Sri Lanka’s WSO2, a global software company, turns 15
WSO2, a software company that began in Sri Lanka in 2005, marks 15 years of business operations in August. Starting with just 10 employees, WSO2 now has over 650 employees spread across offices in Sri Lanka, US, UK, Germany, Brazil, and Australia. Headquartered in Sri Lanka, nearly 90 per cent of WSO2’ s employees are based here, the company said in a media release.
WSO2 sells technology that enterprises use to digitally transform themselves. WSO2 has products for integration, API management, and digital identity management. These products are fully open source and also available as cloud services. WSO2 offers accelerators for open banking and open healthcare too. Today, this homegrown software powers organisations all over the world and has gained recognition f rom prestigious industry analysts such as Gartner and Forrester, with the products being rated as leaders in their respective segments.
The company’s founders, Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana and Dr. Paul Fremantle, established WSO2 to set the company apart from others in the market - emphasising values such as transparency and community contribution - and change perceptions about Sri Lanka in the global software market, the release said.
In contemporary times, Sri Lanka’s IT industry has grown significantly. 2005 was a very different scenario; Sri Lanka was primarily seen as a labour outsource market and not a country of software producers or creators. It was in a background such as this that WSO2 set up operations and began its global journey - a journey that has made direct contributions to the social, educational, and economic fabric of Sri Lanka in the process. WSO2 was one of the earliest companies in the country to provide a platform for Sri Lankan computer science graduates to build software that is truly conceptualised and developed in Sri Lanka. Education and mentorship play a big role at WSO2. The company has been a channel for many engineers to further their graduate education with around 100 past employees studying for doctorates in computer science and more than 50 having already completed them. From its inception, WSO2 has fostered a culture of mentorship and the company has an internship programme with local universities, giving students first-hand opportunities to develop world class software and interact with customers, the release said.
Presently, WSO2 has more than 500 customers in 70 countries encompassing a range of industries including banking and finance, healthcare, transportation, logistics, hospitality, e- commerce and retail, government and non-government sectors, and insurance. Key global customers include Wells Fargo, AT& T, Verizon, CBRE, Cisco, eBay, Expedia, Hilton, Motorola, Jaguar Land Rover, Qantas Airlines, Standard Chartered Bank, Nissan, Honda, and many others. Local customers include Dialog, Sampath Bank, Nations Trust Bank, HNB, Cargills Bank, and MAS Holdings.
Commenting on the anniversary, WSO2 Founder and CEO, Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana said: “Sri Lanka’s human capital and the capacity to innovate have always been the cornerstones of our vision for WSO2. It is the intellectual wealth of the people of this nation that has enabled us to become a significant player in the global software industry. I wish to express my gratitude to the many employees who have been a part of WSO2’ s incredible success story and others in the country who believed in our mission and supported us.”