The Loop: Vol.3 Issue 1

HEADLINES
Malayan Bank Upgrades Core Banking System with IP-Converge
IP-Converge Data Center, Inc. (IP-Converge) has signed
a contract with Malayan Bank Savings & Mortgage Bank,
Inc. (Malayan Bank) for the implementation of a complete
banking solution to enhance the latter’s operations. The
project is in conjunction with Malayan Bank’s branch
expansion and product diversification program to generate
new business opportunities, and expand its customer base.
IP-Converge will deploy a complete banking solution product
from Nucleus Software Inc.
Malayan Bank’s Senior Vice President Philip S. Madrigal
sees the implementation of the banking solution an
opportune time as the Bank prepares for rapid expansion
to double its branch network in the next three years.
“IP-Converge offered the most appropriate service offerings In photo are <left to right>: Daniel Viray, VP Financial Systems IP-Converge, Rene Huergas, President IPthat augurs well with our plans of moving forward,” says Converge, Ricardo Berza, Chief Financial Officer Malayan Bank, Philip Madrigal, EVP Operations, Malayan Bank
Madrigal. “The on-line core banking solution will give us
“We are delighted to be part in the expansion plans of Malayan Bank,”
technological edge in offering world-class products and services which
says Viray. “Our knowledge and experience in the implementation of
will lead to growth and stability while preserving our primary thrust of
the core banking solutions, and our partnership with Nucleus ensures
providing our clients with YSL – yield, security, and liquidity.”
a quality and timely delivery of the full system to Malayan, thus
allowing them to achieve their goals within its desired timeframe at
Built on the Oracle platform, the Nucleus software portfolio is an
the least possible costs.”
integrated suite of applications designed to support the typical business
offerings of Banks and Financial Institutions. The Financial Suite
IP-Converge is the local system integrator of Nucleus Software Inc. and
provides a solution that address the asset, as well as, the liability side
other world leading financial systems providers allowing it to offer a
of business, core financial accounting and customer service.
complete suite of Financial Solutions from core banking, loan modules,
credit card products, including risk and treasury management.
The core banking solution consists of CAS (customer acquisition
system), LMS (loan management system), GL (general ledger) & Formed in 1996, Malayan Bank is owned jointly by the principal
Deposits and Collections modules. The complete banking solution will
shareholders of GMA Network Inc.; Majalco Group; LINQ Information
integrate the Front-Middle-Back office functions and speed up turn- Entertainment Quadrant Corp, a subsidiary of Philippine Daily Inquirer,
around time of operations resulting in higher banking efficiency and
and Liberty Flourmills
enhanced customer relationships.
Daniel Viray, IP-Converge Vice President for Financial Systems, is
confident that the flexible and scalable core banking solution will
address the operational and security needs of the respective operating
groups across the bank and provide more value to their services.
For comments and/or suggestions,
email [email protected]
Rene Huergas
Managing Editor
Niño Valmonte
Editor in Chief / Writer
Voltaire Wycoco
Associate Editor /
Writer
Sheila Rada
Associate Editor/
WRITER
Erica Cortez
CONTRIBUTOR
Brian Casorla
PAGE DESIGNER
IP-CONVERGE CORE VALUES
Vision
Shaping the IP landscape for the communities we serve
Mission
Our corporate mission is directed to the specific communities
that we serve.
• Enable better business practices for our customers
• Promote mutual growth among partners
• Ensure career fulfilment for employees
• Ensure maximum value on shareholders investments
• Corporate Social Responsibility: Provide opportunities
to develop ICT expertise for qualified marginalized youth.
Quality Policy
Our commitment to our Quality Management System as
a Managed Data Services & Business Solutions provider
is to ensure Customer Satisfaction and develop long term
partnerships through our distinct “boutique” approach.
With a keen understanding of our Customers, precision
alignment of resources, and effective design and provisioning of
solutions, we empower our Customers in the IP landscape.
THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF IP-CONVERGE
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3
ALLIANCES
Eastern uses Salesforce.com to better serve clients
This meticulous planning methodology will ensure better synchronization
for technical audits, credit checking, pre-sales marketing and service
fulfillment. This aims to improve hit rates as well as win more quality
clients.
“Salesforce.com is a comprehensive and customizable selling tool,”
said Edwin Domingo, marketing and business development head of
Eastern Communications. “This application will empower us to monitor
and manage our sales processes more effectively.
In photo are <left to right> Edwin Domingo, Marketing and Business Development Head,
Eastern Communications; Mario J. Locsin, President, Eastern Communications; Reynaldo
Huergas, President IP-Converge; Mimi Dizon Director for Business Development – CRM, IPConverge
Eastern Communications, the country’s pioneer telecommunications
company, is enhancing its systems to better serve its clients. It
has recently subscribed to Salesforce.com On-Demand Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) applications from IP-Converge
Data Center, Inc., Select Consulting Partner of Salesforce.com in the
Philippines. The sales force automation project will be an integral part
of the company’s efforts to further improve its customer relations and
automate its Sales-to-Delivery process.
Salesforce.com will be used primarily by Eastern’s sales and customer
service departments. In addition, the on-demand application will also
help support its credit and collection facilities, product management,
as well as its finance and audit departments. The project is in line with
Eastern’s vision of being the best wherever its services are present
through better understanding of its clients’ needs, automation of lead
generation, improvement of responsiveness to client requests, and by
gaining insight on what initiatives really drive customer satisfaction
and operational effectiveness.
He added, “Salesforce.com is the logical choice to systematize and
automate Eastern’s sales process. Last year, we worked towards
assessing and planning for the improvement of our internal procedures.
In 2009, our approach is to systematically execute those plans. Our
vision for the sales force automation project for Eastern is that each
Account Manager will be able to manage a list of clients that they
will call on the entire year. Each client’s requirements have been
profiled through research and their prospects have been detailed
and calendared for the entire year. Salesforce.com provides the right
systems fit to our process change.”
This endeavor will allow Eastern to integrate silos of information and
efficiently deliver the four key objectives of its Customer Service
group:
•Provide customer assistance on products and services,
promotions, applications, service delivery and billing
•Alert the appropriate departments of product, technical, application,
servicing and billing inquiries or issues/faults
•Follow up assigned Field Sales activities
•Conduct selling efforts on exclusively inside-sales clients
(continued on page 17)
IP-Converge and ComClark form Strategic Partnership
IP Converge Data Center Inc. (IP-Converge), the IT and
telecommunications division of IPVG Corp., and Pampanga-based
telecommunications provider ComClark Network and Technology
Corporation (ComClark) have forged a partnership to enable both
companies to leverage on each other’s network infrastructure. Through
this alliance, IP-Converge can offer internet connectivity services to
a wider customer base using ComClark’s widest fiber-optic coverage
and superb backhaul facilities. ComClark’s strategically located nodes
– in major parts of Central Luzon and Metro Manila and very soon
in the Visayas region – make them an ideal partner for expanding
market reach. In turn, ComClark can now leverage on IP-Converge’s
robust Asia-Pacific network to enhance its solutions offerings to its
target market.
“We see a vast potential in our partnership with IP-Converge wherein
we both maximize our technological investments that we can parlay
into good cash flow and make our businesses stronger not only for
this period but also in the future,” says Dennis Anthony Uy, President
and CEO of ComClark.
The partnership complements IP-Converge’s plans to expand its reach
locally and make the Internet more accessible to a larger number of
businesses across the country, and for ComClark to further strengthen
its position in the ISP arena, in terms of offering cost-effective and
reliable network solutions to its customers in light of the current
economic downturn.
“ComClark shares the same technical expertise, reliable and redundant
infrastructure, and carrier-neutrality which assures our clients of utmost
service quality and customer support,” says Reynaldo Huergas,
President of IP-Converge. “We look forward to exploring more avenues
with ComClark to further strengthen each other’s service offerings to
customers.”
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| THE LOOP
In photo are <left to right>: Vanessa Beldia, Senior Account Manager IP-Converge, Percival
de los Reyes, Senior Vice-President Sales, IP-Converge, Dennis Uy, President and Chief
Executive Officer, ComClark, Nitz Rimando, Head – Business Solutions Division, Comclark
ComClark is the first and only Internet service provider in Pampanga
operating and maintaining a full fiber optic cable network in Clark
Special Economic Zone (CSEZ). The company also introduced the
first ever Fiber to the Building (FTTB) technology in the industry.
ComClark will begin rolling out new services in 2009 when it launches
its internet data centers in Clark, Pampanga and Libis in Pasig City.
IP-Converge operates internet data center facilities in Makati City,
Singapore and Hong Kong. Through strategic alliances with major
internet exchanges, the company boasts of a resilient, high-speed
network with multiple routes out of the Philippines and to major
network hubs in Asia, allowing them to provide continuous service in
the event of a disaster.
IP-Converge becomes the Philippines’
Official Reseller Partner of UltraDNS and Webmetrics
IP-Converge Data Center Inc., the information technology and
telecommunications division of publicly-listed IPVG Corp. announces
that it has signed a memorandum-of-agreement (MOA) to become an
official reseller partner of Neustar subsidiaries UltraDNS Corp. and
Webmetrics.
Through this partnership, IP-Converge
adds Neustar’s UltraDNS suite and
Webmetrics to its current menu of
services which will help customers
enhance their business through
improved internet performance and
security.
“We strive to offer the best services
and set performance standards for
internet operations in the region
by ensuring high availability and
reliability of our customers’ webbased applications,” says Herns Hermida, IP-Converge AVP for
Product Development. “This partnership allows our customers to
leverage on Neustar’s UltraDNS worldwide network which reduces
the distance DNS requests and responses have to travel across the
Internet resulting in a better user experience for customers accessing
their website.”
“Each time a URL is entered, the Domain Name server will search
the web for its corresponding IP address,” adds Hermida. “Without an
efficient service that will direct and manage the request, it will go from
one domain name server to another until the correct IP address is
returned. With the millions of IP addresses in the internet, UltraDNS
bypasses this cumbersome process.”
Aside from managed DNS services,
UltraDNS infrastructure has inherent
DDoS mitigation capabilities which
ensure that customers will be able to
parry DDoS attacks at the DNS level.
Neustar’s UltraDNS utilizes advanced
routing technology where DNS requests
are directed and responded to immediately
by the geographically closest node. This
results in minimal traffic loss. Moreover,
UltraDNS has Geo-traffic shaping and
disaster recovery mechanisms that
can balance incoming traffic load and
mangae traffic across cutomers’ different web infrastructures across
different locations and backup sites ensuring quick response to
the requests even in the event of a disaster. This can replace or
complement hardware based load balancing solutions. In a complex
worldwide network, Neustar’s UltraDNS makes customers’ websites
faster to find and more accessible to the market.
(continued on page 17)
IP-Converge and Blue Media Communications Form Strategic Alliance
New Partnership to Boost Wireless Infrastructure
Blue Media Communications and IP Converge Data Center, Inc., the
information technology & telecommunications division of publicly listed
IPVG Corp. (PSE:IP), announced today a strategic partnership focused
on the fast-growing wireless communications and security market.
The partnership covers two key agreements – Resellership and
Licensing. As Channel partners, IPC and Blue Media will be able
to promote and resell each company’s bandwidth and internet
connectivity services. IPC will leverage on Blue Media’s Broadband
Wireless technology to address varying customer needs. Blue Media,
on the other hand, shall capitalize on IP-Converge’s high bandwidth
and redundant IP network to enhance internet solutions offerings to
its customers.
Under the licensing agreement, IP-Converge will be able to offer Blue
Media’s wireless broadband and security systems to its customers.
Its advanced security technology uses the internet, among others, as
one of its transport medium to transmit security footage and images
to a Command and Control Center in real-time while providing 100%
video recording of all cameras. Available either vehicle-mounted or
stand-alone, this technology offers greater mobility and wider area
coverage.
“Telecommunications customers have very specific requirements so it
is imperative for us to provide more options that suit their budget and
operational needs,” says Percival de los Reyes, SVP-Managed Data
Services, IP-Converge. “Our partnership with Blue Media will help us
implement our go-to-market strategy by diversifying our product line
and promote wireless technology.”
Blue Media is engaged in the provisioning of services specifically
designed for government entities, large enterprises, and services
networking communities using new and reliable wireless technology.
In photo are <left to right>: Anthony Dy, SVP Operations, Blue Media Communications; Gary
Gonzales, SVP Marketing, Blue Media Communications; Rico Abarentos, President and CEO,
Blue Media Communications; Percival De los Reyes, SVP-Managed Data Services, IP-Converge;
Fina Canapi, Account Manager IP-Converge; Helena Alonso, Channels Manager, IP-Converge
According to Rico Abarentos, President and CEO of Blue Media
Communications, “Market demand for high quality, wireless broadband
and security service is growing and the combined expertise of IPConverge and Blue Media raises the bar on excellence and service
for the industry. This partnership represents a great opportunity to
benefit our communities and growth for both businesses.”
IP-Converge is a regional data center whose core competency is
managed data services particularly server co-location, connectivity
services, network security and Disaster recovery with data centers
in Makati, Singapore and Hong Kong and points-of-presence in the
United States and United Kingdom. IPC is the only wholly-owned
Filipino company with direct peering with the Hong Kong Internet
Exchange (HKIX) and multiple routes to Singapore.
THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF IP-CONVERGE
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sfdc news
Salesforce.com launches year-round
CRM Mini Seminars with IP-Converge
IP-Converge and Salesforce.com, the world’s leader in on-demand
business services and customer relationship management (CRM)
solutions launches a series of CRM Mini Seminars and Powerstart
Workshops in Manila that will be held in select locations and will go
on from March until the end of 2009. The seminars and workshops
will be conducted by certified salesforce.com resource speakers from
Singapore and IP-Converge.
Mimi Dizon, IP-Converge’s Director for Business Development CRM
believes that business owners who want better control and visibility
into their business, sales, marketing or business development
managers who would like to connect between demand generation
and deal closure, or customer relationship managers looking for ways
to improve customer experience should attend these seminars and
workshops.
Q1
CRM Mini Seminar
Powerstart
Workshop
March
18 Mar, Wed
-
April
May
Q2
June
July
“This collaboration gives business owners and sales managers the
unique opportunity to learn how an affordable enterprise solution can
drive success in terms of sales and operational efficiency without the
high cost of hardware, space, utilities, software and a technical team,”
says Dizon.
August
Q3
IP-Converge is the go-to-market partner in the Philippines and one of
the authorized training centers of salesforce.com in the Asia Pacific
Region.
The Salesforce.com Mini Seminar and Powerstart Workshops are
free of charge. However, seats are limited and interested parties are
encouraged to reserve their seats early. For inquiries, please contact
Sheryn Chan on +6563025707 or email her at apac_marketing@
salesforce.com.
Month
September
October
Q4
November
December
2 Apr, Thu
16 Apr, Thu
7 May, Thu
21 May, Thu
11 Jun, Thu
25 Jun, Thu
9 Jul, Thu
23 Jul, Thu
6 Aug, Thu
20 Aug, Thu
10 Sep, Thu
24 Sep, Thu
8 Oct, Thu
22 Oct, Thu
5 Nov, Thu
19 Nov, Thu
10 Dec, Thu
17 Apr, Fri
22 May, Fri
26 Jun, Fri
24 Jul, Fri
21 Aug, Fri
25 Sep, Fri
23 Oct, Fri
20 Nov, Fri
11 Dec, Fri
Economic crunch to accelerate growth prospects
of SaaS model
By MARY ANN L. REYES
Printed on Monday, February 9, 2009 Philippine Star
The harsh economic climate will actually accelerate the growth
prospects for the software as a service (SaaS) model as vendors
position offerings as right-sized, zero-capital expenditure alternatives
to on-premise applications.
According to research firm International Data Corp. (IDC), buyers will
opt for easy-to-use subscription services that meter current use, not
future capacity, and vendors and partners will look for new products
and recurring revenue streams.
The percentage of US firms which plan to spend at least 25 percent
of their information technology budgets on SaaS applications will
increase from 23 percent in 2008 to nearly 45 percent in 2010.
IDC noted that this market’s growth prospects will accelerate the shift
to SaaS for the whole value chain as the promise of a recurring
revenue stream, and the opportunity to tap operating expenses and
project-related dollars, will benefit the whole SaaS ecosystem.
As such, IDC has increased its SaaS growth projection from 36
percent to 40.5 percent for 2009.
The same study revealed that while demand for SaaS is strongest in
North America, new contracts from customers in Europe, Middle East,
Africa and the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) also look particularly
positive.
“With a broad slowdown across IT sectors, businesses are increasingly
bearish about their short-term ability to invest, whether for stability,
growth or cost savings down the road,” according to Robert Mahowald,
IDC director for on-demand and SaaS research.
IDC expects that by the end of 2009, nearly 35 percent of worldwide
revenue will be earned outside of the US.
He added that SaaS services have benefited from the perception that
they are tactical fixes which allow for relatively easy expansion during
hard times, and several key vendors finished the year very strong,
reporting stable financials and inroads into new customer sets.
On the downside, IDC interviews with SaaS providers highlighted
several issues, such as cashflow shortfalls related to slow-paying
current clients, liquidity challenges stemming from tight credit at
lenders, and on the horizon, limited resources to scale up with
expanded infrastructure to support new customers and new service
offerings.
The IDC study also showed that by the end of 2009, 76 percent of
US organizations will use at least one SaaS-delivered application for
business use.
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After a breakthrough 2008, will cloud computing
go mainstream this year?
By MELVIN G. CALIMAG
Printed on Monday, January 5, 2009 Manila Bulletin
Unlike netbooks and touch-screen phones that captured the imagination
of consumers in 2008, a quiet —” almost invisible”— technology trend
called cloud computing also made its mark in the IT world last year.
Cloud computing, defined as something that is delivered over the
Internet (in network diagrams, the Internet is represented by a cloud),
was finally adopted on a massive scale, at least among enterprises,
with the likes of Salesforce.com setting the agenda.
afford the expensive cost of acquiring a conventional CRM (customer
relationship management) or even an ERP (enterprise resource
planning) solution.
The cloud computing model, wherein services or
offered online instead of the traditional software
software is installed in a computer, has been floated
numerous forms and names, though they may had
respects.
This could also be a reason why Salesforce.com, the most prominent
bearer of cloud computing model, is entering its growth phase while
the rest of the industry is feeling fidgety on the gloomy economy.
applications are
setup in which
or tried before in
differed in some
During the IT boom in the early 2000s, cloud computing was known
as ASP or application service provider. Although most of the IT
vendors vigorously pushed the model, it somehow didn’t flourish
perhaps because it was ahead of its time.
Later on, with companies such as Google posting some success
in providing over-the-Internet software like Google Docs, terms like
“on-demand” and “software-as-a-service” or (SaaS) came up in the
technology vocabulary.
In its current form, cloud computing is gaining some headway in the
US, but is surprisingly less popular in developing countries like the
Philippines.
But with the financial crisis threatening to shrink the IT spending
of companies, cloud computing might just get the break it badly
needs, particularly to price-conscious enterprises which can no longer
In fact, research firm IDC has forecast cloud computing as one of
the few bright spots expected to shine in 2009 amidst the specter of
global economic slowdown.
At its annual Dreamforce convention held last November in San
Francisco, the “enterprise cloud computing company” proclaimed that
its flagship CRM offering is now serving 47,700 companies and about
1.1 million subscribers. Among these customers are blue chip firms
Dell Computers and Amazon.com.
It also audaciously unveiled during the same event its mobile strategy
which it said it would push to executives to allow them to access their
applications on their mobile devices. Already, there had been about
50,000 downloads made from the Application Exchange, Salesforce.
com’s apps platform, on the iPhone alone.
With the US now leading the pack, it’s perfectly possible that the
rest of the world would catch up. In the Philippines, the obligation
of realizing that task seems to fall on the shoulders of technology
conglomerate IPVG, the local partner of Salesforce.com. The reality,
however, is that anyone, including home-bred tech firms, has the equal
chance to cash in on this opportunity.
THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF IP-CONVERGE
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IPVG news
IPVG 2007 Annual Report bags
Anvil Award of Excellence
Set up to be one of the fastest growing companies in the Philippines,
IPVG released the IPVG 2007 Annual Report and shared how the
company executed against its plan and strengthened its position
in the communications, online gaming, and BPO business sectors.
With the theme Making A Difference, IPVG’s 2007 Annual Report
shared how IPVG revolutionized industries, empowered customers,
and shaped lives, through a business model that helped position the
Philippines, as an outsourced service provider for technology and
human resource, in the global IT map.
A section was also devoted to IPVG’s outlook for the succeeding
years, explaining how the company’s success will serve as motivation
for conquering even more mountains in the future.
Photo shows (L-R): Anvil Committee Chairperson Maria Lourdes L.
Espina, Anvil Awards Jury Member Jose Ma. Fernandez, IPVG Chief
Executive Officer Enrique Y. Gonzalez, IPVG Deputy Chairman Roger
Stone, IPVG Board Member Srini Polishetty, and PRSP President Jones
T. Campos.
Publicly listed technology company IPVG Corp. (PSE: IP) received
its first ever Anvil Award during the recently concluded 44th Anvil
Awards “Gabi ng Parangal” held at EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. The
company received the Anvil Award of Excellence for the IPVG 2007
Annual Report – Making A Difference, under the Public Relation Tools
Category (Publications – Annual Reports).
The Anvil Awards is presented annually by the Public Relations Society
of the Philippines, the country’s premiere organization of public relations
professionals. The program recognizes and honors excellence in
public relations in the Philippines. It is awarded by a distinguished
multi-sectoral jury to outstanding public relations programs
and tools. The award categories
are Anvil Award of Recognition,
Anvil Award of Merit, Anvil Award
of Excellence, the Bronze Anvil
Award, and the Grand Anvil
Award.
IPVG Chief Receives
IT Executive of the Year Award
After steering IPVG to unprecedented heights, IPVG Chief Executive
Officer Enrique Y. Gonzalez was named IT Executive of the Year
during the first CyberPress IT Choice Awards held last December
2008.
The Cyberpress IT Choice Awards was held alongside the Christmas
party of Cyberpress, the country’s organization of IT reporters. Under
the bold leadership of Gonzalez, IPVG has risen to the top as a major
provider of online games, call center and data center services, mobile
content development and payment service offerings. Gonzalez was
chosen over fellow A-list nominees that included Marife Zamora of
Convergys, Manuel Wong of Acer, and G2VC’s Damarillo.
The awards aimed to honor the persons, entities, and technologies
that made their mark in the local market for 2008. Other than the
IT Executive of the Year Award, other categories included IT StartUp of the Year, IT Company of the Year, Gadget of the Year, and
Newsmaker of the Year.
TOP IT EXECUTIVE. IPVG chief executive officer Enrique Gonzales receives the award for IT
Executive of the Year during the first CyberPress IT Choice Awards. Flanking him are former
CyberPress president Melvin Calimag, IPVG Corporate Communications Manager Sheila Rada,
and current CyberPress president Jing Garcia.
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IPVG eyes profit growth in 2009
despite slowing global demand
BY PAOLO LUIS G. MONTECILLO
Printed on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 BusinessWorld –
Corporate News 8/S1
LISTED INFORMATION technology (IT) company IPVG Corp. expects
to grow by as much as a third this year despite a slowing global
economy.
Mr. Huergas said the company would try to attract new clients and
retain existing ones by offering discounts and more value-added
services.
IPVG Corp. Chief Executive Officer Enrique Y. Gonzales told
BusinessWorld via e-mail the holding firm’s businesses, which range
from business process out-sourcing (BPO) to online gaming, would be
sheltered from the downturn.
Eagle Equities analyst Joseph Y. Roxas said double-digit profit growth
for IPVG was not far-fetched since the main sectors it operates in —
outsourcing, gaming and data centers — remain bright spots.
“Fortunately, IPVG’s businesses are resilient, and our sectors forecast
healthy organic growth rates of 20% to 30%,” he said.
But the profit growth will be slower than last year, when IPVG made
the transition from a local company with 252 employees into a global
group with more than 2,500 workers across seven countries, Mr.
Gonzales said.
“I think [the IT] segment of the economy is still ok,” he said in an
interview.
IPVG earlier said it would take steps to cut costs by a third, including
a smaller budget for advertising and marketing, travel and other
expenses not related to the company’s core business.
It said lower spending on acquisitions would translate into lower
expenses and a better bottom line.
“[Last year] was a phenomenal year for IPVG in terms of operating
and financial performance,” he said.
IPVG posted a net profit of P130.9 million in the third quarter, almost
three-quarters higher than a year earlier.
Revenues also went up more than three times to almost P1 billion
already surpassing the 2007 level of P714.56 million.
IPC trademark registered
IPVG net profits reached P169.54 million in 2007, from a net loss of
more than P100 million in 2006.
Officials have said the company would buy fewer assets this year
and would only consider investing in ventures with low risk and high
return.
Last year, IPVG bought five companies in the online content and BPO
sectors for about $30 million.
“We expect a slowdown in global economic growth, with many of the
first world economies (US, UK and Japan) going into recession,” Mr.
Gonzales said.
Slowing spending in developed markets will affect exports from Asia,
he added.
Earlier, he said the online gaming industry was expected to grow by a
third this year, as video gamers remain indifferent to a financial crisis
wreaking havoc on the world economy.
Meanwhile, IPVG unit IP-Converge Data Center, Inc. expects to
increase revenues by a tenth this year.
IP-Converge offers IT and telecommunication services to businesses
and other service providers. These include Internet data center
services, dedicated Internet connectivity, network security, voice over
Internet protocol.
“Overall, we can still expect the market to grow, though slightly curtailed
due to the impact of the economic recession in the US,” IP-Converge
President Reynaldo Huergas said in a separate e-mail.
Companies, he added, would be cutting down on acquisitions,
particularly software.
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of the Philippines recently
approved the registration of the IP-Converge logo and branding
device. The device, which is a “sphere encased by a winding metallic
strip” as defined by the IPO, is a representation of IP-Converge’s core
business and corporate values: strength, stability, reliability, flexibility,
and dynamism – all in support of IP technology. And what better way
to emphasize IPC’s commitment to these than by underscoring the
device with its own name.
THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF IP-CONVERGE
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9
feature
Prolexic Technologies Patent Granted
for Anti-DDoS Service
Prolexic Technologies, the global leader in managed Distributed Denial
of Service (DDoS) protection, announced that it has been granted a
patent for its unique DDoS detection and mitigation methods. This
is the only DDoS-related patent granted to a security-as-a-service
organization.
Prolexic’s patented “in the cloud” network protection services are
based around active DDoS mitigation on a globally distributed platform.
The Prolexic network is designed to absorb DDoS attacks near their
source, long before they reach their target. The company’s network
security experts update its arsenal through rigorous and creative
research and development, providing the only protection service
capable of responding to truly next-generation attacks.
Paul Sop, Chief Technology Officer, Prolexic states: “Determined cyber
criminals aren’t resting. They’re continually evolving sophisticated and
powerful techniques and can launch truly devastating attacks that
can cripple online businesses. These attacks can only be stopped by
security and networking experts employing even more sophisticated
and powerful capabilities.
“Prolexic’s key to mitigating network attacks is our systems adaptability
to simultaneously mitigate a huge variety of attacks including huge 100 Gigabit or larger – and subtle, application-targeted attacks. We
consider developing our intellectual property to be a strategic priority,
and the ongoing development of new technologies is critical in a world
of ever evolving cyber-threats.”
DDoS represents one of the greatest threats to all organizations with
a significant online component. In recent times it has been used as
a terrorist tool with state web sites targeted, as well as the anticompetitive and extortion-led attacks against businesses. Prolexic’s
unique service solutions allow its customers to be fully protected from
cyber attacks without affecting normal day-to-day Internet traffic flow.
The company has further patent applications pending.
In the Philippines, local companies are supported by Prolexic
through its sister company, IP-Converge Data Center Inc., the IT &
Telecommunications subsidiary of IPVG Corp. For more information,
visit www.ip-converge.com
DDoS Mitigation:
Leave it to the Experts
The Loop: What
is the ideal set
up for companies
wishing to have
their own DDoS
mitigation solution?
To gain greater insight into DDoS attacks and mitigation, The Loop
sat down with Egie Gutierrez AVP for Technical Operations and
Customer Support who has had first hand experience battling DDoS
and has worked closely with Prolexic Technologies over the past
two years.
The Loop: IP-Converge has had encounters with Distributed
Denial of Service attacks since 2005, how has DDoS changed
since then?
Gutierrez: The size, frequency, depth, breadth and types of DDoS attacks are increasing more than ever. They are tougher to trace since
attackers can target different network layers at a time and uses
“spoofing” making it hard to determine the source of the attack and
which packets are bogus or legitimate. DDoS attacks these days are
not as easily mitigated.
Gutierrez: Best of
Breed Commercial-of-the-Shelf
products, gigabits
of bandwidth, a
constantly trained
and highly experienced team of
professionals dedicated to just monitoring DDoS.
The Loop: What is the big deal about DDoS?
Gutierrez: DDoS is real and is a growing and increasing threat on
an organization’s systems availability (2nd only to viruses). Networks
can be rendered inaccessible for hours, even days. Imagine the financial losses if customers cannot access a website for services for
a period of time. Aside from the money, there is loss of trust and
irreparable damage to reputation.
The in-house IT staff should focus on monitoring and maintaining
mission-critical applications. The investment is not recommended
unless a company has the spare capital to set up the infrastructure
for DDoS mitigation.
(continued on page 17)
Total Bandwidth(MB) of DDoS Attack:
Total Number of DDoS Attacks:
60000
250
50000
200
40000
150
228
100
50
0
20000
47
2007
50812.558
30000
25935.18
10000
2008
0
2007
2008
THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF IP-CONVERGE
|
13
feature
Top ten predictions for Asia Pacific’s IT
Printed on Thursday, January 8, 2009 XMG Global
http://xmg-global.com
ALTHOUGH TROUBLED ECONOMIC TIMES are in store for the global
economy in 2009, global ICT research and advisory firm XMG firmly
believes that the enterprise use of IT and offshoring is still the catalyst
in driving business efficiency and cost savings for the region.
Furthermore, IT industry economics will force alignment with the
principle of complexity reduction and economizing IT budgets. As
identified by the survey completed at the end of 2008, good guidance
and wise investment tops the list of decision makers for 2009.
1. Top Concerns of Asia Pacific CIOs: ‘Measuring efficiency
effectiveness’ and ‘Minimizing risks of ICT investments’ Top the List
for 2009. In the order of priority, the top 10 concerns of ICT executives
heading into 2009 are:
•Measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of ICT investments.
•Minimizing the risks of ICT investments. (tied for 1st)
•Financial planning for ICT investments.
•Establishing a strategic approach to information security that
integrate principles, behaviours and adaptive solutions that map
business requirements and addresses the expected increase in
cyber crime due to the global financial crisis.
•Improving ICT decision making.
•Strengthening IT risk management through technology portfolio
management to reveal vendor’s financial health and long term
viability during expected economic slow down.
•Developing a robust mobile security strategy and policies for an
increasingly mobile workforce.
•Instituting corporate governance effectively.
•Investing in workforce recruitment and retention programs.
•Strengthening and ensuring service levels are market competitive
to improve the overall return on value from external service
providers.
2. Asia Pacific will outspend other regions
The Asia Pacific market is forecasted to grow an estimated 6.3%, the
lowest growth estimate seen since the Asian financial crisis of the late
1990s. However, despite the dismal forecast, the Asia Pacific region
will outperform well above the global average of 2.4% in 2009. Japan
continues to have the bulk share of the Asia Pacific market with a
projected growth forecast of 1.4%. A distant second and third of the
Asia Pacific share for IT spend continue to be China and India which
XMG expects will perform well above the total Asia Pacific growth
projection in 2009.
3. Offshoring to be the rare bright spot for ICT in 2009
Very few segments of the ICT industry will hold up well in 2009.
However, XMG expects offshoring (offshore outsourcing and captive) to
continue to be in play in 2009 with an expected 24.2% growth forecast
through 2010 dominated by the major offshoring countries in the
Asia Pacific region namely India , China , the Philippines , Malaysia
and Vietnam . Driving the offshoring footprint will continue to be
captive operations (technical support, back-end processing, collections
and customer care) and third party service providers (application
management, enterprise application configuration, testing, business
process outsourcing and customer care).
4. Workforce
evolution
revolution
through
workplace
performance
Driven by the phenomenal growth of the offshore ICT segments in
Asia Pacific and the high levels of attrition across captives, vendors
and non-IT organizations— getting the most from the existing
14
| THE LOOP
workforce and improving talent management practices— are among
the top priorities in 2009. Well-tuned workforce management practices
enable employers to attract, deploy, develop and retain the best talent
and thereby increase the productivity and satisfaction of employees.
Industry leaders will strengthen the integration of performance and
compensation solutions to support performance management and
broadly deploy role-based workforce information management tools
such as metrics dashboards.
5. Co-location is ready for primetime
Financial uncertainty brings back to the management spotlight core
competency assessment, reducing complexity and being able to achieve
‘more with less’. As growth of private data center costs continue to
escalate making up an average of 50 to 75% of the IT budget,
XMG forecasts IT co-location to grow by 17% as companies look to
optimize technology’s value contribution, increase manageability and
utilization, and minimize capital expenditures. Topping the technology
list syndicated in the growth of this ICT segment are the infrastructure
layers of the technology stack including cloud computing, network
optimization, server and storage.
6. Achieving economic resilience through mergers, acquisitions
and divestitures
Unlike the period of the dot-com bust, the current economic downturn
reveal several IT companies with the war chest to fund and make
acquisitions to dominate select and targeted market segments. After
all, the IT industry continues to be the only industry in the planet that
is content when the competition is annihilated. In light of the economic
downturn in the capital markets, the Asia Pacific region will see a
healthy movement of MAD (mergers, acquisitions and divestiture) and
spin-off strategies in search of economies of scale, global presence
and economic resilience. Greatest numbers of MAD activities will be
centered on high tech, data center, financial and BPO acquisitions.
(continued on page 17)
Customer-Centric Approach:
IPC promotes true Carrier and Vendor Neutrality
Since its incorporation in 2005, IP-Converge has embarked on a
mission to be a total solutions provider by adopting a boutique
approach to help customers focus on their core competency and
push the organization’s efficiency level. It has become the preferred
outsourced IDC partner that utilizes the leading innovative technologies,
expertise and infrastructure.
IP-Converge offers services and features complementary to existing
data center and internet connectivity services that make outsourcing
internet data center services more cost-effective, efficient and reliable
for customers.
Carrier-Neutrality
Through strategic partnerships with leading telecommunications and
fiber loop providers, IP-Converge can offer clients more connectivity
options to expand their business and achieve redundancy. A truly
carrier neutral company, it puts all backhaul providers on a level
playing field allowing customers to choose the best available price
and service for connecting their business to IPC’s global internet
connectivity services. IPC provides numerous alternatives including
traditional dedicated links like fiber-optic and fiber to the building
(FTTB) connections, or the wireless local loop. These give clients the
flexibility to use the best telco or fiber loop provider.
Vendor-Neutrality
Much like carrier-neutrality, IP-Converge has extensive channels
agreements with world-leading IT hardware and software vendors,
thus giving co-location customers a wide array of options for their
equipment or hardware needs. Through these alliances, customers
can avail of the leading technology and services that these companies
offer through just one managed services provider, thus giving them
easy and convenient access to the best equipment available for
optimizing their operations.
IPC has partnerships with industry leaders in networking, power
management, data storage, software services, database management,
and network security. To help customers further, IPC can notify qualified
vendors of job orders to submit proposals. This way, customers are
well-informed with the options available to them to help reach a
decision in selecting the best solution that would drive their business
moving forward.
Professional Services
IP-Converge offers a wide range of technical professional services to
existing IPC Data Center and IPC ACCESS customers. It has a roster
of highly skilled and experienced technical professionals with skill sets
that range from data communications, LAN/WAN and TCP/IP design
and management, data center design and management, as well as IT
systems management - including specific skill sets around database
systems, operating systems and server / networking equipment.
Through this service, IPC provides customers particularly whose base
is far from the facility a complementary service wherein the task of
running their data center and server operations such as data backup
and restore, OS patching and upgrading, database administration and
even LAN/WAN administration is delegated to IPC.
IP-Converge’s customer-centric and tailor-made approach integrates
the provisioning, monitoring and maintenance of co-location and
bandwidth services, as well as acquisition and installation of essential
equipment, reporting, and quality compliance. The data center’s
strong alliances with leading vendors and their professional services
allows it to efficiently administer customers’ day-to-day data center
responsibilities. . Customers can leverage on IPC’s service ideals
to generate hard and soft savings, improve cash flow either through
reduced capital expenditures and/or lower operational expenses. More
importantly, customers can focus on their core business while IPConverge can worry about providing better network performance and
more stable and reliable IP services.
OUR VENDOR PARTNERS
OUR TELECOMMUNICATIONS PARTNERS
THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF IP-CONVERGE
|
15
Eastern uses Salesforce.com to better serve clients
Top ten predictions for Asia Pacific’s IT
(continued from page 4)
(continued from page 14)
Eastern selected IP Converge Data Center for its IP-based solutions
and services in the region. IP Converge Data Center operates telcograde internet data center and network facilities in the Philippines,
Hong Kong, and Singapore. Mimi Dizon, Director of Business
Development and CRM for IP-Converge, said, “One of the key
features of Salesforce.com is that it is on-demand and web-based,
making it cost efficient since users like Eastern won’t need to buy
infrastructure and servers. It’s savings that they can pass on to
their consumers.”
7. Business continuity plan gaps will continue to put asia pacific
operations at risk
IP-Converge becomes the Philippines’
Official Reseller Partner of UltraDNS and
Webmetrics
(continued from page 5)
NeuStar’s UltraDNS is a global network that manages authoritative
directories and acts as a worldwide registry gateway. There are
fourteen strategically distributed and redundant network nodes across
five continents that have up-to-date directory information that makes
DNS resolution faster. UltraDNS technology and services allow
enterprises to seamlessly migrate their entire DNS infrastructures
without any additional hardware or software deployments.
IP-Converge is also authorized to resell Neustar’s Webmetrics
services under this partnership. Customers can utilize Webmetrics’
Globalwatch to test, measure and monitor the performance of
their web-based applications, web services and streaming media.
Webmetrics ensures performance integrity, 24/7 uptime and positive
end-user experience.
Contact an IP-Converge Sales representative at 632-8873171 or
www.ip-converge.com for more information about NeuStar’s UltraDNS
suite of managed services in the Philippines.
DDos Mitigation:
Leave it to the experts
(continued from page 13)
Preparing for and handling an actual DDoS attack should be left
to a team experienced in dealing with DDoS and invests resources
investigating the trends and emerging methods of DDoS attacks. IPConverge is the only Data Center in the Philippines that has DDoS
mitigation services and the only company, through its partnership with
Prolexic, to successfully mitigate more than 250 DDoS attacks on its
networks in 2007 and 2008.
The Loop: What Techniques does IP-Converge employ to
Mitigate DDoS attacks?
Gutierrez: Merely using COTS hardware and merely depending on
the ISP to mitigate them is not enough. As DDoS attacks grow in
sophistication, the more human involvement is needed to mitigate
them - hardware and bandwidth alone does not solve the problem in
the long term. When we deal with DDoS, we combine best of breed
hardware, Gigs of bandwidth, and a focused team - mitigating the
attack as they happen.
With the recent geopolitical events (Mumbai terror attack November
2008, Bangalore bombing July 2008) and the geophysical prone
characteristics of several Asia Pacific countries and urban centers
(the Philippines, China, Indonesia), XMG forecasts an increase in the
number of business continuity belt tightening activities since many
DRP and BCPs are largely developed in isolation and unrealistically
addresses and factor such risks. Even with the heightened interest
and focus on business continuity and disaster recovery in the
region after the Tsunami devastation, many organizations fail to
address complete planning, implementation and execution options.
Furthermore, several offshoring service providers and captive
operations will require more granular levels of continuity services to
provide adequate safety for its large employee base.
8. Threat and vulnerability takes center stage as the ‘above
ground economy’ deflates and the ‘underground economy’
inflates
With the expected increase in economic crimes due to several
IT professionals that will be losing their jobs from the financial
and insurance industries, cyber crime and the number of malicious
software plaguing the internet will increase at unprecedented levels.
Threat and vulnerability management integration will accelerate
through 2009 with considerable focus on technology problems of
intrusion control and improved detection, correlation and prevention
capabilities. Demand for management security services such as
security monitoring will increase.
9. Downturn in semiconductor market will see job losses across
the region
XMG economic analysts forecast the semiconductor industry to
continue its decline and bottom out 1H2009 with an expected 1.9%
growth forecast. Recovery of the semiconductor industry is expected
to be sluggish throughout 2H2009 with a rebound not expected until
2010. With over investment and excessive capacity, job losses are
expected namely in countries such as Taiwan, China, the Philippines,
Korea and Vietnam.
10. Current state of the economy is an ‘opening’ for open
source
Open source software will continue to expand in several Asia Pacific
enterprises and continue to find its way into corporate developer
use and become the underlying foundation of commercial software.
With the global economy in a recession, the use of open source
software will become a standard part of several enterprises in Asia
Pacific (particularly those utilizing Java in its enterprise architecture,
SAAS). Open source versions of standard application server
software will continue to gain credibility and market share as viable
alternatives to traditional vendor offerings (i.e. Microsoft) in enterprise
implementations. XMG expects this trend to continue well into 2010
and organizations must establish specific policies to control how
open source is utilized.
Moreover, when there are no attacks, GRE tunnels should be
continuously monitored so they remain connected to Prolexic
mitigation centers (when a tunnel is disconnected, it “flaps”). It is also
important for the customer to inform Prolexic or IPC of any changes
to their environment so Prolexic can make adjustments as well. This
includes: new applications or changes to applications, changes in IP
addresses or ports, network changes, new ISPs, etc.
DDoS protection and mitigation is a 24/7 occupation.
THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF IP-CONVERGE
|
17
proFILES
Percival de los Reyes
Senior Vice President, Managed Data Services
Percival de los Reyes, or Butch, is the Senior Vice President for
Managed Data Services at IP-Converge. A grizzled veteran in the
Information technology and Telecommunications industry, Sir Butch
has shown he is as dynamic and as progressive as the various
communications technologies he has handled and sold up to this day.
Apart from his expertise, he was also voted “Best-Dressed Man” of
IPVG during the conglomerate’s annual Christmas Party.
Butch is a favourite among IPC clients, partners and employees
due to his wit and endearing personality. In fact, during his tenure
in leading Telecommunications companies such as PhilCom, Globe
Telecom and now IP-Converge, he never fails to be a “Ninong” for a
wedding or the baptism of a subordinate’s first born.
One can’t get enough of PCRs stories (especially when he gets on a
roll). Let him share with you a part of his life.
To me, the Information Technology and Telecommunications
industry in the Philippines --- will flourish despite the
gloomy state of the world economy and I even see it helping
businesses recover because of the inherent benefits it brings
such as wider market reach, accessibility for customers and
more efficient operations.
My favourite IP-Converge experience --- I’m just really
happy to witness and be part of the astounding growth of
this company.
To make my day --- I need to see my team meeting their
quotas and closing a big sale. I want the company to recognize
the efforts of my sales team. Their success means the success
of the company overall.
Apart from being SVP Sales, I am a(n) --- a loving father, a
proud grand father, true friend, confidant, mentor, golf buddy,
willing companion, advisor, and entrepreneur.
Outside of work, I like to spend a lot of time --- at home.
I have grand kids who I look forward to seeing. There’s one
more in the states who unfortunately I don’t see as often as
I would like. I don’t want the growth of my family to just pass
me by.
My job is fun because --- of all the people I work with. I
encounter different attitudes, different semantics, and different
perspectives from a group of people with diverse backgrounds
– “sosyal”, ultra-conservative, aggressive, self-centric, easygoing, serious, and not-so-serious. It’s fun just trying to work
through all of that.
I would like to see --- my current and former staff succeeding
in their careers and their lives.
It’s never too late to --- catch up with an old friend, take up
a new hobby or get a good massage.
Gilbert de Leon
Senior Technical Consultant, CRM
Gilbert joined IP-Converge in April 2008 as a Software Engineer for
Salesforce.com. IP-Converge is the Philippine Select Partner as well
as the local systems integrator and services provider of Salesforce.
com. He has recently been promoted to Senior Technical Consultant
for CRM. His role is focused on delivering and managing technical
projects or initiatives of the CRM Group. This includes technical project
assessment and estimates, development and testing of systems to
complement Salesforce.com for customers. The position also calls for
him to develop the technical team to support and complement the
Sales and Functional Teams of the CRM Group.
According to Mimi Dizon, Director for Business Development CRM,
this promotion is in line with the CRM group’s strategy to focus on
services specifically on Salesforce development projects for local and
regional customers.
“Our growth strategy for this year is to be a preferred services provider
for salesforce.com for users in the South East Asia and AustraliaOceana regions. Gilbert has proven he’s ready to play a major role
in our plans after having successfully handled Technical Projects and
18
| THE LOOP
Integration of Salesforce.com
for companies like Del Monte
Philippines and Sun Life Hong
Kong,” says Dizon.
As part of his work, he spends
a significant amount of time
at a client’s office customizing
and integrating salesforce.com
to their current operations set
up. Often times, his work hours
are highly irregular. “Our work
hours depend on our client. If
it’s a BPO client, we have to
conform to their schedule, then
on another day we go to a
client with a different schedule
and so on,” says De leon. “The
guys at the office greet me with a – “Oh I thought you resigned” –
when I walk into the office because they hardly see me there.”