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Thursday, May 25, 2006
Ng: Emphasis on intellectual property
By Wilson Ng
Wired Desktop
I wrote this article in the middle of the Second Cebu ICT (information and communication technology) Strategic Summit at the Cebu Provincial Capitol Social Hall. The summit is attended by about 100 stakeholders who will discuss how to create the Cebu Silicon Island, thus furthering plans to make Cebu an ICT hub.
In her keynote address, Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia reminded us that 12 years ago, the Philippines was first connected to the cyberworld through the University of San Carlos. Since then, things have changed enormously.
I remember I named my column the Wired Desktop, in reference to the connected computer. Now, I work more often with a wireless notebook or gadget. It is incredible to think how one can write and send articles with a wireless device. For the last 10 or so years, I have written articles inside conferences, on the beach, in a car, the plane and in hotel rooms in many different parts of the world.
TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEURS. One of the main issues discussed in promoting Cebu as an ICT hub, is the development of technology entrepreneurs. This is something that is close to me, since it marries entrepreneurship and technology, which are essentially what I have been involved with in the last 20 years.
There were many issues on tech entrepreneurship that were taken up, but I would like to comment only on a few:
a) Numerous references were made that one way to create entrepreneurship is holding business plans competition. This is, I think, important. The person who knows technology may not understand business, and you need both technical and business expertise to make both work.
Over the last few years, I have talked and worked with many people who tried to form technology companies with nothing more than just a vague idea of what their products can do and where to get funding.
Usually, nobody in the company has any business or management expertise. Sometimes their estimates or feel of the potential product or service are off target, but there are certain ideas that may have been viable. However, they simply ran out of cash and, therefore, had to stop the business. Thus, creating a formal business plan can be important. Although it does not eliminate risks, a business plan will give the entrepreneur a better idea of these factors and what can be done to get past them before putting in his money.
b) There is one area that summit speakers were able to agree on—the need to emphasize intellectual property.
Let me go back to a talk given by Joey Gurango, a well-known mentor capitalist in Manila, a few weeks ago. Joey said the development of software can be sold two ways—as a service and as a product. Most American companies sell software as a product, that means they own the intellectual property, but allow the user to use the software for a fee. Most Philippine companies sell software as a service—they develop software for companies who pay them but they normally don’t own the copyright.
During the talk of Dennis Posadas and Lawrence Hughes at the summit, it was mentioned that while outsourcing or sub-contracting business is okay, the ultimate goal of a technology company should be the creation of products or services and owning the intellectual property that will allow the company to sell its products. This is the way that most big companies, like IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Google and others make money.
Of course, nice things don’t just happen, and if we are all to develop the ICT services sector, it will be through a lot of planning and hard work. More on these issues in next articles.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 25, 2006 issue)
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