SW software, we will greatly improve the entire process of public procurement from certification to purchase.”
By Staff Reporter Ji-seon Kim (river@etnews.com)