2009: The year in ICT

(Part 1 of 2)

MANILA, Philippines – With 2009 coming to a close, the country’s information and communications technology (ICT) industry is setting its hopes high next year and finally recover from the global economic crisis and the recent spate of natural calamities to hit the country.

Here are some of the stories (in chronological order) that shaped the country’s ICT industry this year.

JANUARY

Accenture lays off 500 “redundant” workers . One of the biggest publicized employee cuts in the country’s business process outsourcing business as the US firm cited the need to lay off excess workers “to balance skills of its workforce with the demand of its clients.” This figure is less than three percent of their workforce but it is one of the biggest surprises in a multibillion-dollar industry (and still growing) that employs thousands of skilled workers.

Intel shuts down Philippine operations . After more than two decades of operation, chip giant Intel announced it is closing its operations in Laguna (south of Manila). This displaced over 1,800 workers but it is the foreboding of the bigger effects of the global economic crisis on the Philippines’ electronics industry that hires at least 400,000 workers and contributes nearly 70 percent of the country’s annual exports. Intel’s departure also led the government to believe that over 60,000 jobs could be at stake as other semiconductor plants also power down their operations.

FEBRUARY

BPO revenues reach $6-B, says BPAP . In the wake of the global economic crisis, outsourcing group Business Process Association of the Philippines announced that it earned over 25 percent more until early 2009 than in previous year, and also hired over 70,000 new workers. This was meant to convey the message that all is well in the BPO industry despite the anticipated in demand from foreign clients, particularly those based in the United States.

Mobile devices to push RP’s IPv6 deployment . With addresses for Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4) running out, and the rapid growth of Internet-ready mobile devices running high, power brokers of the telecommunications business in the Philippines are migrating towards IPv6, which promises to have more addresses to allow various other devices to be connected to the Web. Imagine, each person can have hundreds of devices attached to the Internet and not worry about running out of available addresses.

RP participates in Asia-wide broadband . Few people realize it but the Philippines is part of an Asia-Pacific broadband infrastructure called the Trans-Eurasia Information Network 3, thanks to the efforts of the Department of Science and Technology-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI). Although TEIN3 is more of an institutional than a commercial infrastructure, it points to the direction where people can enjoy broadband connectivity in the future. TIEN3’s stop speed: 30 high definition movies a minute. Globe already recently signed into a similar partnership with different Asia-wide providers to deliver high speed Internet in the Philippines.

NTC, TELOF transferred back to CICT. The quasi-judicial agency National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and the Telecommunications Office of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) has been transferred back to the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), for the second time, under a Presidential decree. While this already indicates that all ICT-related agencies are to be put under the CICT – itself still hoping to become a full-fledged department – the NTC still has a long way to go when it comes to creating guidelines that would truly make the local ICT environment industry-ready and consumer-friendly.

MARCH

Filipino team bags awards in international robo tilt. Filipino students have won in many competitions, especially in mathematics and science. But the landmark win in the FIRST Robotics Competition in Hawaii, showed that young Filipino minds can actually apply knowledge from these two fields. Students from Philippine Science High School created “Larry Labuyo” as an experiment, which turned out to be a gold mine for local robotics experts.

APRIL

First hacking case settled. In 2008, chemist Roschelle Claro was the first person to be charged under the E-Commerce Act for allegedly hacking confidential data from her previous employer. But her case has been settled in 2009, quietly and inconspicuously. While her case was indeed unique, there are many concerns of hacking and digital sabotage that go unreported.

MAY

Microsoft global lay offs reach RP – After years of remaining secure from most crises that would have affected their headquarters and other affiliates, the Philippine office of software giant Microsoft announced that it is cutting its workforce. Microsoft called it a “voluntary separation program” and many of its top Filipino employees availed of it. Microsoft survived the loss of its top minds as it put in place a new country manager as well as enjoyed brisk sales of its new Windows 7 operating system.

“Ako Mismo” campaign creates buzz – The “Ako Mismo” ad campaign was one of the most talked-about topics both online and offline. It featured some of the more notable local celebrities. It created such a buzz after a subsidiary of the Smart Communications was shown in the ad. It turns out to be an election campaign by ad agency DDB Philippines that aimed to spur responsibility and change among Filipinos in next year’s polls.

Hayden-Katrina scandal spreads on the Web . Not since the days of edited photos of celebrities in their most compromising positions that the Internet became awashed with talks over a set of sex videos featuring celebrity doctor Hayden Kho and sexy star Katrina Halili. The “scandal of the year,” as entertainment reporters called it, extended into the halls of the Senate, followed by day-by-day filing and re-filing of old and new proposals against sex videos spreading around the Web. Shows how lawmakers are more reactive than proactive.

The GSIS-IBM database row. The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) invested P80 million on a database application that, the agency alleged kept crashing. GSIS filed a breach of contract and a libel case against its project contractor, Questronix and IBM, claiming P100 million in damages. In response, IBM filed a libel suit against GSIS and is claiming twice the said amount. This issue remains unresolved. Nevertheless, the GSIS said it is “making do” with what it has and has even brought in a new IT officer to fix its database woes.

(To be continued) –Alexander Villafania, INQUIRER.net