Jetty News and Case Studies
Former Intel Capital VC exec seeds tech firms in RP
WINSTON Damarillo, a former venture capitalist working at Intel Capital, is set to open more companies in the Philippines that would be involved in open source software development.
Damarillo is currently running a company called Exist engaged in open source software development. Currently its chairman since its inception in 2001, the company has reported a profitable operation, growing at over 100 percent annually. It currently has two operations in the Philippines: one in Ortigas in Pasig City and another in Cebu City. The company runs an office in Los Angeles.
Last year, Damarillo became a "celebrity" in the US open source community after he sold Gluecode, a company he co-founded, to IBM for less than 100 million dollars. Gluecode develops open source application servers. He eventually used the money to set up an incubator firm for open source projects called Simula Labs. "Simula" is a Filipino word for beginning, and is used in this context to refer to startups.
A believer in Filipino software engineering talent, Damarillo revealed that Filipino software engineers in the Philippines account for much of the open source development work done in his company.
"We have been building our software in the Philippines," Damarillo, who was in Manila for a visit, told INQ7.net.
Hoping to reverse the ongoing brain drain in the software industry by sourcing the open source software development jobs in the Philippines, Damarillo said that he is also bringing in open source software experts to train Filipino software engineers in the country.
"I’m trying to reverse the brain drain. I get open source experts from the US to train Filipino developers to become world-class," the Filipino entrepreneur said, noting that global sourcing or finding the best global talents from different parts of the world, including the Philippines, is the way to go for open source software development.
Having been educated in the Philippines, Damarillo has decided to come back to the country since he felt "incomplete" in spite of the good life he had in the US.
A Bachelor of Science graduate with a degree in Industrial and Mechanical Engineering from De La Salle University in Manila, Damarillo is intent on helping the country’s software development industry through various ventures he has set up here and abroad.
He now employs close to 100 Filipinos in Exist, and intends to hire around 100 people in 2006. With international customers, Exist is on its way to becoming a public company after making healthy profits, according to Damarillo.
He plans to take Exist public either in Singapore or the US soon.
Damarillo has also helped seed various companies in the US, including LogicBlaze, a company involved in enterprise integration technology, and Mergere, another firm that creates a platform for open source developers. He is also in the process of setting up a company called LiveTribe, which will create open source-based systems management for IT systems.
"All these three companies have Filipino software engineers doing design and software engineering here," he added.
He has another company in the offing, dubbed Jetty, which will be involved in AJAX development. AJAX, which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (eXtensible Markup Language), refers to web development techniques used to create interactive sites that immediately process user requests.
Damarillo has recently begun training software engineers and even fresh computer science graduates in the country, holding intensive trainings like his Code Camp which runs for six weeks. From time to time, his company invites even local rivals for free training.
Software development remains the highest paying job in the high-tech industry, Damarillo said.
"The last thing I want to see are Filipino computer science graduates answering phones," he added, urging government to give more support to the local software industry.
He is set to also open another venture, this time in open source 3D animation. He said that he will be bringing in an open source technology that is much cheaper than the proprietary software used to create three-dimensional animation in Hollywood.
"We’re setting up the company now," he said.
Prior to roles in Gluecode and Exist, Winston was among the successful capital professionals at Intel Corp., helping lead the majority of his investments to either a successful initial public offering or a profitable corporate acquisition.
His career at Intel involved taking leadership roles in managing strategic software relationships, channel development, product engineering and new business development.
He started his career in technology in 1992 with Apex Technologies, an e-medical claims processing solutions firm.
Posted at 01:17AM Apr 27, 2006 by gregw in General | Comments[0]
