Dubai isn’t dumb when it comes to economic policy. Some economists there have noticed software giants (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, SAP, IBM, BEA, Yahoo!, etc.) acquired companies on a valuation related to the number of software developers such preys accounted. A few years ago, it was commonly agreed that a software giant would be willing to ‘acquire’ each software developer for something like US$ 1m. In other words, a 12 developers-strong software startup would be worth something like US$ 12m. Nowadays, I would say it gets closer to EUR 1m per developer though (EUR 1 = US$ 1.37).

Dubai has noticed the trend and has started to build gated communities for software developers – very near Dubai Internet City. In terms of ROI, a relatively small initial investment (it is no secret that Dubai employs thousands of slaves from rural India, Indonesia and Pakistan to get the construction job done) for roads and houses that are soon to be refunded by individuals and taxes anyways, plus a massive communication effort in hand with both the software and IT service multinationals willing to invest in the area to attract software development talents from South America, Russia and South East Asia, will mechanically generate tremendous per capita GDP and create value for the local economy.

What if software development was a true booster for the World Economy? I wish more politicians got to know about Dubai’s measures to increase GDP. It all boils down to this: attract and train the best software development talents.

PS: many thanks to Raphaël Fétique, from eCommerce consultancy Converteo, for the info

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