Business Solutions.

Latin America puts technology to work

Technology is a vital driving force for Latin American nations, multinational organizations and businesses of all sizes. Technology solutions that promote efficiency, productivity and connectivity improve profitability for private businesses while contributing to the economic growth of society.

Because technology is such an important growth factor worldwide, the United Nations' Development Program recently released a report that tracked initiatives undertaken by 72 countries to improve their citizens' lives via technology. In addition to ranking the world's countries in order of technological advancements, the "Human Development Report 2001" praised several Latin American nations for technological innovation.

"The governments of developing nations are often less encumbered by investments in yesterday's technology," said the report, which cited Brazil's high-tech hubs at Campinas and Sao Paulo, and Costa Rica's rapid development into a technology-based economy. Other Latin nations -- Mexico, Costa Rica and Chile -- were ranked as potential technology leaders of the future.

"Governments in both developed and developing countries need to recognize that a sound technology policy affects a host of issues, including public health, education and job creation," said Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the report's lead author. "Moreover, technology levels the playing field and allows developing countries to compete with more established nations."

For Latin American businesses, as well as nations, technology solutions can open the door to a brighter future -- regardless of current economic conditions. To take just one example, Latin American data storage spending is increasing more than 45% a year and will reach $2 billion in 2002, according to the consulting firm IDC.

E-business solutions

Latin America is also seeing rapid growth in a wide array of technologies from customer relationship management (CRM) systems to the latest Internet infrastructure solutions. One of the region's veteran providers is Progress Software Corporation, a global supplier of software technology and services for developing, deploying, integrating and managing e-business solutions. The company provides a comprehensive suite of products that includes application development tools, application servers, messaging servers and the industry's most widely used, lowest-cost-of-ownership embedded database.

"Our focus has been to bring enterprise business solutions to companies in Latin America -- not just with technology but through independent vendors and software houses," says Carlos Atehortua, director of marketing and sales support.

"We are not a provider of package applications," says Atehortua. "We provide the technology and services, assist customers in identifying the best solution for them, and help to create that solution. We have a diversity of platforms and work with other software vendors by providing those solutions and integrating technology."

With operations in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, Progress Software serves the financial, healthcare, telecom, distribution and governmental markets.

The company's partners include more than 2,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) and application service providers (ASPs) who supply annually over $5 billion in Progress[R]-based applications and related services. More than 40,000 organizations across more than 100 countries -- including 70% of the Fortune 100 -- rely on Progress-based applications. See www.progress.com.

PeopleSoft's pure Internet CRM solution now available

PeopleSoft's new pure Internet customer relationship management (CRM) solution offers significant benefits to organizations serving Latin America. "PeopleSoft has developed a flexible, web-enabled integrated CRM solution that global companies like FedEx require," says Rob Carter, executive vice president and CIO of FedEx Corp. "The ability to access information across the enterprise will enable us to more efficiently manage our business requirements and provide a greater level of visibility into our customers needs."

PeopleSoft's breakthrough CRM solution represents many industry firsts, including embedded analytics, and seamless integration of enterprise data and business processes. "PeopleSoft 8 CRM may well stand as PeopleSoft's finest development effort to date," said Rod Johnson, research director, AMR Research. "The company took the best of Vantive and combined it with all of PeopleSoft's advantages in Internet architecture, analytics, integration, and portals."

Launched in Brazil and Argentina in June, and in Colombia and Venezuela in July, PeopleSoft 8 Customer Relationship Management is the first and only CRM solution to run entirely on the Internet. This technology enables universal access from any web device, anywhere in the world, at any time. The universal access is enhanced by PeopleSoft's industry-leading portal technology that gives users a personal on-ramp to the applications from their PC or web device.

In addition, PeopleSoft's Internet architecture dramatically improves an organization's bottom line performance by reducing costs in deployment, maintenance and training.

Bringing rich, new functionality, the PeopleSoft 8 CRM suite includes sales, marketing, field service, helpdesk, interaction management and support applications. PeopleSoft currently expects to deliver French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and other languages within 30 days of general availability.

PeopleSoft Inc. (NASDAQ: PSFT) is a world leader in providing e-business applications that enable people -- customers, suppliers and employees -- to power the Internet. More than 4,700 organizations in 107 countries run on PeopleSoft e-business applications. For more information, visit www.peoplesoft.com.

An expanding infrastructure

Latin America's expanding telecommunications infrastructure opens the door to new Internet applications, according to Marvin Leventhal, president of Codifica, LLC, which provides systems for streaming and management of video across content delivery networks. Colombia and Venezuela, for instance, have proposed regional programs to develop educational content for the Internet.

"We feel that enhanced video streaming technology presents unique opportunities for distance learning," says Dr. Joan Lutton, head of The Cushman School in Miami, a Codifica customer that has a web-based science curriculum in cooperation with schools in Mexico, Argentina and Costa Rica.

Enhanced streaming is designed to enrich the viewer's experience. Users quickly navigate video content with frame-specific precision on any intranet or web site. With a reasonable investment, companies, universities, healthcare institutions, government agencies and broadcasters in South America, Central America and the Caribbean can manage and deploy their rich media message via searchable video in the global marketplace, says Barbara Kasper Sugarman, vice president of marketing for Codifica.

Leventhal adds that Codifica understands the perspective of the customer, the local reseller and the distributor. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Codifica distributes digital media solutions in Spanish and English throughout the region through a network of qualified resellers.

Technology Achievement Index

LEADERS

1 Finland (2 hubs)

2 United States (13 hubs)

3 Sweden(2 hubs)

4 Japan (2 hubs)

5 Korea, Rep.of (1 hub)

6 Netherlands

7 United Kingdom (4 hubs)

8 Canada (1 hub)

9 Australia (1 hub)

10 Singapore (1 hub)

11 Germany (3 hubs)

12 Norway (1 hub)

13 Ireland (1 hub)

14 Belgium (1 hub)

15 New Zealand 

16 Austria

17 France (2 hubs)

POTENTIAL LEADERS

18 Israel

19 Spain

20 Italy

21 Czech Republic

22 Hungary

23 Slovenia

24 Hong Kong, China (SAR)

25 Slovakia

26 Greece

27 Portugal

28 Bulgaria

29 Poland

30 Malaysia

31 Croatia

32 Mexico

33 Cyprus

34 Argentina

35 Romania

36 Costa Rica

37 Chile

DYNAMIC ADOPTERS

38 Uruguay

39 South Africa (1 hub)

40 Thailand

41 Trinidad and Tobago 

42 Panama

43 Brazil (2 hubs)

44 Philippines

45 China (3 hubs)

46 Bolivia

47 Colombia

48 Peru

49 Jamaica

50 Iran, Islamic Rep.of

51 Tunisia (1 hub)

52 Paraguay

53 Ecuador

54 El Salvador

55 Dominican Republic

56 Syrian Arab Republic

57 Egypt

58 Algeria

59 Zimbabwe

60 Indonesia

61 Honduras

62 Sri Lanka

63 India (1 hub)

MARGINALIZED

64 Nicaragua

65 Pakistan

66 Senegal

67 Ghana

68 Kenya

69 Nepal

70 Tanzania, U.Rep.of

71 Sudan

72 Mozambique

SOURCE: Human Development Report 2001. commissioned by the united Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Technology Achievement Index (TAI) ranks 72 countries in terms of their overall achievement in creating and using technology.