Late last month, the third-ranking Microsoft executive (after Bill Gates), Jean-Philippe Courtois, Senior Vice-President, Microsoft Europe, and President, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), was in Malta to sign a landmark agreement with the Government.
Both Mr Courtois, who was on his first visit to Malta, and Justice and Local Councils Minister Austin Gatt, spoke to The Sunday Times separately. Both stressed that they are building long-term relationships, with Mr Courtois outlining three short-term and three long-term projects Microsoft is embarking on in Malta and Dr Gatt affirming:
"I do not want to enter into a relationship with Microsoft with my eyes closed. We need a period in which we can test certain collaboration to see if we can work together and how we can work together.
"Microsoft is Microsoft - bigger than Malta. So, we have to be careful that we are not dominated by Microsoft."
The three short-term initiatives, to be implemented by Christmas at the latest are:
1. Microsoft is to donate 4,000 copies of the Encarta encyclopaedia to the Government, which will decide where to put it at citizens' disposal: disadvantaged families, Internet centres, public libraries, where people can use them.
2. A Microsoft Regional Academy for the Mediterranean is to be launched. "This is something that is very new even for Microsoft in Europe," Mr Courtois said, "we are just starting it. So Malta could be one of the very first countries in Europe to do it."
"Microsoft has been certifying professionals for a number of years. We have on the island some certified training centres and the aim is to extend that, with the Government - education centres, university, whatever is the most relevant - and have the curriculum fully integrated with the official curriculum to certify them on the most well known Microsoft technologies."
3. Microsoft is to transfer knowhow to the Government in the area of intellectual property. This, Mr Courtois listed as a top priority in all his discussions with governments wherever he travelled.
"If you look at the piracy rate in Malta, it is 53%, meaning that one out of two software copies are being pirated, which is a lot. This is only in business and does not include consumers.
"On the other hand, if you looked at the other nine EU candidate countries, it is actually the best piracy rate. So, in a way, it shows that there already has been some good progress made by Malta. But of course Malta wants to be closer to some of the leading countries of Europe, which are closer to the 30-35% piracy rate."
Apart from intellectual property including copyright, Mr Courtois mentioned four other priority areas he discussed with governments: education, where Malta has done a lot; eGovernment, where there are a number of new initiatives capitalising on a common, integrated platform; providing broad Internet access to people; and catering to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The three long-term initiatives identified by Mr Courtois were:
1. The desire to incubate future talent through some development work on some of Microsoft's newest technologies - the .net platform - to potentially lead to some start-up companies in the future. Microsoft will work with institutional partners (the Microsoft IT Academy, the educational sector and government) to work on some concrete projects that can lead to new business and new ventures in Malta with the island taking on a regional role.
2. .net platform for government itself. The vision is built on a very strong belief that new Internet open standards are pushing the limits of what IT has been delivering. Through those open standards there is a much faster and cheaper way to connect existing systems with some new types of applications, new services, to connect governments to citizens, governments to businesses and governments to governments. There are a lot of opportunities to take them further, still being interoperable with existing products.
3. The investment on Microsoft's side, in partnership with local agents in all sectors to localise Windows XP, delivering a Maltese version - a new way of working. "I am very sensitive to this as a European citizen myself," Mr Courtois observed, "and covering many countries where the local language is part of the culture and part of the heritage of the country."
Asked to give a value to the agreement, Mr Courtois said he could not give a round figure but put it at several million dollars. The most important outcome was, however, that this was the start of a long-term relationship.
Dr Gatt told The Sunday Times that the starting point for the Government of any discussions with Microsoft was that they should take place at the "right level". From the very beginning, Government insisted that if Microsoft was truly interested in Malta, it would be adequately represented.
Apart from testing the collaboration to start with, Dr Gatt said Microsoft and the Government acknowledged "Malta has a number of advantages that, together, no other country in the Mediterranean has".
He went on to list these advantages: "Malta probably is the only country that has a good level of English, its people have a smattering of Arabic, experience with doing business with the Arab world, diplomatic relations with all the countries in the Mediterranean that go back long years; we have a good climate; good air connections; digital connectivity, throughout the country; a single platform throughout the country; good international connectivity; a work ethic which is second to none - see what happened with ST Microelectronics and De La Rue, which closed plants around the world and consolidated in Malta; we have trainable people; and we have a good educational system. Other countries in the Mediterranean may have some of these attributes but they do not have them all.
"Microsoft have taken note of this and we know that this exists. So, we want to build on this. Our vision is that Microsoft comes to Malta and sets up in Malta not so much in the sense of building a factory to package software. We don't want that kind of industry. What we want is the knowledge industry of Microsoft."
Dr Gatt went into a lot of detail to explain Government's computer vision. He identified two key decisions, dating back to 1990, which he termed "crucial for today's scenario (and) put us at a great advantage vis-à-vis other countries.
"One was that we should get digital connectivity throughout the country and in government. This means that today we are practically the only country that can deliver an ADSL connection in every home in Malta and Gozo, in all government departments, all the authorities and in the local councils, which are obviously a service base for who-ever does not possess a computer.
"The second important decision was that government departments, local councils and the authorities, especially the most important ones, use a single development platform.
"This means that a system that is being used in the Agriculture Department is the same configuration and type of system that is being used in the Lands Department and in the Public Registry. So, the data at the Public Registry can easily be read in the Agriculture Department or from the Lands Department."
The use of the ID number is the key to access across departments, but Dr Gatt pointed out that this was linked with the enactment of the Data Protection Act, based on European standards, in which there is control over the processing of data.
In parallel with these two initiatives, Government has made it its task to tackled the digital divide; in agreement with the local councils, use the councils as centres for services for those who cannot use a computer at home; and put as many services as possible on-line so that those who know how to use a computer can obtain services on-line.
Dr Gatt said in the past year Government had launched a number of services on-line but the next step is now to launch services through mobile telephony and to start connecting services together. "We are very close to reaching a landmark agreement with the two mobile telephony providers to offer services independently of who you have a contract with," he said.
"Within the next three years, instead of offering stand-alone services, like paying rent for a government property, applying for a passport, checking the progress of a case, and applying for an exam, we intend to connect services together."
As far as the number of services on-line goes, Dr Gatt said that by June of next year Government will be one of the most advanced countries in Europe. "However, the big challenge we are facing now is to begin to link the departments so that we will eliminate paperwork.
"At the end of this month, we are going to launch a system that is Customer Care on-line. So, if you have a complaint about a department, a request, there is going to be an on-line form which you fill in.
"We have structured within each permanent secretary's office a Customer Care person, who has been trained. Your complaint will be dealt with and you can go into the system to see where your complaint has moved. There is a trail which the citizen can follow. We are not keeping it to ourselves. We have put it on-line so that the citizen will know what is going on."
Dr Gatt said some 6,000 applications had been received for the MyWeb initiative: 20 hours of free tuition in Government schools, followed by a number of free hours on an Internet account and a free e-mail address.
"By March next year, we will be in a position to offer a free e-mail address to everyone. We will be the only country where everyone can have an e-mail address.
Tie up with this an Internet centre that will be set up in each local council where you will have free access to computers, Web telephones on all the main streets in all the villages in Malta and Gozo.
"So, the vision is of a country that is digitally connected everywhere and can deliver information everywhere, plus a big attack on the digital divide should change this country.
"Hopefully, it will change this country if we convince people to go online. Secondly, the vision is that we have good people in this country, both from the engineering side and from the software side, and it is possible because we are small with the right policies and the right plans to give services on-line.
"We have proved this and I think that we can also in the near future go one better in the sense that we do not just offer services on-line to the citizen but also the Government, internally, will start to work much more on-line than it is working today."