Through a full-page advertisement in newspapers, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has formally announced that it has started migrating to a new IT system based on Oracle database and HP hardware.

This developed as Ryan Guadalquiver, the 38-year-old managing director of HP Philippines, took over his new post after an unexpected transfer from Oracle Philippines.

In his first interview as HP head honcho, Guadalquiver said that as general manager of his company’s enterprise business (formerly enterprise server group), one of the major areas he’s focusing on is the government sector.

Guadalquiver, who described himself as “hands-on” type of manager, said the public sector is a bright spot that HP would like to pay more attention to, noting that there are existing governments projects which the company is interested to take part in.

Although an accountant by training, the youthful tech executive made a name in the local IT industry as an astute sales person. At Oracle Philippines where he stayed for a total of six years, Guadalquiver closed big deals, particularly in the telco market. This caught the eye of his regional bosses who appointed him last year as the youngest managing director of the software company.

At HP, Guadalquiver is expected to oversee the high-profile transfer of GSIS from IBM-DB2 to HP-Oracle. The migration is the result of the acrimonious dispute between GSIS and IBM, with the fund agency accusing Big Blue of supplying defective database software. IBM has stood on its ground that it has no service contract with GSIS since the software was bought through a global OEM arrangement with German software firm SAP.

In the newspaper ads it released recently, GSIS said that to “put an end to the crisis,” the company has decided “to migrate to the Oracle Database Management Software using the HP Integrity Superdome Server.”

The pension firm said the migration commenced last Nov. 27 and would end on Dec. 10. Thus, it urged pensioners to begin renewing their active status only after Dec. 10.

The change of the IT system was actually announced last October by Jonathan Pineda, the company’s new information security officer. Pineda was a replacement for Edilberto Ocampo, a former official who left hurriedly before he was formally fired by the GSIS for allegedly approving the “anomalous” deal with IBM.

Pineda, in a meeting with a small group of reporters, did not disclose the cost of the HP-Oracle infrastructure. The GSIS spent about P40 million for IBM’s system composed of DB2 software and IBM P-series servers.

At the briefing, Pineda said the GSIS will discard its entire IBM software and hardware since it “will no longer have any use once the new system goes live.”

Pineda, however, said SAP applications would still be used in the Oracle-HP system. He admitted the GSIS recently signed a contract with SAP Philippines for a long-term service deal.

HP’s Guadalquiver, in a separate interview, also confirmed that his company has inked a similar service agreement with GSIS.

Interestingly, Guadalquiver recently led the local launching of an HP initiative called “Converged Infrastructure Architecture” wherein it also tapped SAP, along with Microsoft and Oracle, as global OEM partners.

Under the program, HP and its partners will provide products and services that will enable companies to “rapidly scale up and down to meet changing business needs.”