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By Ike Suarez, Correspondent
AN Open Source developer house put up by a
“balikbayan” technopreneur shall bankroll this year 20 to 30
startups to be established by Filipinos seeking global markets for
SaaS, or “software as a service” applications.
The company is called Morph Labs, with Winston
Damarillo as its chairman. In 2005, IBM Corp. had purchased the Los
Angeles-based Gluecode, also an Open Source applications vendor firm
he had earlier founded.
Morph Labs currently does its R&D work in
Cebu City through the Morph Application platform it had released
only in February. Running on Open Source, this is a developer tool
for SaaS applications that also maximize the Web 2.0 phenomenon.
Damarillo announced their company’s planned
entry into venture capital funding at a recent press briefing at the
Shangri-La Manila Hotel in Makati City. He said the startups would
receive $100,000 to $200,000 each in funding, with priority going to
developers of e-health, e-learning and e-government programs running
on the Morph Applications platform.
Responding to a question by Tech Times,
Damarillo said bankrolling of the startups would not be acts of
philantrophy. Instead, they would be acts of enlightened
self-interest and investments into the creation of future
opportunities as done today by many vendors in the global IT
community such as Intel Corp.
According to him, bankrolling the startups would
jumpstart the building of a Morph Applications ecosystem in Asia
with the Philippines as base area. This ecosystem would consist of
developers, users and other venture capitalists, as well as other
possible stakeholders.
The intent to build this ecosystem is the reason
behind its launch of the Morph Code Challenge, a series of
events starting this March 29 and ending May 3, according to
Damarillo.
Phase One would be a one-day workshop to be
conducted by experts on how to establish and manage a startup. This
happens on March 29 at the Ateneo de Manila University and would be
free to all who are interested.
Phase Two would be the pitching by
interested workshop attendees of technology venture proposals using
the Morph Applications platform. These proposals would be
“elevator pitches,” three- to four-minute presentations before a
panel of technology business experts.
The second phase would take place on April 5
also at the Ateneo.
Phase Three, a “by invitation only” event
would be on May 3 at the Shangri-La Manila Hotel in Makati City with
many of the invitees having good chances to receive Morph Labs
venture capital funding. Damarillo said that the very best among the
presenters, as chosen by a panel of judges, would definitely be
bankrolled for two years’ operations and
also mentored by their company.
Damarillo told reporters that only proposals for
“disruptive technologies,” revolutionary applications that
radically change the ways individuals and organizations conduct
their activities would be considered for venture capital funding.
SaaS is a technology concept that offers use of software to users in
a manner similar to that by electrical power and utility companies
offering their services to their customers. This concept is done
through the Internet with pricing on a per use basis.
On the other hand, Web 2.0 refers to the online
social networks spawned by the Internet along with the social,
economic, political, and other cultural changes brought about in
their wake. The changes have been brought about by the fact that
these networks enable all participants to simultaneously be sharers,
users, and creators of information.
Some examples of the Web 2.0 phenomenon would be
Friendster, Amazon.com, and Wikipedia.
The IT market research firm, Gartner Corp. has
projected the global SaaS applications market to be worth $12
billion in 2012 as against its estimate of $6.5 billion in 2007.
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