That’sIT •Edison D. Ong
Apart from ink and print speed, printer makers seemed to have added a new battleground in their already intense rivalry — the area of paper technology.
Recent initiatives by top printer companies HP and Epson point to this trend, with both firms unveiling their own research activities aimed at producing a "superior" paper technology for their respective printer products.
At a regional press briefing held recently, Japan-based Epson said it is currently developing a flexible "e-paper" that can be used for printing repeatedly.
For HP’s part, it said an "intelligent paper" that can "talk" or detect instructions from its new printers is now available. HP also said its photo papers can last up to 115 years based on independent lab test.
Whether these claims are true or not, we can only hope that this brooding "paper war" will eventually benefit the ordinary consumer. — Melvin G. Calimag
20K down to 15K
In the past, to hit Gold record, a recording artist or musician has got to have 20,000 of his song sold. Now it takes only 15,000.
If we go by the premise that Filipinos are a musicloving nation, with more that 80 million Filipinos, 20,000 should not be hard to attain.
The reality is "di na maabot (it could not be reached)," said Marivic Benedicto, executive director Optical Media Board.
One reason is people are not buying original music records. Copies made illegally. Music piracy.
She disclosed that their research has shown that the most lucrative business is in movie piracy (46 percent), followed by music (43 percent), games (1 percent) and the remaining includes software.
Last September, agents of the OMB, assisted by Philippine National Police Special Action Unit, raided stores selling pirated software in San Juan, Pasig, Manila and Mandaluyong. They confiscated around 20,000 copies of pirated installer software, interactive games software, software applications and MP3, estimated at R2 million in value — Edison D. Ong
Where are the MRT stored value tickets?
Ordinary commuters like me consider the EDSA MRT as the only sane reason to travel in that traffic-marred highway. But lately, riding — or attempting to ride — the MRT has become both a burden and curse.
The reason: kilometric queues on just about every station because of the lack of stored value tickets.
This has been the case for almost two weeks now, and even as I write this, finding a stored value ticket is like looking for a lost companion in a Divisoria crowd.
The official statement issued by the Metro Rail Transit 3 management said the scarcity is due to its decision to pull out of the circulation the tickets bearing the face of former President Joseph Estrada, allegedly upon the orders of Malacañang.
There were about 400,000 of those Erap tickets that were taken out of use. This move has aggravated the already critical shortage of tickets being used by some 420,000 riding customers. The MRT-3 has thus been compelled to cut some old tickets to ease the insufficiency.
But even casting politics aside, what is ironic in this whole thing is that this shortfall has happened several times in the past and continues to happen — again and again. What is it with the MRT-3 management that it can’t figure out what is wrong with its system? Its IT department, for sure, must have heard something about supply chain management or inventory management system.
OK, the train operator is hardpressed for money. We know the revenues alone from passenger fare are not enough to cover for operational expenses. That’s why ads have been plastered in stations and train coaches.
But isn’t the convenience of the customers, in this case the riding public, the most important priority of them all?
In the end, it’s the MRT who will suffer if concerns as simple as ticket supplies are not addressed. The MRT risks being transformed from one that has been hailed as a model of private sector-government efficiency to something riddled with utter incompetence. — Melvin G. Calimag
Low turnover, high hiring rates in ITES sectors
A recent survey suggested that turnover is lower and hiring rates are higher in the IT-enabled services (ITES) industry than generally presumed by the industry and observers.
Conducted by Outsource2Philippines.com (O2P) in cooperation with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), 37 companies in six ITES sectors contact centers, software development, business process outsourcing, medical transcription, animation, engineering & design completed the survey.
O2P CEO Frank Holz said that although "the conventional thinking has been that attrition rates are generally in the range of 40-50% in the ITES industry and hiring rates are generally less than 3%, the survey indicated some very different results." — Edison D. Ong
