Yahoo! brings developer network to SEA

KUALA LUMPUR: The passion and patience of a Yahoo! Inc employee resulted in the introduction of a Yahoo! developer network for the South-East Asia region.

Chang Sau Sheong, head of engineering at Yahoo! SEA who quipped that software development is part of his genetic make up, said the regional developer community will now be able to mingle and exchange ideas among themselves.

“I have been given the driver’s seat for this initiative and I see this as a chance for Yahoo! to contribute to the community,” said the Malaysian who is working in Singapore.

The network is open to all developers in the region, regardless of skill level. “Yahoo! also recognises the strategies of extending its reach through software developers so it has put increased emphasis on the developer network,” Chang said.

Although the region did not have its own chapter until now, developers still managed to got together at other international user meetings, such as BarCamp.

Seeing this phenomenon, Yahoo! decided it would be a good idea to spread its wings and reach out to developers in the region, Chang said.

“There has also been an increase in developers using Yahoo! APIs (application programme interface) in the region to build new products and we want them to be a part of our developer network,” he said.

The establishment of the Yahoo! Developers Network here is a big deal for Chang because he said the Internet giant previously did not make an effort to set up such a chapter. Before this, interested developers here had to join the US chapter.

“I believe that many developers here welcome the SEA chapter because having a local identity is always good,” said Chang.

The SEA chapter will function as a platform for Yahoo! to promote and drive its technology.

“We regard it as a tool for us to gain a stronger foothold in the global IT industry and we don’t just want to be big but we’d like to the prove that we are big by offering developers different capabilities from our APIs,” he said.

Yahoo! would also like to guide developers toward making it big in the IT sector, he added.

As excited as he may be about the new chapter, Chang said there are still some challenges in rolling it out in the region. One of these is a shortage of people to run the network.

“We have a small team here so I’m trying hard to rally everyone to participate in the project,” he said. To get the ball rolling, Chang plans to have the SEA chapter get involved in existing developer group activities.

“We plan to conduct talks and workshops to help developers use Yahoo! APIs to their full potential,” he said.

There are also plans to get the custodian of the MSC Malaysia initiative, the Multimedia Development Corp, to co-organise some of the activities because of its longer and wider reach in the region.