Philippine firm targets app development outsourcing

Software development firm Exist Global aims to arm business process outsourcing (BPO) companies in the Philippines with “software development outsourcing” services -- seeing the niche as the trend of the future.

In an interview this week with Computerworld Philippines, Charles Ames, vice president for business development for Exist Global Inc., said that although the Philippines is seen as a leader of the BPO space relating to call centers and other types of key business processes, it has yet to be recognized as a leader in software development outsourcing. “We plan to work with Philippine BPOs who want to extend their portfolios to offer software development services,” he said.

Ames said Exist Global intends to align with BPO providers to provide a sort of a private label at the software development service, allowing BPOs to extend their client relationships and keep the business in the Philippines.

“This is to mitigate the risk of BPOs going let’s say for example to India to get software and then later on decide to consolidate because he can get all of it from India. We don't want that to happen. We want to extend those services here and keep the business in the Philippines,” he said.

Ames revealed Exist Global has actually enabled one BPO provider to offer software development but declined to name the company. He said they are currently reaching out to top BPO providers here to help them offer software development in a special way.

“The initial reactions have been positive,” Ames said. “They (BPOs) are looking at it as a strategic risk.”

Winston Damarillo, founder and chairman of Exist Global and a Filipino, reported that their company's global expansion plans include the addition of new executive officers, a significant increase in the company's Philippines-based workforce, and intensified sales and marketing efforts both in the US and Europe.

Only recently, the firm added a slate of industry veterans to lead its expansion efforts, including former Sun executive Steve Nathan as its president and CEO, Ames as vice president of business development, and Nicholas Hughes as corporate controller.

Drawing from its success and experience in open source software development, Exist Global has developed a hosted operating infrastructure called Distributed Engineering Network (DEN), which enables the company to deliver the benefits of open-source style development to distributed engineering projects, building proprietary and Web-delivered applications in addition to open source software.