In Myanmar, that is often faster than using email.
Mr.
Kyaw said the start of a website for an American client based in
Thailand involved an upload that took seven hours — a process that would
have taken just minutes elsewhere. On another occasion, a client had to
fly from Malaysia to hand-deliver high-resolution photographs that
proved too large to send electronically.
But
Mr. Kyaw, 29, the founder and chief executive of Revo Tech, remains
optimistic about Myanmar’s technology scene. And thanks to a rapidly
developing cellphone network, he predicts such technical difficulties
may soon be in the past. Even better, he says, it presents a huge
opportunity for mobile apps and web development.
“It
won’t be like Silicon Valley even in five or 10 years,” he said. “But
maybe in three to four years time we can catch up to Singapore.”
Limited
telephone and Internet infrastructure, and decreasing smartphone costs,
mean most of Myanmar’s 60 million people will experience the Internet
for the first time through cellphones. The biggest growth potential, Mr.
Kyaw says, is for mobile and web services relating to tourism,
transportation and e-commerce.
Although
broadband Internet prices have declined in the last two years, they
remain high. Installation costs the equivalent of about $500, and the
monthly rate for a 1 megabyte-per-second connection is about $70; the
monthly rate for a connection twice as fast is $120. That is steep in a
country where per capita gross domestic product was about $1,700 in
2013.
By
contrast, a smartphone — and the Wi-Fi access it brings — can cost as
little as $43, increasing the demand for mobile apps and services in
Myanmar.
Next
month, Revo Tech will introduce its first proprietary app, which will
let children practice writing the Myanmar script by tracing letters on
screen.
“We’re going to revolutionize the way our kids learn how to write Myanmar,” said Mr. Kyaw, describing the iPad app.
A
Yangon-based Australian, David Madden, has similar socially conscious
ideas. Mr. Madden founded Code for Change Myanmar and organized the
country’s first hackathon, a gathering of developers to tackle a
problem, in March. He said he hoped to “inspire the technology community
and support the community to get excited about social innovation work.”
Assigned
to create a technological solution to one of eight social problems
presented by nongovernmental organizations, the winning team developed
an Android app that allows farmers to share and receive alerts about
pests and diseases from nearby farmers and the government. Mr. Madden
said the team was discussing fully developing the app.
The
growth of Myanmar’s telecommunications industry offers a potentially
lucrative vein of work for developers. In June 2013, Myanmar’s
government awarded Ooredoo Qatar and the
Telenor
Norway 15-year licenses to expand the country’s limited network.
Ninety-two companies from around the world bid for the work, estimated
to be worth about $2 billion.
A
2012 report by the Swedish telecom giant Ericsson estimates growth in
the telecommunications industry could contribute as much as 7.4 percent
of Myanmar’s gross domestic product over three years and employ 66,000
people full time.
Eric E. Schmidt,
Google’s
executive chairman, told an audience here in March 2013 that Myanmar
was about to “leapfrog 20 years of difficult-to-maintain infrastructure
and go straight to the most modern architecture.”
But
the lack of affordable and reliable Internet connections that is
driving demand for mobile apps is also a major hurdle for Myanmar’s
technology community. Thiha Aye Kyaw, 20, an Android app developer who
works from home here, said of the first time he used a tablet: “I feel
like I’m into the future, from what I’ve been using. That large screen,
everything you can do with it.”
Like
many other developers, he is self-taught and relies on online resources
to keep up with technological developments. However, watching a YouTube
video, for instance, can be painful with a slow Internet connection
that crashes regularly.
“I have to download them with download managers overnight,” he said.
The
industry also lacks experienced developers. Myo Myint Kyaw of Revo Tech
said he had been looking for a web designer for more than a year, but
could not find qualified talent.
“What
happens in Myanmar is, they get a computer science degree, then they
work in an agency, or come to our agency, to get experience,” he said.
“Once they think they are good enough, they go to Singapore.” Developers
can earn $1,600 to $3,200 a month in Singapore, compared with $500 to
$600 for senior developers in Myanmar.
Even
when programmers create a popular app, distribution can be a problem.
Three years ago, Thiha Aye Kyaw created an Android app for typing with
the Burmese Zawgyi font. But he could not sell it on Google Play because
the platform was not available in Myanmar at the time. Google Play was,
until recently, completely blocked, and not all iTunes functions are
available to users in Myanmar.
Thiha
Aye Kyaw worked around the problem by making his app available on local
websites. He said it had been downloaded more than 100,000 times,
largely relying on word of mouth. He made no money, but said he did not
mind because he had earned recognition. Last year he worked as a
consultant to help Samsung develop Myanmar-language support for mobile
devices.
“They know me,” Thiha Aye Kyaw said of prospective clients. “They know my value, which is more priceless than money can buy.”
Soe
Naung Win, 31, owns a mobile phone shop in Yangon and is helping
consumers. The lack of international credit cards and limited access to
iTunes and Google Play makes it difficult to download apps and pay for
additional features.
“There
is no Myanmar iTunes yet, so we created a fake U.S. iTunes account,”
said Mr. Win, who holds a medical degree and retrained as a software
developer. “After that, we can use an iTunes gift card to redeem the
gift card code.” A friend in the United States buys iTunes gift cards
and sends Mr. Win the codes, which he resells at a small profit.
This
use of gift cards, applied around the world to circumvent geographic
licensing restrictions, allows people in Myanmar to make purchases. In a
similar fashion, developers who sell apps rely on relatives and friends
living abroad to collect payments on their behalf.
The
hope is that the next wave of infrastructure investment will help drive
more technology businesses. Although neither Telenor nor Ooredoo would
disclose a date for its networks to begin operations, each aims for the
last quarter of 2014. Telenor plans to introduce 3G and the older,
slower 2G networks. Ooredoo has chosen an all-3G strategy.
While
mobile phones are already widely available, users are excited about
improved connectivity from the thousands of towers the two telecoms are
building across the country and the release of more SIM cards. Only a
limited number of cards are available through a lottery system for 1,500
kyats, or about $1.50, from the state-owned Myanmar Post and
Telecommunications. On the black market, cards can cost $80 to $100.
“There is huge pent-up demand,” said Ooredoo Myanmar’s chief executive, Ross Cormack.
