In an interview, Sun Microsystems president and managing director Cynthia R. Mamon said that apart from meeting its numbers this early, the local Sun office is also set to increase in manpower to meet surging business demands.

"Our growth continues to be driven by the tremendous competition among telcos, since two of the biggest mobile operators in the country are our customers," said Mamon, referring to Smart Money of Smart Communications and G-Cash of Globe Telecom which were developed and continue to use Sun technology.

Commenting on the political environment, Mamon said the company is not totally concerned on a possible change in national leadership even if most of its projects are with the government.

"As long as the agency or the bureau we’re dealing with does not change its policy, we’re not very much bothered on what may transpire at the national level," the official said.

She admitted though that some government modernization projects are being slowed down by the political imbroglio. "But delays are normal occurrences anyway, so there’s no reason to get discouraged."

What is discouraging her, Mamon said, is the government’s lack of unified focus on promoting the local IT industry and the use of open source system in the bureaucracy.

"We need to strengthen the CICT (Commission on Information and Communications Technology) so it can both have responsibility and clout and its functions not just advisory in nature," said Mamon.

She said it would be better if the CICT is upgraded into a department as proposed in the DICT bill still pending in Congress. "Creating a DICT will not just address our local technology concerns, it will position the Philippines to become globally competitive because we will now a have focused agency for the local IT sector."

Mamon disagreed with the view of DICT opponents that the trade department should oversee the tech industry.

"It can’t be that way because the DTI is involved in all areas of trade and commerce, including agriculture."

She said that as a former president of the IT Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP), there is a lack of a single-minded approach in promoting the local IT industry.

"We have all the necessary tools -- an advanced telecommunications industry, a highly skilled work force, good infrastructure -- to have a worldclass IT industry. But it seems that is not happening," Mamon said.

As for the use of open source, she said the government is not taking advantage of the benefits offered by this technology. "Some government agencies are using it, but there’s still a need to push it more. Also, I think educational institutions should use open source because not all have the money to buy expensive software."

In the area of work force training, Mamon said Sun intends to expand its JEDI (Java Education Development Initiative) program to create more Java professionals in the country. Incidentally, a Sun-organized international conference, Java in Manila, is slated this April 25 at the Makati Shangri-la Hotel.

The executive also disclosed that contributions of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to overall revenue jumped by 20 percent on year-to-date basis, underscoring the sector’s emergence as a potential revenue source for an enterprise-oriented company like Sun.

But in terms of actual value, the telco sector remains as the top revenue generator for the company, although the government sector is still the most strategically important, Mamon said. "The banking industry is also a growth driver, as well as the semiconductor industry."

According to an independent research firm, Sun currently leads the local and regional market in the Unix space in terms of market share.