Page 60: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (March 2016)

SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS

Software

Solutions

Software solutions are a pivotal driver in maritime operations, particularly with the advent of “Big Data” and the evolving focus on the use and movement of data from ship to shore to ship. Last month we caught up with executives at several leading maritime software developers for their insights on ‘What’s Next.’

BY GREG TRAUTHWEIN

MOBILE

SpecTec AMOS Mobile

The “Roundtable” Participants

Hendrik Bruhns, President, Herbert-ABS Software Solutions

Jan Erik Haarvei, CEO, Tero Marine

Stephen Schwarz, VP and COO, ABS Nautical Systems

Giampiero Soncini, CEO, SpecTec very fragmented. Every second week, sumptions, because no one in our indus- Schwarz Evolution of marine tech-

The evolution of the software side somebody wakes up in the morning and try can realistically target all the ships in nology is being driven by the changing of the marine business has evolved decides to waste time, money and exper- the world. If we are lucky and have lots nature of technology as well as the fo- steadily in the past 20 years, from a tise by reinventing the wheel and try- of money to spend, and a robust infra- cus on regulatory reporting and perfor- large group of disparate, smaller com- ing to create a new software which, of structure, we can possibly target 28,000 mance management, which both drive panies to fewer, larger, more compre- course, is much better than anything else ships. Of these, half would have a com- a need for comprehensive data manage- hensive solution providers. When you and which, of course, has a 99% chances peting system, and the remaining half is ment. The increasing pace of technology look at this evolution, what do you con- of failing. I am not sure why this hap- scattered over 30 countries. This is why change can be seen in the rapid increase sider to be the 2 or 3 main drivers?

pens, but I think the main reason is that IT in shipping remains a small niche in cloud and mobile solutions, changing

Soncini First of all, it is 30 years people do not perform a real analysis of market, dedicated to good masochistic the way companies deploy software and and not 20. SpecTec is now 31 years old, the shipping market. I have heard many professionals who love to work twice as the ways in which users interact with and there were some companies even times that “there are 80,000 ships which hard for half the money, compared to do- software in their daily lives. In addition, before us. Second, the market is still are our target” which is simply a false as- ing the same job in another industry. increasing interest in big data decision 60 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • MARCH 2016

MR #3 (52-61).indd 60 3/2/2016 10:50:15 AM