Malta's National ICT Strategy is one of the best, according to Oracle Corporation senior vice-president for European Enlargement and Commonwealth of Independent States Region Alfonso Di Ianni.
Mr Di Ianni, who was in Malta earlier this month to sign a Vertical Strategic Alliance (VSA) with the Malta Government, told The Sunday Times: "(The strategy) is complete, well documented and there is brain power behind it.
"This plan does not just address the usage of ICT for the government (but also) the efficiency - providing excellent services to the citizens.
"You address the digital divide in terms of providing the young generation (with) access to technology and training, through remote learning capabilities; (and) you address new and existing entrepreneurs who through the technology will be able to be more efficient, (and) have better products at more affordable prices.
"It also has a number of deliverables and clear objectives that will really help Malta advance."
The success of Malta's ICT strategy, Mr Di Ianni said, is linked to the country's size. Asked whether it could be a model for other countries' e-government strategies, he replied:
"I believe any country that is of a manageable size - it's a kind of city state - can definitely benefit from (Malta's) example because what you have here is a relatively manageable number of interfaces and stakeholders with whom you can discuss, debate and get agreement, and move forward."
In larger countries, he pointed out, the number of interfaces, interests and players was so big that it would be extremely difficult to get consensus on a single 20-page plan. Malta was also trying to take advantage of its geographical, historical and, to a certain extent, political situation.
"It would be ridiculous to compare Malta to China, Germany or other big countries in Europe," he said, "but it makes a lot of sense to position Malta, as I understand (it) is being positioned, as a lighthouse of ICT in the Mediterranean because of the geographical situation of the island; the strong ties the island has with some of (its) neighbouring countries; and because of the fact that the geographic position- and the technical infrastructure - allows Malta to provide ICT services to other countries in this part of the world where you are known, trusted and have established business relationships.
"This is why we believe, strategically, that Malta is important and why we really want to add a partnership (with) the government and private businesses, rather than just (seeing Malta as) a commercial location."
Mr Di Ianni said the purpose of his visit to Malta, apart from signing the VSA with the Malta Government, and meeting key customers and partners, was to "promote the image of Oracle".
While Oracle is the second largest software vendor in the world after Microsoft and the first combined with PeopleSoft in terms of enterprise software, running its products on the computer systems of 98 of the Fortune 100 companies, apart from the United States Defence Depart-ment and NASA, its software products were "not only for the big guys".
"Oracle has invested very strongly in commercial packages for the SME market at very affordable prices. There are two million SME companies in Europe and entire countries are (dominated by) SMEs.
"We believe that the Oracle Database Standard Edition 1 and the E-Business Suite Special Edition bring top Oracle quality to a market that has never seen this quality before at such affordable prices."
Although Oracle's products were similarly priced to those of its competitors, Mr Di Ianni said "if you add support and (the cost of) new versions - the total cost of ownership - you will see on the bottom line that we are 20 to 30 per cent cheaper".
According to research Oracle has sponsored, SMEs are being subjected to particular pressures due to the enlargement of the European Union: "These companies now see their market open to outsiders, who could come in very easily and, with their power and experience, basically conquer their customers," Mr Di Ianni said.
"So, a major trend is for the local companies to maintain their competitive advantage." This was being achieved through improving their productivity, offering the same or superior quality at better prices, by streamlining processes and negotiating better terms with suppliers; and maintaining existing client loyalty.
"That creates barriers to entry when another company comes into the country, which is to do especially with customer service and customer care. Both elements of the strategy need management information. We are coming back to the Oracle value proposition, given that Oracle is the information company.
"We can provide the application for this market out of the box - business information so that the application is not like in the past a black hole where you put data in but never get anything out of it; but it finally provides management facts that help you to make informed decisions rather that decisions based on opinion."
A final element was innovation: "Oracle is known as the innovation company," he said. He pointed to a 27-year history starting with the time when CEO Larry Ellison commercialised the world's first relational database, originally developed for the CIA, to being the first on the market to have applications that were Internet enabled in the mid-Nineties.
Oracle is today a $10 billion business (excluding the recent PeopleSoft acquisition) employing some 50,000 people. Although there is only one company running PeopleSoft software in Malta, Mr Di Ianni said the message to PeopleSoft customers was: "We are committed to PeopleSoft's new version of software and maintenance of the software at least until 2013, so it is a commitment that is larger than what PeopleSoft had before.
"We are going to maintain 90% of their developers. We believe that customer satisfaction is a priority. So, we will maintain that. There is no danger whatsoever."
Turning to the latest development within Oracle, he said: "Right now we have put all our energies into a totally new computing paradigm called 'great computing'.
"What this does, through our database software, is to manage different servers as if they were virtually one. It is more power, more speed and (it) optimises unused computing power that you may use only at month end when you want to close your books.
"But the rest of the time, it is idle. Yet you may be thinking of adding another (computer) because at month end you have a peak. So, our software optimises the resources automatically and can link different types of machines and automatically segment your database in different servers without you having to worry about the segmentation and the synchronisation of the different pieces."
A Masters graduate in electronic engineering from Turin Polytechnic, Mr Di Ianni, who hails from Puglia in the south of Italy, also holds an MBA from the Bocconi University. He joined Oracle in 1997 from Digital Equipment, where he held various European management roles in consulting and product development.
Mr Di Ianni was previously responsible for the licence and consulting business of the ten new EU accession countries, including Malta, during the transitional period leading to accession. Before that he provided leadership to all Oracle field marketing and alliance and channel resources worldwide, and drove marketing and business channels investments in support of Oracle products, solutions and services.
Asked about his role within Oracle, Mr Di Ianni said: "I manage one of five regions, in which Europe, the Middle East and Africa is divided. My region is quite large in terms of number of countries.
"It includes the ten countries that joined Europe (on May 1, 2004), the new candidate countries Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia, the former Yugoslav republics, Albania, Russia and the CIS, such as Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
"This is a large area but the nice thing is (that) these are all emerging markets. We enjoy the privilege of (having) been there for 13 years and therefore, now that they need more and more IT, and more and more infrastructure to evolve and compete in the global market, we are there first.
"Our major customers are government entities and ministries, as e-government is a strong product from Oracle. Then you have financial services: you name any bank - it's an Oracle customer because of the volume and security, which is to do with banking transactions.
"Telecom operators' billing systems run on Oracle; some of their back office financials; (and) some of their CRM - customer relationship management. Then we have utility companies and, finally, manufacturing.
"It has been a double digit growth region for new licences for us. It continues to be a positive growth region. There are huge opportunities (for) the simple reason (that) these are new countries, so most of the budget is spent on new systems as opposed to in the western countries where 80% of the existing budget is spent on maintaining existing systems; in these countries, it is the reverse."
Mr Di Ianni sees the role of the Malta office, set up last September with Kevin Attard as business development manager, to support Oracle's partner of 15 years, Megabyte, and its new partners.
Mr Attard will be providing the entry point to a wealth of knowhow sourced directly from Oracle's businesses. Looking to the future, he said: "We will be driven by our customers' demands and success."
Mr Di Ianni feels "very comfortable" with the business plan currently in place for Malta and has "fairly good expectations" that Mr Attard will "reach the goals that we jointly set for him".
Oracle, he said, has its own internal metric in terms of affordability of an office and benchmarking vis-à-vis how many new initiatives it can launch in the market as a proportion of the head count it was deploying.
"There is no limit in our view. We want to continue to improve the business. So, if the volume will increase, we will increase the head count. We will be measuring the results. It all depends on the response from our customers.
"I am very pleased with our initial results. (Mr Attard) has the right contacts at all levels. What is also good in the case of Kevin is that he is not a salesperson. He is someone who has knowledge, understands our products and understands the projects of our many different customers because he has been in this role in the past.
"That is what customers appreciate. Selling per se in the Internet world of today is as simple as going to a Website and buying something. That is now what we are talking about."