My Funny Valentine
Four men and a lady. We were all supposed to be somewhere else. After all, it was 7:00 pm on Valentine's Day! But love kept us together - our love for the Philippine software industry ;-)
Dr. Emma Teodoro (seated) is the owner/president of Softtech Advantage Inc. and a founder/Director of the Philippine Software Industry Association. (Standing, L to R): Frank Holz, a 25-year resident of the Philippines, and founder of the Outsource2Philippines consulting firm. I'm next, followed by Lauro Vives, founder of XMG and finally, Mark Yambot, corporate affairs director of Microsoft Philippines.
We were at Microsoft's offices earlier this evening to draft the scope of a study for the Philippine software industry. The study will take 4 months and would have 3 phases:
- Baseline Assessment - what is the current state of the industry? how do we compare to other software economies?
- Industry Visioning - where do we want to go? what kind of ecosystem is envisioned to support the software industry?
- Drafting a Roadmap - how do we get there? what policies need to be put in place? what projects or programs should be prioritized?
Once the roadmap is completed, CICT together with PSIA (the Philippine Software Industry Association) and other industry organizations will be entasked with implementing the roadmap and keeping the industry on course.
The study would cover software services (development/maintenance), packaged software distribution, wireless applications, gaming applications, and embedded systems. As the study progresses, I'll post updates and schedule of activities on the sideblog on Software Development. In the meantime, let me know if you're interested in participating in this study.
Pitch in your 2 centavos on what you think is needed to generate more jobs in the Philippine software industry.
by Dondi Mapa | permalink
13 comments
13 Comments:
hi dondi,
been wondering why there has to be two outsouring groups in the country. I had seen how the organization (s?) unfolded and it seems foiled in politics and personalities :) how can we then expect the industry to be united? :)
Your blog is about 1mjobs. Yet you are talking about the software industry. I am just curious, which one are you really after, jobs? or business?
how do we get there? what policies need to be put in place? what projects or programs should be prioritized?Ok to start with..stay away from Microsoft.
Hi Sambalenyo,
As stated in an earlier post, the SBD group's mission is three-fold, as follows:
- to develop a world-class cyberservices cluster (cyberservices are services delivered over the net, such as offshore transcription, call handling, and business process outsourcing)
- to promote SME competitiveness through the use of ICT (the more SMEs using ICT, the more ICT jobs there will be), and
- to strengthen the core segments of the ICT sector (hardware, software, telecomms, consulting, and systems integration).
In the process of achieving this vision/mission, we hope to achieve the milestone of generating 1 million ICT-related jobs. So the jobs are simply a measure of how well we achieve the mission.
Thanks!
Hi Maan,
Are you referring to BPAP and PSIA? I believe the focus of BPAP is business process outsourcing, while PSIA is focused on IT outsourcing. The 2 foci are sufficiently differentiated to warrant separate organizations, imho.
Thanks!
Jobs and business do not necessarily match. A lot of IT jobs are overseas, e.g., many Filipino IT professionals hold H1 visa in the U.S., though they are far outnumbered by Indians. Are you scoping only local business generatiing local IT jobs, or will you include foreign jobs. If so how do you count?
Good question re the diaspora aspect. You may not be happy with my answer... here's an excerpt from a recent inq7.net article on the imjobs online database:
"we'll only be 'counting' jobs in the Philippines, [though] we would still like to know how many Filipinos all over the world are involved in the ICT field. Using the information from this website, we will be submitting monthly reports to the President during her Cabinet meetings.
"This will be an opt-in website with a 'win-win' proposition. Those who register will have a chance to win monthly raffle prizes (perhaps even weekly if we can get enough sponsors to donate cell phones, personal digital assistants and other devices on a weekly basis). The sponsors will benefit by having a chance to conduct “opt-in” e-surveys, where respondents will have the chance to win additional prizes if they participate in the survey.
"We will also consider opening up this website to students pursuing ICT-related careers. This might give us a unique opportunity to forecast the incoming supply of human capital into the industry."
If you are not targetting foreign IT jobs, you may be in for an impossible mission. Your one million IT jobs target is directly proportional to what the Philippine economy can accomplish. I do not want to sound pessimistic but I still have to see the "light at the end of the tunnel", so to speak. But in any case, I admire your courage and good luck to you.
Hi Dondi...
I read Sambalenyos comments and yours, A part of its comments was good. I think we need first to focus on one primary goal which consists of subgoals or to categorized our priorities first.
It is confusing what 1mjob is for Local or for International which means going abroad for IT jobs. Yes its true if we are not targetting Foreign IT Jobs, maybe 1 million jobs since impossible.
But looking on the other side, philippines was second in terms of outsourcing priorities for western countries. Yes we can make one million jobs possible, if our present Government will focus in devolping our IT sectors not only trainings for the proffesionals but also upgrade the educational system for the students.
These investment will be the right investment for our government since we have already "The will to learn" but we lack resources for learning. If government can sponsor free IT Trainings and IT business for the Filipinos im sure we can soon reach the goal.
I havent heard from your blogs speaking Open Source Softwares such as Linux , mandrake, mysql, etc. From your background work from unisys, which i have visited the website doesnt promote Open Source System rather Unisys support Microsoft systems.
Not to offend comments from above, inquiring to stay out of Microsoft. I hope try to Promote Open Source, since most of the High end system now uses Open Source System. Not to mention this blogs comes from google which promote open source system.
I hope before drafting the Philippine Software Industry, you can invite Open Source Community in joining the drafting in Microsoft Offices. So we all can have a fair game and a better , reliable software industry.
one major concern here is on how can we generate more jobs utilizing the Philippine software industry. hoping you still do not disregard the previous posts as indicated there ways or methods that'll help how.
its correct that we also should start lining the software industry with education so students become more aware of ICT benefits.
another, absorbing software industry to every sector, or marketing it to expand more. Delivering its advantages to every home, and alright, utilizing it for open sourcing.
*istie
Hi Dondi! I am very intrigued at this CICT-PSIA study thats underway, at the same time very interested in participating (although how i am not certain). My thesis from a few years back was about the Philippine software industry and I was dying from lack of related studies. Its about time PSIA had a solid research on the industry. May I suggest to also do a little compilation of the history of the local software industry (since there is none available). Maybe even I can do this as long as I have access to the information from CICT's or PSIA's "baul" :) Really looking forward to this, tell me if I can help.
hi commish,
interesting exchanges. i dont have the luxury of time nor patience to do what you do but good luck. ;)
There are plenty of opportunities for people to write software in the Microsoft world, but there is a much bigger world emerging, as already mentioned in previous posts - the Open Source world. This is especially important in the 3rd world, unless we can get MS to drop the price of their products, say, about 90%.
We need to encourage teaching of Open Source development platforms (Linux, *BSD) and tools (gcc, Apache, MySQL/PostgreSQL, PHP, etc) in colleges here.
Converting the desktop (from M$ to Open Source) is the most difficult and longest time frame part - it is much easier on the server side. Already today there is great penetration - expertise already exists, savings are tremendous, and the resulting systems are actually more reliable, secure and higher performance.
Even the costs for setting up Open Source development shops are a fraction of starting a shop to develop for MS, Oracle, etc.
There is plenty of talent here to develop on these platforms, and a rapidly growing customer base. The Philippines should get behind this as Thailand has done (e.g. with their People's PC project, which bundles Linux with each unit, and massive, inexpensive training for all).
Post a Comment
<< Home