Software services firm to push "open source" in Aboitiz forum

CEBU, Philippines – Open source innovator and software engineering services company, Exist Global announced yesterday that it will strengthen its promotion of open source to the Philippines, by participating in the upcoming Aboitiz Tech Forum.

To be held on October 21-22 in Davao City, the company's vice president for Engineering is set to present on the market impact, success stories and latest market trends on open source during the first day of the forum.

Open source, characterized by collaboration and access to source code in relation to software development, and the business models built around it, continue to reshape the IT ecosystem.

The combination of cost savings, improved quality and support, and rapid time to market has accelerated open source adoption globally.

Open source alternatives are increasingly top-of-mind for more Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and it is reported that there is now a massive move away from proprietary (software) to open-source and home-grown software.

"Open source has been an agent of innovation for the past years. More than 10 years ago, standards were dictated by the bigger technology companies. However, the past decade has reflected a transformation that distinguishes open source as the de facto choice for majority of global organizations. Open source today sets the trends," Lim said.

Open source as a platform for the development of strategic intellectual property has the potential to disrupt and eventually, define standards.

Exist has established the credentials to prove open source's promise of innovation. In 2005, Exist delivered a revolutionary open-source stack Java application platform, Glue-code Joe, which IBM bought in the same year. In 2007, Exist had another breakthrough with the development of the first open source Service Oriented Architecture platform, LogicBlaze Fuse, acquired by Iona in 2007, and subsequently acquired by Progress Software in 2008.

Exist software engineers are also pioneering developers for Jetty, a Java-based HTTP server and application server that is an open source project under the Apache 2.0 License.

In 2008, the company produced the first open-source Filipina vice president Deng Ching in the Apache Software Foundation, strengthening its elite team of Open Source contribution.

"Open source's community model is designed to maximize efficiency and enable collaborative and interactive software engineering," said Deng, who is currently the Chairperson of the Apache Archiva Project Management Committee and senior software engineer at Exist.

"We are very excited to have Exist talk about Open Source at our technology forum," says Hoton Elicano, CTO at Aboitiz Group of Companies. "The conference provides a terrific opportunity for IT decision-makers in the Aboitiz Group of Companies to learn about the technology first-hand from a company that has proven success with it."

Aboitiz has several deployments of open source technologies inside the organization, such as Alfresco for its enterprise-wide knowledge management.

"Open source has helped us cut on investments," said Hoton adding that nott only is open source more mature now, it also has wider support which makes its appeal more impressive than its proprietary counterparts.

Exist helps businesses deliver strategic business results, reduce costs, and increase the value of their IT investments for over 10 years now.

With roots in Open Source and technology expertise in Java and Ruby on Rails, the company has created products ranging from enterprise software to interactive web and mobile applications to technology software solutions for companies, including start-ups and Fortune 500 companies, around the world.

Exist is headquartered in the Philippines with software development operations at the IT centers in Manila and Cebu. It has also offices in Los Angeles, California, and Australia. (FREEMAN)