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It was a rough ride indeed for many IT companies in 2008,
particularly the latter part, all because of the global economic
slowdown. In 2009, the projection by many industry analysts is
nothing more but the same if not totally bleak. So, let’s hear it
from the executives themselves as to what the year that was for them
and their respective companies and what they expect in the year
ahead.
Ronnie Latinazo
Country Manager EMC Philippines
“Despite the global economic crisis, EMC
Philippines considers year 2008 as a better one compared to last
year. This year, EMC maintained its position as the leading
(external) storage provider in the country with a good share of both
high and mid-range market. Over-all, this accounts to approximately
more than 39 percent of the [external] storage market including both
iSCSI and NAS users. EMC Philippines is also doing very well on
software solutions providing information infrastructure security,
protection, management and containment. Reenablement and recruitment
of additional Tier 2 channels in addition to its roster of active
partners contributed highly to making 2008 a better year for EMC and
all its business partners. We expect 2009 to be tougher as a result
of the unpredictable economic slowdown that will highly affect
corporate expenditure, influence corporate IT infrastructure
priorities and business alignment, and trigger key factors for
management decision. Given these, EMC is also expected to be more
competitive in terms of product/service offerings, more open to the
sensitive requirements of the market, and will be seen three steps
ahead of the competition.”
Patrick Reindenbach
General Manager URSolutions
“We underwent a major evolution in 2008 when
we partnered with a large corporate entity, Paxys. As we did, they
saw that there was a need for enterprise-level support for open
source/Linux infrastructure and in turn, infused capital to fund our
growth. Our focus market then changed from SME to Enterprise. Our
operating costs went up dramatically, but so did revenue, as we
handled much larger projects. Now, there are two factors that will
affect us: first, open source goes even more mainstream, as we
expect to penetrate even the most conservative IT departments, where
saving money being its main advantage; second, with the looming
worldwide recession, companies will be slashing IT budgets, and this
will be our challenge: educating our clients on how to cut costs
without sacrificing value and functionality.”
Beng Coronel
President Pointwest Technologies
“Business was generally good for Pointwest.
While we will not hit our 2008 lofty goals, Pointwest ends the year
with close to 30 percent growth in revenue over last year. In the
year ahead, we expect a diversification in our client portfolio and
presence in markets beyond the US.”
Enrique Y. Gonzales
CEO IPVG
“2008 was a phenomenal year for IPVG in
terms of operating and financial performance. We made the successful
transition from a local company with 252 employees, to a global
company with more than 2,500 employees across seven countries. Our
revenue growth was 354 percent year-on-year and we are on track to
reach P3.3B in sales this year. What we do find challenging is the
global macro-environment with a financial crises in the US and
Europe, which is unprecedented. This contagion has sucked up
liquidity from the markets, depressed asset classes (real estate,
equities, etc.) and translated to intense volatility. We expect a
slowdown in global economic growth with many of the first world
economies (USA, UK, Japan) going into recession. This slowdown in
consumption expenditures in the first world will affect exports from
Asia. This compounded by the global financial crises and scarcity of
capital will lead to a very tough 2009. Fortunately, IPVG’s
businesses are resilient to this and our sectors (communications,
games and BPO) forecast healthy organic growth rates of 20 percent
to 30 percent. So while our business fundamentals are improving, we
need to wait for capital markets to recover in order to reap the
full value of our operating performance.”
Reynaldo Huergas
President IP-Converge
“2008 was another profitable year for
IP-Converge. We were able to increase our customer base and
penetrate new markets. Moreover, we were able to extend beyond the
Philippines and bring our data center business to Hong Kong and
Singapore and turn those two PoPs into profitable business units
within this year. As for next year, there will be many challenges
especially since we predict a recovery from the worldwide economic
downturn most likely after 2009. We expect a price war and slow
decision-making as we foresee customers holding out for the products
and services that will bring the highest return on their investment.
However, we look forward to another growth year in 2009 as we
leverage on our new product and service offerings, including our
focus on the IT markets with new partnerships with leaders in the
industry.”
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