Dennis Estopace

SINGAPORE—After supporting moves offline against pirated CDs and DVDs, Microsoft Corp. is bringing the war against those behind illegal software on the cold waters filled with hackers: the Internet.

LENOVO Corp. held the second position in the shipment of personal computers (PC) during the first quarter, according to the International Data Corp. (IDC). IDC said Lenovo posted a relative modest growth of 1.7 percent globally.

CHRIS Papa is part of that rare breed of Filipinos who opt to give his expertise within the country’s border.

ACCION Group Llc. announced on October 23 said it has raised a new $5 million round of funding for digital payments and blockchain start-up Coins. The company said the money would go to projects that target “unbanked individuals in the Philippines and throughout Southeast Asia.”

MOBILE advertising company InMobi Technologies Pvt. Ltd. announced on October 27 it has launched an advanced suite of video formats across countries in Asia Pacific. The suite of video-ad formats will be available in nine countries, including the Philippines, the company said.

ORACLE Corp. announced on October 26 a series of major innovations across its cloud platform.

ORACLE Corp. unveiled on October 6 in San Francisco, California, its strategy for next generation Software as a Service (SaaS) Cloud offerings the company claims “blend third-party data with real-time analytics and behavioral inputs to create cloud applications [CA] that adapt and learn.”

AN executive of Robert Bosch GMBH noted that many machines used in skilled trades or manufacturing are still not connected to Industry 4.0.

CORPORATIONS must consider data as a valuable asset and strengthen data integrity to fill the security gaps in their systems, Ultimate Risk Solutions Llc. Managing Director David Piesse said.

SPEECH and imaging-solutions provider Nuance Communications Inc. has partnered with Wordtext Systems Inc. (WSI) for the local distribution of a software to manage portable document format (PDF) files workflow.

GERMAN-based market research organization GfK reported that Oppo is now the second best-selling smartphone brand in the Philippines.

BRANDS in the Philippines are placing social media at the heart of their strategy to have a 360-degree customer engagement, Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) International Ltd. said, citing its recently released study.

THERE’S a fragile relationship between communications service providers and teenagers

THE local unit of Lenovo Corp. announced the positioning of its ThinkPad Yoga 11e in the education customer segment as the International Data Corp. (IDC) maintained a lackluster forecast of the personal computer (PC) market.

NATIONAL Instruments (NI) has entered into a strategic partnership with the University of San Carlos (USC), NI said in a statement on August 26.

GROM Holdings Inc., the privately held parent company of Grom Social Inc., has acquired 100 percent of award-winning, Philippines-based Top Draw Animation (TDA).

TECHNOLOGY analysts have noted declines in the shipment of personal computers (PCs) in the Asia-Pacific region, with elections in the Philippines contributing to the decrease in sales.

AEGON N.V. announced on July 15 the rollout of GoBear, Asia’s first and only meta-search engine for insurance and banking services.

FEELING the wanderlust in you? Visa Inc. said it must be technologically related.

A SUBSIDIARY of the information and communications technology (ICT) of PLDT Inc. announced the launch of a “vendor-agnostic” forum it calls “CloudComPH.” IP Converge Data Services Inc. said in a statement the company created the cloud community “to serve as a venue for the sharing of ideas and best practices, whether technical or operational, among individuals who build, develop, maintain and use cloud-computing infrastructure, platforms and applications in the Philippines.”

ACER Inc. cited its customer-centric strategy is the key to its success in the local consumer technology market.

ORACLE Corp. announced on June 22 two new models of its database appliance targeting small- and medium-sized businesses.

NUMBER crunchers are urged to prepare for disruptive technologies, as member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations lurch forward to an Asean Economic Community (AEC).

THE top executive of local cloud-computing firm IP Converge Data Services Inc. (IPC) believes businesses in the Philippines are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of “digital transformation” (DX).

DIRECTORIES Philippines Corp. (DPC), owner of 57-year-old Yellow Pages, recently launched a navigation and directory app that connects users even without Internet connection.

WAITING on technology to deliver information leads to loss of productivity, a recent survey by Nimble Storage Inc. revealed.

THE International Data Corp. (IDC) sees manufacturing companies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region will ramp up their Internet of Things (IoT) technology investments to over $15 billion by 2019.

INMARSAT Plc. announced on June 9 a partnership with publication solution provider PressReader to enable those working and living in the world’s most remote locations to have access to the world’s first all-you-can-read newspaper and magazine service.

SES SA said on June 1 Skycable has signed a multi-year, multitransponder agreement for broadcasting direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV channels with the Euronext-listed satellite operator.

A STUDY by FurstPerson Inc. ranking live-chat job candidates showed applicants from the Philippines demonstrated computer skills statistically equivalent to those found in the United States.

GRAB brand operator GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd. announced on June 1 the ride-hailing platform in Southeast Asia (SEA) is now available for the first time outside the region.

THE Clark Green City (CGC) and Project Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (Noah) have been named finalists in a competition by the International Data Corp.

SAN Francisco-based startup Open Garden Inc. (Ogi) announced on May 20 that Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU) will use its mobile application called FireChat for disaster-preparedness.

LENOVO Corp. announced on May 10 the company’s strategic technology conference will bring together some of the industry’s top leaders to San Francisco, US, on June 9. These leaders are expected to probe the most promising and emerging topics in innovation, including virtual reality, smart-connected devices and Internet of Things and harnessing the power of the cloud to transform people’s lives. Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing will deliver the keynote address.

MICROSOFT Corp. is touting its Lumia smartphone as the season’s device-of-choice near the end of summer and on the back of a flat smartphone shipment in the first quarter. A statement by the company that bought Nokia Corp.’s devices and services business (NDS) said it has positioned its Lumia 950 XL “millennials and millennial-minded explorers.”

LISTED technology company Now Corp. will roll out by June an information-technology (IT) product that will aggregate into one any content platform at the user’s control.

INCLUDED for the first time, the Philippines zoomed past India and Indonesia in the latest Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) Index by a United Nations (UN) agency.

MOBILE satellite-communications provider Inmarsat Plc. announced recently the development in its Global Xpress (GX) and Fleet Xpress (FX) business solutions. In separate statements, Inmarsat announced its take up of the terminal by Skyware Technology Ltd. and bagging the largest FX installation project to date with Nanjing Tanker Corp. of China.

OPEN source solutions provider Red Hat Inc. (RHT) announced recently the general availability of a new version of its enterprise virtualization solution as Ciena Corp. cites the status of virtualization in the Asia-Pacific region.

SINGAPORE-based MapR Technologies Inc. announced on February 29 that Lazada Group has selected its converged-data platform to power the latter’s e-commerce operations in Southeast Asia.

TAIWANESE electronic-device manufacturer Acer Group Inc. announced its success across multiple product lines in the Philippines, as the International Data Corp. (IDC) said PC-market stabilization remains an elusive goal despite pockets of growth.

TECHNOLOGY provider GoDaddy Inc. announced on February 29 the company is making available to 11 Asian markets, including the Philippines, its suite of cloud-based products and customer care.

GLOBAL mobile satellite communications provider Inmarsat Plc. marked the 25th anniversary of its Inmarsat C by revealing that more than 600 distress alerts from vessels in urgent need were broadcast over the service in 2015.

INMARSAT Plc expects mobile satellite communications services to be modular as it began a conference for developers in London, United Kingdom, on Monday.

AMDOCS Ltd. is urging local telecommunications companies (telcos) to scale up as a research reveals dropped calls via Voice over Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) are higher than that experienced via 2nd Generation (2G) or 3G technology.

A STUDY by International Data Corp. for Amdocs Ltd. showed service providers in Asia Pacific (Apac) believe they are not transforming fast enough to meet the demands of today’s digital era.

KII Corp., operator of an Internet of Things (IoT) cloud-platform provider, announced recently it is working on an ambitious new “citizen science” conservation project with local fishermen in the Philippines to help monitor and track the dugong population in the region.

By Dennis D. Estopace