By Huang Xin

"Although impacted by the international financial crisis, China's software services industry developed against the tendency." At the 2009 Workshop on National Software services industry held recently, Lou Qinjian, Vice Minister of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), announced with pleasure that,"From January to October of 2009, China's software services industry has accomplished the operating revenue of RMB769.12 billion yuan, and it is estimated that the annual growth rate will be about 20 percent, becoming the most rapidly developing industry besides auto industry."

Why the software services industry can rise against the tendency and maintain rapid growth? Zhao Xiaofan, Director of Software services industry Department, MIIT, answered,"Domestic demand plays and important role in China's software services industry, so the industry has not been impacted seriously by the international financial crisis." He also expressed that,"At present, China's software services industry only takes up 12.87 percent of the whole information industry. Compared with the other countries, we still have dozens of years for rapid development."

Rapid expansion of industrial scale

From 2001 to 2008, China's software services industry has maintained the compound annual growth rate as high as 38 percent, and its proportion in electronic information industry has also been raised from 6.3 percent to 12.87 percent. The software services industry, which is praised as"sunrise industry", has become a basic, strategic and forerunner industry that puts forward the development of national economy and society."Besides the rapid expansion of industrial scale and rapid growth of software export, China's software services industry has also taken on the traits of software servitization, industrial cluster development and reinforced innovative capability." Zhao Xiaofan concluded like that.

In recent years, the trend of software servitization has been more and more evident, and the growth rate of the revenue in software technology service industry has always been higher than that in software products. Statistics shows that from January to October 2009, the revenue in software products reached RMB268.43 billion yuan, up 20.6 percent year on year; and the revenue in software technology service reached RMB166.26 billion yuan, up 26 percent year on year. With the rapid development of Internet, the delivery mode and commercial mode of software products have transferred towards servitization and networking. Such new technologies, new modes and new concepts as Saas, cloud computing and Internet of things have emerged continuously, and new industrial growth points are under gestation.

Additionally, industrial training in big enterprises has won initial success, and the effect of industrial cluster is more and more evident. Those big software enterprises with more than 10,000 employees have emerged continuously, and the situation that the industry has developed concentratedly towards software parks, industrial bases and central cities is remarkable. In 2008, the number of those software enterprises with the annual revenue surpassing RMB100 million yuan had closed to 1,000, among which, the number of those enterprises with the annual revenue surpassing RMB5 billion yuan reached six. From January to September 2009, the total revenue of software products in four municipalities directly under the central government and fifteen sub-provincial cities occupied about 90 percent of the total revenue in China's software services industry.
 
In addition to quantitive growth, the innovative capability of domestic software is also boosting continuously. Presently, the development and industrialization of domestic basic software products have achieved great progress, and the quality and performance of products have improved evidently and have been applied well in such key industries as electric power and post; domestic information safety software is provided with obvious competency and has taken a relatively bigger proportion in domestic market; domestic animation game software has witnessed a rapid development and enriched cultural industry. Additionally, the industrial software and solutions, which are adapted to industrial traits and provided with advanced technologies, have been launched and applied continuously, which have provided powerful support for the integration of informatization and industrialization.

Consummating industrial development environment

However, Zhao Xiaofan pointed out at the same time that there still existed five protrudent problems in the development of software services industry, that is, the scale of most enterprises are relatively smaller, accordingly the concentration degree is not high enough and the competitive strength is not strong enough; the innovative capability is insufficient, the key technologies and products that are independent and controllable cannot meet demands; the effect of applying domestic software is uneven, the promotion degree is urgent to be reinforced; contradiction in talent structure is visible, high level and versatile talents are in short supply, the mode of cultivating talent cannot meet practical demands; the system of entering, regulating and eliminating the service market of software and information is not perfect, and hidden troubles are existed.

How to grasp opportunities to further promote China's software services industry to become big and powerful? Zhao Xiaofan expressed that what shall be done firstly is to consummate industrial development environment and strengthen the support of relative policies.

Secondly, we should pay adequate attention to technical reconstruction and optimize industrial structure. We should implement a batch of technical reconstruction projects in software enterprises, reinforce the promotion and application of industrial software and industrial solutions and promote the integration and development between software industry and traditional industry. We should encourage dominant software enterprises to integrate resources, conduct merger and reorganization, and boost international competitive strength.

Thirdly, we should foster emerging businesses and expand new consumption. We should expand the service of software networking and foster emerging businesses like electronic business, support the development of such emerging industries as software service outsourcing and network animation, and cultivate new hotspots of consumption.

Finally, we should pay adequate attention to pilot demonstrations and guide industrial cluster. We should promote various pilot demonstrations in software field, consummate public service system, exert the function of bases and parks, and guide software enterprises to gather towards industrial bases and realize united development.