PLDT launches IT solutions

THE country's largest telecommunications company, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, has expanded to be an IT solutions provider with the launch of its new services, dubbed as PLDT AppFarm Protect and PLDT AppFarm Organize.

PLDT AppFarm is a portfolio of cloud-delivered solutions designed for business. An online-based computing system, PLDT AppFarm let businesses rent a service rather than buying hardwares and softwares.

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PLDT Visayas-Mindanao Corporate Relations business head Jimmy Chua headed the launch of the two services at Marco Polo Hotel in Davao City last week.

"In keeping up with your business, you have to keep your costs down while driving your sales up. In having your office space, you have to keep up with the expenses brought by computer servers, power, complex updates, bandwith, personnel, networks, memory storage. This is what we call clouding which brings our cost up," Chua said.

PLDT AppFarm is a Document Management System (DMS) that integrates and organizes documents, both paper and digital, into a single, searchable database accessed through a web browser.

"Store and retrieve data quickly, maintain an inventory of records with advanced search options, monitor the movement of documents, and control how it could be shared to your colleagues. With PLDT AppFarm, you can bid farewell to rising costs from upfront IT investments, hardware maintenance, office space requirements, software and hardware upgrades and updates, and backup requirements. The concept is quite simple: for a predictable monthly fee, you will be able to virtually have all of your IT requirements at command," Chua said.

Chua said AppFarm Organize answered business essentials: (1) a unified and organized document and information repository; (2) increased employee productivity and efficiency; (3) Lower operational costs; (4) No investment in costly infrastructure; and (5) secure and protect documents from various threats.

"All documents are captured and managed using a single system; it ensures that no document is misplaced or lost; eliminates time wasted in searching for information and documents; reduces digital file storage consumption for distribution and circulation; reduces inventory and delivery costs of paper documents; no internal additional IT personnel required; files stored in PLDT AppFarm Organize are highly secured and automatically backed-up; and only users with access rights can access your documents."

Chua said PLDT AppFarm is founded on multi-tenant software architecture which is designed from the ground up to enable sharing of IT resources securely among a large pool of users.

"AppFarm makes it possible for users to simply “rent out” only the services and solutions they need, rather than having to procure and manage multiple instances of hardware and software needed for organization-wide deployment," Chua said.

Chua said cloud computing is not a new technology by itself. It utilizes new models of software architecture and technology to deliver unprecedented value to all types of organizations. Therefore, business benefits become the focal point of cloud-delivered solutions, rather than having to pore on the intricacies of managing and maintaining them. In addition, by refocusing IT resources to more strategic functions, manpower are maximized all while costs of operating are significantly reduced.

PLDT AppFarm Protect, meanwhile, compliments AppFarm organize by giving security.

"Using the latest firewall protection, intrusion-detection systems, and SSL encryption, PLDT AppFarm gives you world-class security that only PLDT can provide. Beyond these measures, our cloud-delivered services employ multi-tenant software architecture which enables real-time management of information privileges and audit trails per user," Chua said.