菲律宾的硅谷?

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关于在菲律宾打造我们自己的硅谷版本,似乎存在一种“三年之痒”。Migs 在两年多前开启了这一讨论,如今已由Pinoy Web StartUp 的 Marie重新提起。

这让我想起几年前我与运营Pinoy Web 2.0的伙伴们进行的讨论,以及随后关于广告驱动的本地化 Web 2.0 网站是否真的可行的争论。

在菲律宾建立“硅谷”的构想,或许比我想象的更早便已萌芽。我甚至认为早在2000年代初,这一愿景就已初具规模——安永咨询(Andersen Consulting)转型为埃森哲(Accenture)并迅速扩张(其大部分顾问均驻于菲律宾),佳能菲律宾拥有大量硬核的菲律宾籍硬件程序员(至今依然如此),趋势科技(Trend Micro)汇聚了一批极客风格的菲律宾籍反病毒工程师,而英特尔菲律宾则在当地开展闪存技术研究。

相反,菲律宾政府专注于一个相关但更具盈利性、招聘需求更高的行业——呼叫中心。事实确实如此,除了班加罗尔之外,马尼拉市可被称为菲律宾的BPO硅谷。

但我们为何真的失去了对更极客化产业的关注?英特尔将其工厂迁往中国并出售其闪存厂,埃森哲的员工不断被外国客户挖角,顶尖的菲律宾SAP和.NET开发者也成群结队地飞往新加坡。是的,我们实际上已在我们的关于Google选择马来西亚数据中心的讨论中耗尽了大部分现实层面的理由,并完全在他们的名单中将菲律宾置之不理。

另一方面,硅谷思维的另一端是独立的创业灵感。这些是拥有伟大创意、需要风险投资支持的人。如果我们能在菲律宾人中重燃哪怕微乎其微的热情,那便是成功的关键。

  • 找到拥有创新思维和必要技能的人才,并将他们与风险投资机构或天使投资人进行匹配。
  • 改变人们对现有商业模式的固有思维——广告模式已趋于饱和,本地市场也过于狭小,难以容纳更多参与者(更不用说仅Friendster和Multiply的库存就足以耗尽所有CPM预算)。
  • 避免常见陷阱——直接照搬他人的商业模式。有时这样做是可以接受的,尤其是当你能够争取到多年独家协议时。在短信业务兴起初期,超过一半的内容提供商(CPs)便遭遇了这种情况。如今,大多数已关门停业(在独家合同到期后),或者电信运营商自身变得过于贪婪,直接收购了这些参与者。
  • 从校园开始起步。年轻群体更具雄心,拥有新鲜技能,且对加入企业界的热情不高。创业的想法对他们而言更具吸引力。
  • 避免“跟风”心态。并非硅谷推出的所有热门事物在我们本地环境中都会同样火爆。让我们发挥自身优势与创造力,同时牢记文化因素。创意不必是“灵光一现”,很多时候,它们只是满足未被发现的市场需求的简单想法。

我得赶紧回去,重启我那"……发生了什么"系列。

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main topic of the article?
The article discusses the idea of creating a Silicon Valley in the Philippines and why the country focused on call centers instead.
Which companies were mentioned as having strong tech talent in the Philippines?
Accenture, Canon Philippines, Trend Micro, and Intel Philippines were mentioned for their Filipino engineers and programmers.
What industry did the Philippine Government prioritize over tech innovation?
The Philippine Government focused on the call center industry, making Makati City a BPO Silicon Valley.
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Written by
Abe Olandres

Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

View all posts by Abe Olandres →

67 Comments

1W
1wzw9axov · 14 years ago

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VI
Vic · 15 years ago

Yes, we should have our own silicon valley in the Philippines to boost the IT and technology industry here. But of course it would be better if we can come up with our own Pinoy term for Silicon Valley, like … any idea?

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RO
rob jaw · 15 years ago

silicon valley – not a good company to desl with. they get awards for being good to customers, thats bull s***t. i bought a emachines and its still in the shop for manufactures defect. it was only after my wife went there to silicon valley sm that they decided to follow up.

lousy company and lousy acer

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CU
cute programmer · 15 years ago

I hope that it will change the filipino perception of having a job. Making a business is always at risk, at least they should try.

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SO
Someone who cares · 16 years ago

Puro kayo problema.problema. Kaia nga matatalino kayo para magisip at gumawa ng paraan. Hindi lang puro salita. Puro Negative pa mga sinasabi niyo. E kung ganyan pala e. talagang wala na tayong pag-asa niyan.

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RE
reply to rbruce · 16 years ago

You know, there’s a lifetime of difference between an idea and its implementation.

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RB
rbruce · 16 years ago

magbigay muna kayo ng magandang idea, then pakita nyo theories ng ideas nyo, then magbigay kayo ng prototype. pag meron na kayo nun, sigurado maraming VCs or even big companies ang lalapit sa inyo. example of a good idea: a rechargeable battery charger using ambient sound as power source; or an IP core for fast data encryption and decryption using AES. ganyan ang mga ideas na dapat ibigay.

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TI
Tim Hawkins · 17 years ago

The costs of starting up are now very much lower that many would think, Using Amazon EC2 services you can bring up a complete multi server hosting system, with CDN and data backup for less than $500 a month.

Whilst this is still high relatively, you can bring up a single server system for about $70, collaboration tools such as google apps for domains, google docs and project hosting services like unfuddle, base-camp etc all mean that for virtually nothing you can put the collaborative infrastructure for a project together for almost nothing, having engineers and product folks spread around the globe is now pretty common, skype and email takes the sting out of the cost of keeping co-ordinated.

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JO
jonharules · 17 years ago

I’d be thrilled to see a Silicon Valley or at least a collaboration of talented tech geeks in the Philippines. Amidst all the “buts” and limitations, it could still be possible through proper collaboration

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RI
rick · 17 years ago

efforts here to start is much greater than other rich countries, why?
1. poverty-you need to feed your family first before tackling your passion and thats requires lots of effort compared to other countries, inventing something requires real time and financing. skills and talents is not an issue, financing? we have lots of it in DOST(dami nila funding kaso ala naman nag aaply) so we have lots of it! but we need to feed our family first now! you needs lots and lots of effort to support your family and at the same time inventing/developing something, it drains lots of energy until you gave up!. if we could just focused our time and effort to our passion not worrying with our family, we can do more! so i need to work muna for my family…..

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RI
rick · 17 years ago

efforts here to start is much greater than other rich countries, why?
1. poverty-you need to feed your family first before tackling your passion and thats requires lots of effort compared to other countries, inventing something requires real time and financing. skills and talents is not an issue, financing? we have lots of it in DOST(dami nila funding kaso ala naman nag aaply) so we have lots of it! but we need to feed our family first now! you needs lots and lots of effort to support your family and at the same time inventing/developing something, it drains lots of energy until you gave up!. if we could just focused our time and effort to our passion not worrying with our family, we can do more! so i need to work muna for my family

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JU
Justin Lancomb · 17 years ago

More than just BPOs to fill up a local version of silicon valley, we need legit IT incubators that can generate home grown tech services and products.

Peace!

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AL
al · 17 years ago

I think Baguio is a very good place, specifically on the PEZA and loakan area. The place is nice and still not that crowded compared to central baguio. It only takes around half an hour to commute. Apartments there are also cheaper. The internet backbone is also good as what I experienced when I was working for texas instrument. I had to connect through a VPN to dallas texas most of the time but I seldom had any problem. The loakan airport is also within the vicinity. Some prominent call centers like sitel have an office there. And the climate is also friendly to big servers.

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RA
raymund · 17 years ago

I hope that our own version of the silicon valley will uplift our Philippine economy….

However another problem came….the recession.

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KY
Kyle · 18 years ago

I have 4 very talented friends who are programmers. All of them were given very good offers in places like Canada, Europe and Singapore.

I can’t blame them though. Earning a sure 4000+ USD for them is much better then literally betting on the “house and farm” on a Start-up venture that might fail and melt away their time and money investment with it.

Also Silicon Valley have ADVENTUROUS venture capitalist who are willing to bet millions/billions on startups. I don’t think the Rich in the Philippines would be so daring as they would rather put their money in more traditional businesses.

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ER
erwin castro · 18 years ago

Filipino It lack the necessary skills and funding to launch those startup. there also don’t have enough courage to launch a startup. There are garage innovators across this country some of them working lone wolf, some are collaborating, working like wolf pack. But they can’t do it because this country is still in young when it comes to launching an startup, people are too afraid to take a risk. No one take a moonshot project of their own. The real factor here is the Funding, tools and the passions to take a moonshot. Philippines don’t have VC who scout the country for future Facebook or youtube. Maybe someday who knows?

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VA
Vadim Berman · 18 years ago

A foreigner’s view:

I think the Philippines have most of the necessary ingridients, but these ones get me:

* horrible infrastructure. Yes, I know that there are places with their own generators, that will survive a nuclear attack; but having routine brownouts and electrical spikes that can bust a toaster is, as you understand, very discouraging.
* developers are frequently treated as “computer guys” who do everything from administration of the local network to system programming. For serious development one needs specialists who spend 100% of their time programming or administrating, not jacks of all trades.
* Some of the software infrastructure, which doesn’t really require a lot of investment, simply doesn’t work. How difficult is it to make sure that emails on a website work? If after 3 attempts all of the emails to a huge telco’s return with “account doesn’t exist” errors, what kind of impression does it make about the company? And why everybody insists on using Yahoo and GMail as their work emails?

However, on the positive side:
* people are extremely accommodating, and willing to learn
* the senior execs are more approachable than in other countries
* the skill level is reasonably high
* people are willing to tinker with things, when it’s not in the books. They don’t have it in India nor in China, and this is IMHO what has primarily built Israeli hi-tech.

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BE
Berlin · 18 years ago

It’s still cheaper to outsource to Russian or Vietnamese programmers. I have prototype being built for $2,500. I tried shopping around for freelancers in Pinas but the average cost is $1,300 and that only for the template. LOL

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JE
Jerome · 18 years ago

@Miguel: Morph Code is entirely separate operation (although related in ecosystem) to Morph Labs. Let’s just say it’s Winston’s playground.

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GI
Gian Paolo · 18 years ago

Have you heard of the UP-Ayala Science and Technology Park? I hope this will start the change of focus we are waiting for. :)

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IA
Ian · 19 years ago

We need success stories. Are there any from the Brain Gain Network, for example? Whatever happened to the UP-Ateneo ‘Silicon Alley’ (aka Ayala-funded incubator)?

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MI
Miguel · 19 years ago

The company is still pretty new, so I don’t know if they have customers or partners.

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CH
ChrisMo · 19 years ago

@Miguel: Thanks for sharing that… Did it work for someone, I hope theres a project currently benefiting from them.

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RO
Roger D · 19 years ago

niche always present itself. if you tell something to your friends and replied back something like these,

1. what’s that?
2. puwede ba yun?
3. no, it can’t be done

there, you could have a niche product or service. No one knows it pa eh.

1995 I setup an ISP, my friends told me, what’s a modem? what’s Internet?

1997 Setup a Network Security company, I sell firewall, businesses says what’s a firewall?

1999 I co-founded a pioneering company that develops mobile content. Some of our contemporary laughs at us, from security to ringtones and wallpaper daw.

Also, there could be parallel thinking but what matters is the execution.

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MI
Miguel · 19 years ago

If it’s about E-Learning, E-Health or E-Government, these guys want to fund you: Morph Code.

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CH
ChrisMo · 19 years ago

Another common case of brain drain in the PH, I hope some venture capitalists start sharing their resources as I many Filipinos have killer start-up ideas and good plans with no funding…

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MI
Miguel · 19 years ago

Not something that big. A CDN would be for something like a video sharing site.

A simple step: Pinoy probloggers using their earnings to hire developers (or do the code themselves!) for apps.

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BE
berlin · 19 years ago

no one has experience when it comes to scaling and who will pay for the servers once the site gain traction? who has $10K to burn every week? you also need a cdn and a dc.

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AB
Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief · 19 years ago

@jhay – I was thinking of self-funding. Developers could work on their pet projects on their own time while doing an 8-5.

@hip2b2 – ahh, the exit strategy.

@brianb – I know, it’s kinda late but it’s still possible. Spill-overs maybe?

@rogerd – if and when that niche presents itself, someone else might have thought of it already.

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RO
Roger D · 19 years ago

go for the niche.

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BR
BrianB · 19 years ago

Abe, we’re a decade too late. The word is passe, and so is the idea most likely. Not good inspiration, in other words.

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HI
hip2b2 · 19 years ago

Let us not forget an important ingredient in the Venture Capital ecosystem:

http://hip2b2.yutivo.org/2007/06/01/need-for-venture-capital/

This is what makes Silicon Valley tick. The thought of a company buying you is also an incentive to push move VC funding. Who buys PH companies? Moolah!

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JH
jhay · 19 years ago

Funding for R&D in Science, Technology and IT from the gov’t would give this initiative a huge boost. If not, and since our gov’t is more inclined to spend the taxpayers’ money on BPOs, tax incentives could also do the trick.

Scholarships and study grants would easily hook in the young ones. Our tech-savvy youth are not purely gamers or friendster-rats, some among them are the brightest and most creative minds, who taught themselves CSS and html in the quest of pimping their Friendster profiles but without crashing everyone else’ browsers. If that’s not potential and creativity, I don’t know what is.

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