Brazil Cooperative Development of a Software Industry.pdfVIP

country report E d i t o r : D e e p e n d r a M o i t r a L u c e n t Te c h n o l o g i e s d . m o i t r a @ c o m p u t e r. o r g Brazil: Cooperative Development of a Software Industry Carlos H.C. Duarte early 10 years ago, the research arm of nal markets because of their isolated geo- Brazil’s Ministry of Science and Tech- graphic location. Moreover, until recently, the nology, CNPq, assembled a commu- country’s entrepreneurial culture dictated nity of professors, entrepreneurs, and that the internal market should always re- policy makers. Their goal was to define ceive business preference because of its con- Na strategic program that would eventu- siderable size. To modify this culture and deal ally replace Brazil’s existing information tech- with the external market, the community ini- nology policy. At that time, a strict policy reg- tially believed that producing packaged soft- ulated the internal market, protecting the ware would be a good strategy. However, local IT industry1 by imposing many Brazilian software entrepreneurs have not de- restrictions on importing goods veloped effective distribution channels to cir- from abroad similar to those pro- culate their products internationally. duced domestically. Partnerships