Friday, February 01, 2008 Venture capitalist firm upbeat about local open source market
UNLIKE other provinces in the country, Cebu’s open source software community is a rapidly growing market, a Filipino venture capitalist said.
“Cebuanos are like the Japanese, who have an open-minded market. It’s a matter of time for the open source community here to grow tremendously because of your nature to be forward-thinkers,” said US-based Global Gateway Venture Capital chairman Winston Damarillo.
Open source is a set of principles and practices on how to write software in which the source code is openly available.
In an interview, Damarillo said Cebu’s readiness to embrace the open source market is evident in the province’s hosting of the 1st Cebu International Open Source Summit this June as part of the Cebu Business Month ICT 2008 International Conference and Exhibition.
“It (summit) brings credibility to Cebu. It means it has the same high standards with information-driven countries like Brazil, US, China, Japan and Hong Kong,” he said.
Earlier, CBM ICT chairperson Bonifacio Belen said Redhuan Daniel Oon, founding convenor and project leader of the ADempiere Open Source Global Community, visited Cebu last November.
Oon convinced the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which organizes the CBM, to set up the first open source international conference and move for the incorporation of an open source syllabus into the information technology curriculum of schools.
Damarillo said open source advocates and venture capitalists continue to eye Cebu as a huge growth market as they continue to push the local software industry to be “technology self-reliant.”
Popular open source software used among local businesses include Java, Open Office, Apache and Sugar CRM.
“We need to support our own developed software technology because not only is it cheaper for companies, it also helps create jobs,” he said.
To signify optimism in the local open source industry, Damarillo established last year Morph Labs Inc., a company that hosts web applications developed by local software vendors.
The “interactive tech bar” is located at the ground floor of the i1 building at the Asiatown IT Park (AITP), Cebu City.
Damarillo earlier announced that Morph is planning to raise P500 million in its initial public offering (IPO) this year to sponsor 20 to 30 start-up venture capitalists.
Before the IPO, Damarillo said Morph will raise P65 million, infused by “pre-IPO” stage lead investor AO Capital, and also from US and Japanese investors.
Damarillo is also the co-founder of Exist Global located at the 12 building in AITP, which develops open source software solutions for various companies in the United States and Europe. (MMM)
