NEW downloadable applications are available at the iTunes store every day, but February 14, 2009 was extra special for Filipino techies. It was the day that a Filipino-developed application for the iPhone was made available for free to anyone interested around the world: the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a free news application developed by Vinta Solutions Inc. for the global organization CFR.

To date, more than 4,000 downloads have been recorded in just two weeks’ time so much so that the CFR application made it to top 12 downloads list on the iTunes AppStore. Majority of the downloads were made in the United States, with others made in Europe and Asia.

Leonides De Ocampo, chairman and CEO of Vinta LLC (the US arm of Vinta Solutions, Inc.), says Vinta is just a small three-year-old family business that’s into consulting and outsourcing. He is a mechanical engineer, while his brother, Leon Francis De Ocampo, is an industrial engineer. Both of them are graduates of the University of the Philippines. Leon heads Vinta Solutions, Inc. Leonides also pursued higher studies and finished MS in Mechanical Engineering at Duke University in the US.

How Vinta bagged the CFR project is quite interesting. Since Leonides is very much interested in foreign relations and policy and would read the CFR website regularly, he thought of contacting the CFR offices in September 2008 (just when the global financial crisis unraveled and Lehman Brothers collapsed) to offer Vinta’s services. Leonides noticed that a lot of news organizations are coming on board the iPhone and thought that CFR would be interested to do the same. “I just contacted them and they were very pleased,” he says. “We provide very competitive rates.”
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Family businesses aren’t a sure thing. Some last for many decades, while others go pffft when the second or third generation members take the helm.

One family business that’s gaining strength as the years go by is the jewelry business of the Sarabia-Gorriceta family of Iloilo. Amparo Sarabia started a jewelry store in Iloilo. Later on, her eldest daughter, Dr. Sandra Sarabia-Gorriceta (an optometrist following the footsteps of her grandfather, Dr. Federico Sarabia, the first optometrist in the Philippines), also went into the jewelry/pawnshop business with her own shop, the SS Gorriceta, which now has three stores in Iloilo. Now Dr. Sandra’s son, Felix Gorriceta III, is following tradition, heading the jewelry chain store Karat World.

“Growing up in Iloilo, I was exposed early to the business. I have a brother and a sister, but I was the only one interested in the jewelry business,” shares Felix. He recounts that when he was in grade 1 or 2, he already knew how to open the store vault. In high school, he helped out in the store, and listened in when his mom talked with suppliers.
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YESTERDAY could have been called “Surprise Day” at our home. My dad arrived from work with a small plasma TV to surprise my mom. Well my mom had a surprise for my dad as well: a high-tech touch stove, a massage chair, and a heat massager.

It’s not always like this at home. My parents hardly surprise each other with appliances just because “wala lang.” My mom’s TV is so old that it fades to black in the middle of TV Patrol and so my dad figured it seemed like a good time to buy a new TV.

My mom, on the other hand, was just walking in the mall when some giddy sales people invited her in their store to try out this and that. So even if she had no plans of buying anything, she walked out with all those items I mentioned above plus a P51,000 straight charge on the credit card bill.
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I CAN still remember the time when Friendster was banned. In the company I was working for a few years ago, a lot of people would check their Friendster accounts during working hours, and so the company banned access to it, citing the need to use one’s working hours more productively.

These days, more and more working people stay logged on to their accounts in social networking sites such as Facebook, My Space, Friendster, and the like the whole working day. In fact, some companies encourage participation in such sites, and with good reason.

“We pride ourselves as the premier digital marketing services agency so more than being in social networking sites, we have to ‘know’ what’s new in the digital landscape — what’s hot and what’s not — and how it could work for us and our clients. And as part of viral marketing campaigns, we have to be able to ’seed’ information through these social networking sites,” explains Arlyn Onte, e-commerce manager of Yehey.com.
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THE HOTTEST brand nowadays in the Philippines is Manny Pacquiao. Yes, the boxer who won the victory over Oscar Dela Hoya and put the Philippines in everyone’s consciousness last Sunday is a mega-brand worldwide.

From Mike Tyson and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the barrio people in the provinces, Pacquiao has a following. The crime rate in the country goes down to zero whenever he has a fight. A-list cinemas and city halls around the country broadcast his fights and these places are fully packed when Pacquiao steps on the ring.

And talk about Pacquiao being an endorser. From beer to muscle pain relaxant, cellphone to karaoke mic, energy drink to a hamburger place, and much more, Pacquiao has become a dream endorser. He is number 3 on Wikipilipinas’ Top 10 Philippine Celebrity Endorsers, just below actresses Kris Aquino and Sharon Cuneta.
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