INTRODUCTION

The software sector in Ireland has reached the status of a World Class Software (WCS) Centre of Excellence. It is one of a number of sectors that has assisted Ireland become the Celtic Tiger economy. Irish software has reached into business corporations, governments, and public entertainment and publishing across the world. Its history stretches back to the early days of computing, it has contributed to a number of the seminal developments, and some of its early scientists have contributed to the grounding principles of computing.

Under the CSE Lighthouse, we focus a beam on the excellence of Irish Software. We look at the environment in Ireland that helped create Ireland as a home for world class software. We consider some of the organisations that achieved excellence, that head the WCS wave. We consider some special projects, private and public, that epitomise WCS. We identify the agencies and other forces that facilitated the success.

The CSE, since its historic foundation in 1990, when software businesses became identified in Ireland as an industry sector, has been fortunate to have worked with very many of the software organisations in Ireland. In a number of cases the CSE was instrumental in helping organisations to achieve that special breakthrough that brought about or confirmed their success. The CSE continues its service to the software sector. Its continuing aim is to act as the emporium of knowledge for software in Ireland, and to be the first stop for each significant project.

The objectives of the CSE Lighthouse are to:

• broadcast the excellence of Ireland as a centre for software
• recognise the great contributors to this success
• give confidence to newcomers to become the new successes
• learn from the experiences to enable fast tracking of a new venture
• encourage the exploitation of the services on offer from the CSE
• learn of the excellent agencies that support the industry in Ireland.

Contributions to CSE Lighthouse are welcome.