Lot of opportunities for IT in Sri Lanka:

Dell 11G server launched

Charumini de Silva

“Sri Lanka is emerging as one of the top two countries in South Asia promoting the use and development of IT. One of the reasons for the development of computer use and IT was that the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has actively encouraged this sector and also the GOSL has named the year 2009 the year of

ICT”, said Regional Managing Director, South Asia, Developing Markets Group, Dell Global Business Centre, Varinderjit Singh at the Dell 11G server launch yesterday.

“There is a lot of opportunities available in the banking, finance, telecommunication, education and public sectors for the development of the IT industry. We are capable of providing solutions for the demands of these newly emerging sectors in Sri Lanka. Since there is peace and stability in the country the potential for development is high and we see much promise in the growth of the IT industry”, he said.

He said, “ Since much effort was being made in rehabilitation and development in the Northern and the Eastern provinces the economy of Sri Lanka will grow considerably in the next 2-3 years. Dell is keen on investing in Sri Lanka. It will help Sri Lanka to grow rapidly in the IT and enterprise sectors”.

“Dell is also focused on how it integrates and aligns the enterprise technologies across its product portfolio to help companies simplify and manage their organizations.

Therefore we feel that the IT sector in Sri Lanka by then will not be an emerging market, but a strong market with a lot of possibilities.

We offer our customers combination of innovative software and services with next-generation storage and server products and technology solutions specifically designed to cut costs and increase efficiency”. CEO, Softlogic Trading (Pvt) Ltd., Roshan Rassool said, “We sell about 50,000 - 30,000 computer units per quarter, but in the fourth quarter of 2008 our sales dropped to 36,000 units perhaps due to the effects of the global downturn and other local factors, but our average annual sales had remained 150,000 - 160,000 units. At present, we are confident with the dawn of peace and with the economy beginning to pick-up, we could improve our sales significantly in the next few years. At Softlogic we are expecting a tremendous growth this year as business is picking up rapidly with stability of the country”.

“Earlier we concentrated serving the corporate sector and the public sector for our sales, but currently we are also catering to individual customer sales, as there is a huge demand for IT even among the SME sector. Therefore we are looking for a 20 percent growth rate in the current year, with solutions provided for commercial purposes and individual needs as well”, he said.