BRINGING HOME THE BACON

In my article, “The Digital Storage Revolution”, which was published last week, I wrote about my personal experience in witnessing the exponential growth of digital storage.

Answering a question from my barber, I told him that the IT company that I used to transact business re electronic products and/ or technologies was First Convergent Communications Worldwide, Inc. (FCC Worldwide). The latter was incorporated in the early ‘90s already predicting the convergence of emerging technologies in Text, Voice/Audio and Video or now known as Multimedia. You can recognize this by the company’s name.

Together with my friend and classmate, Francis Rueca who now lives in San Francisco, California, we introduced the first electronic mailing in the Philippines. We brought the technology owned by SYSCOM and entered into a contract with then RCPI (Radio Communications of the Philippine Islands), one of the first telecommunications firms in the Philippines.  Known for delivering telegrams/telegraphs to consumers in the Philippines, our digital technology substantially reduced the cost of delivery and several times increased the speed of delivery as well.  Francis and I received a certain percentage of RCPI’s revenue from the digitized communications business.

On the digital voice communications (telephone), we also brought the Qualcomm CDMA technology early in the game. Qualcomm was just a new and growing enterprise then, nowhere near what it is today – a multibillion-dollar company. We offered it to PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone) and its cellular company in the 1990’s when Verizon and Sprint were just negotiating to utilize it. Since PLDT was still a virtual monopoly at the time, it rejected the new technology at the expense of the consumers who had to absorb high telephone charges and of potential customers who had to wait several years just to become a subscriber.

I also remember bringing the TDMA technology of International Mobile. I also offered it to PLDT’s cellular company but, as expected, they rejected it. The communications firms of Japan, South Korea and China adapted the TDMA and/ or WDMA technology.

Can you imagine if either of these technologies was utilized in the Philippines earlier?

Almost in the same period, my company also brought the latest technology in the Cable TV industry by way of bringing the new hardware, software, and systems in the delivery of content (TV programs) owned by General Instrument/JERROLD to homes in the Philippines.

The pioneer of the cable industry in the Philippines and owner of the Country Cable, the first cable TV operator in the country Senator Ramon Magsaysay, Jr. recognized the technology’s importance and immediately utilized, distributed, and promoted it. The biggest cable company, SKY Cable and many other provincial cable operators followed suit and the rest is history.

While the eBook Reader technology, which I discussed in last week’s column only merged text, sound/audio/music, and systems/organizer technologies.  The indispensable but limiting element was storage.

In all of the technologies discussed above, the more limited the storage capacity, the more limited your content would be – be they documents, music, audio and applications.

I will be writing more on the digital storage revolution in subsequent columns as I review my notes on the exhibitors and presentations in the Storage Visions Conference.

In this week’s column, I thought that it should be all about “bringing home the bacon” in answer to my barber’s queries.

Home, of course, is the Philippines. Bacon, in this case, is the digital technologies.

Also in the ‘90s I represented a company that manufactured and supplied the U.S. military with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).  The UAVs were used during the first Persian Gulf War. I offered a whole system to the Philippine Military.

The manufacturer even agreed to transfer the technology to the Philippines. Its president and owner offered to work with me in getting the necessary approvals from the U.S. Government (Commerce and State).  It stood a good chance because of the U.S.-RP Military Bases Agreement and Defense Treaty at the time.

I remember bringing the Philippine military attaché to the company premises for a demonstration. Representatives of the Israeli military were also there checking out the latest technology.

My Philippine partner and I even lobbied the Philippine Congress to allocate a certain amount for the project. An amount equivalent to my quote was actually budgeted. Under the self-reliance program of the military, we even agreed to eventually assemble a Philippine-made UAV working with the Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT).

What happened? Being familiar with the Anti-Corrupt Practices Act of the United States and the Anti-Graft Laws of the Philippines, I decided and correspondingly advised my client, not to proceed.

The UAV actually did have non-military uses. In fact,  accompanied by Gerry Zorilla, an Advertising and PR Executive and a cousin of my wife, arranged and joined me in a meeting with then GMA 7 President Meynardo Jimenez to use the technology for broadcasting. It would have been dubbed, “Eye in the Sky”. The TV station was not ready.

It could have also been used in surveillance and in package deliveries. In fact, we were in serious discussions through Tony Zorilla with the foundation of then former Senator Saturnina Rasul precisely for use of the system for monitoring and surveillance of the boundaries and shorelines of selected provinces in Mindanao. The death of Tony Zorilla and the loss of Rasul’s Senatorial bid prevented us from pursuing it further.

“Bring Home The Bacon”. Filipinos who leave the country always think of doing so. Those who live in foreign lands, they bring it home as “Balikbayans” (Returning visitors) or send it in “Balikbayan Boxes”. They are always thinking of bringing or giving something back to their country.

I am no exception. In my case, I like bringing home the latest technology. In my return, I always make sure that I bring back Pinoy Jokes. J