 Managing
Director, Ekin Caglar, explains the reasons behind Sibilo's decision
to give away its DataSmart solutions for free.
At a time when one of its major competitors has pulled
out of the market, why did Sibilo decide to give away its DataSmart
solutions for free?
In July 2005, we sponsored the Centre for Research in Information
Management in the University of Manchester to carry out a survey
to ascertain how NHS bodies were coping with the information disclosure
requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection
Act and the Environmental Information Regulations. As you know,
FOIA gives citizens the right to request any information from NHS
trusts. Before the Act came in to force on 1 January 2005, the Information
Commissioner, Richard Thomas, had warned that thousands of bodies
were ill-prepared to handle FOI requests. The survey proves him
right: 40% of the NHS Trusts did not respond to the university's
FOI request.
How is that significant?
This survey shows that 40% of the NHS Trusts in the UK are currently
breaking the law!
What do you think are the reasons behind these findings?
Public bodies have had nearly 4 years to prepare to handle Freedom
of Information requests yet our survey shows that most of them have
done nothing to date. In those 4 years, the government came up with
a £2.3bn national programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS. In
December 2003, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) has won a 10-year
NPfIT contract, worth £973m, for the North West and West Midlands
regions. Despite passing deadlines, NHS Trusts in these regions
still haven't received compliance solutions, for instance.
What does Sibilo do to tackle this problem?
Sibilo has compliance solutions to meet the specifications of the
Department of Constitutional Affairs and our first action is to
give them away to the public bodies for FREE. The reason is simple:
Non-compliance affects the citizen - you and me - and the quality
of service we get from public authorities.
Our second action is to set-up what we call the DataSmart Alliance
Programme. Public bodies around the country are all facing similar
IT challenges. When it comes to software, the dilemma of buying
a packaged product off the shelf, developing it in-house, or outsourcing
it to a third party is always a difficult one to resolve. With the
Alliance Programme, we aim
to bring together the best of all three worlds. We are setting up
user groups across the UK, members of which require similar software.
We develop the required software with the help of the member organisations
and they get the software, upgrades and support - guess what - free
of charge!
I hope both of these initiatives will be steps towards a better
and more efficient e-government.
How are you going to make money?
We come from an academic background and we have different ethical
values than your typical blue-chip. Our calculations show that this
project translates to losing almost 1 million pounds in potential
revenue, for instance. We see this as an investment for restoring
the bridge between the public sector and the software development
market, which has long been damaged by a series of mistakes made
by the people who were in the market before us. We have heavily
invested in our unique software development model, SSDM,
and we will continue making money by providing scalable, flexible,
affordable business solutions developed using SSDM.
What does the future hold for DataSmart?
We are committed to developing our DataSmart solutions further.
Request Manager’s second version is due to be released just
before Christmas [of 2005] and includes a number of new and exciting
features. We are also adding a range of new functionalities to DataStore
including support for PSI. Our passion for better software is here
to stay!
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