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THERE is
a greater need to market the country as a software hub
in the global market, the Philippine Software Industry
Association (PSIA) said on Wednesday.
In a
press briefing, PSIA president Maria Cristina Coronel
said foreigners, mainly the Americans, have to be made
aware of the potentials of Filipino information
technology (IT) companies and engineers. For instance,
Coronel said, many Americans are not aware that Filipino
IT practitioner Peter Valdez was the man who founded
Tivoli, the enterprise hardware section of International
Business Machines (IBM). Impressed by his creation, IBM
opted to buy his company for developing Tivoli.
In line
with promoting the country’s software industry, the PSIA
conducted a trade mission in July in the USA to form
partnerships between Filipino software companies and US
companies, IT associations and Filipino-American
professionals in the software sector.
Coronel
said the Philippine delegation attended networking
sessions, IT forums, one-on-one meetings with various
business and IT organizations in Los Angeles, San
Francisco and Chicago. The Filipino delegation also
attended the World Business Process Outsourcing forum in
New Jersey.
“This
roadshow is the launching pad of our story boldly themed
‘The Philippines-the missing piece in your global
sourcing strategy’, which we hope to bring worldwide
after this North American stint,” said Coronel.
She said
global customers must be informed that Philippine
software companies can offer a wide array of services
including business consulting, systems analysis and
design, project management, systems integration,
application maintenance and support, outsourced
application development, product development in various
industry domains, embedded technology, mobile
application and soft-as-a-service (SaaS).
For SaaS,
Cebu-based Morph Labs has started to build its
operations to corner various software-based projects in
the US and other parts of the world.
For
business consulting, Gurango Software Corp. (GSC) has
made a niche by being a premier Microsoft partner in
various IT applications in the corporate arena.
For the
first quarter of 2008, GSC closed some major accounts
overseas in the human-capital management area. Clients
include Armstrong World Industries and Probuild in
Australia, Jetstar Asia Pacific and Stamford Hotel Group
in Singapore , Mimosa Mining in Zimbabwe, Rand Merchant
Bank in South Africa and National Breweries in Zambia.
Despite
the economic slowdown in the US, Coronel said there can
still be opportunities for software-based projects, as
American companies will obviously outsource their
requirements to cut back on operational costs. |
