A casualty of this hostilities is Virgilio "Ver" Peña, who abruptly resigned the other week from his job as chair of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).

Well, Ver is not exactly a casualty since he’s a part -- or leader -- of a faction of IT leaders identified with Roberto Romulo, the influential former foreign affairs secretary. Their rival faction, of course, is the group led by former trade secretary and now senator, Manuel "Mar" Roxas II.

Ver has been steadfast in his refusal to reveal the real reason for quitting other than to say that he gave himself just five years to stay in government. I honestly don’t buy this although I’ve known Ver to be an an honest man.

For one, I don’t think he’d pack his bags hastily because he wants to return to the private sector, as he claims. Although he practically spent his career as an IT guy, I’m sure he’s done with the corporate rat race, unless of course he has decided to put up his own IT firm.

When we bumped into each other at Basco, Batanes for the inauguration of Smart Click mobile Internet shop, Ver (still as enthusiastic as ever, although he’s effectively resigned) uttered the same excuse although he said he’s expecting President Arroyo to name his replacement this week.

Ver said he recommended a guy from the private sector to assume the post, but didn’t reveal his name. What about his current commissioners at the CICT? "They’re also in the running," he retorted. I wonder if the person is also an ex-IBMer, just like himself and Romulo.

But going back to the reason for his resignation, there’s this talk that he quit because of his failure to put the annual e-Services Exhibit, a pet project of Roxas, under the direction of the CICT from the DTI’s CITEM.

The stubborn opposition by Mar’s ilk to have the expo transferred under Ver’s office may have led him to decide to finally call it quits. — Melvin G. Calimag

Shell, Jajo and Ovum

Unknown to many, Shell has quietly set up its own business process outsourcing (BPO) subsidiary - Shell Shared Services BV - located at the RCBC tower in Makati City. Taking advantage of the large pool of talents and accountants in the Philippines, the new BPO unit of Shell has grown to more than 500 seats.

It is getting clients in North America and Europe where companies are outsourcing their financial services such as accounting work in the Philippines.

..... Jajo Quintos has been the general manager of IBM Phils. for five years now. Is it time for him to go at the end of the year or in 2006? Well, time will tell but he’s got a lot of work to do particularly in targeting the SMEs. Jajo has been hopping from one region to the other throughout the country and even tried the RoRo.

..... A recent report by research company, Ovum has included the Philippines as one of the countries not suitable for convergence. I disagreed with the findings of Ovum because our local telcos have invested billions of pesos in transforming their networks toward convergence. In fact, Smart is currently testing its 3G network for its subscribers to call on video, while Globe Telecom would soon offer its 3G services. In a recent Alcatel conference in Sydney, I suggested to the Ovum guy to update their data on the Philippine telecom industry. It seems their data do not reflect the true picture on what’s happening in our telecom market. — Edu H. Lopez

Lovestruck in Sydney

On the moonless Monday night of March 27, they met at the zoo. Cupid’s arrow struck him during the Alcatel Asia Pacific Media Conference 2006 at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia.

She goes by the code name Vietnam Rose who "babysitted" the Vietnam delegation. He is a Filipino veteran - not a war veteran, but a veteran journalist.

During that golden moment they were alone with each other, she drank three glasses of red wine. He, white wine. When midnight neared, they parted ways.

She took the first bus back to their hotel. He did not hop in. Why?

On another bus, his head spinned from "too much" drinking. He went straight back to his hotel room and he went into deep slumber; bringing with him to dreamland, her indescribable fragrance and image of her beautiful space.

He first took notice of her that morning at the Grand Ballroom of Shangri-La Hotel Sydney.

David Kennedy, Senior Analyst, Asia Pacific of Ovum Consulting, was swarmed by the Vietnamese reporters, our lovestruck colleague and I after his presentation on "Where does the Asia Pacific region stand in achieving Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC)?"

The scribes from Vietnam wanted to know Kennedy’s suggestion on how their country could qualify in the "Markets ready for FMC." While, the Filipino participants were seeking clarification on Ovum’s assessment that the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and China are "Unsuitable markets for FMC".

The FMC Preparedness Study considered four factors: Regulatory conditions, competitive conditions, infrastructure, and technology.

"A FMC service is one that enables the user to access a wide variety of communication, applications, information and/or entertainment services, with consistent quality of service regardless of the device used, the underlying network over which those services are run or the user’s location," Kennedy defined.

When asked by the Filipino media what he thinks of the Ovum report, Christian Reinaudo, Asia Pacific President, Alcatel, commented that analysts have their own views, just as vendors like Alcatel have theirs.

Reinaudo --- and the Alcatel Philippines team --- strongly believed, "The Philippines is a country where the (network) transformation will happen because the (telecommunications) carriers are very dynamic. My feeling is because of the dynamism, there could be some evolution much earlier than the other countries."

As for our journalist friend, we shall wait for the next chapter where his crush transforms into .. Well! Let’s just wait and see. — Edison D. Ong