Web2Mobile Innovation is Alive in the Philippines 138.0
Oh to be Young and Able – the Web2Mobile Story!
Globe Telecom Philippines is fortunate to have young techies develop potentially lucrative mobile applications for free – well, almost free having obtained true intellectual property in exchange for OJT-time pay.
J. Allen Q. Santos and Oliver Ruth A. Dag – yes! these are there names (they will be addressed as JAQS and ORAD in corporate life); seniors in BS Computer Science at UP Dilliman – attended the summerof Code camp with 14 other bright young techies in April 2009 at Globe Labs, Globe Telecoms’ developer group.
In six weeks out of that summer camp, the duo came out with an application that Globe eventually launched as Web2Mobile yesterday. Web2Mobile is a Firefox plug-in that allows people who download it to the Firefox browser to cut and send extracts and images as SMS message with just a few clicks without leaving the browser window.
I understand similar applications already exist on standalone sites like Chikka. Still, the adaptation effort itself is already great innovation. The potential for diffusion is great given the ease of distribution on the Internet. It ought not to be difficult – with the change of a few lines of code – to adapt the program to Smart or even Verizon and ATT or for telcos in other emerging countries.
It felt good to be around such young people as Allen and Liv and all the other young members at the 5th birthday celebration for the Mozilla Firefox browser yesterday! For Liv and Allen, the intensive learning out of the camp should do them well in the future. For all young members, working and having fun together in the community should do them well, too, in the future.
Please read more of the awesome duos’ story at Globe Labs website. Globe launched Wed2Mobile yesterday and, yes, you can download the application from the site.
Postscript:
- Just a few minutes ago, I received a very nuanced email from one of the duo that I took to mean that they understood a key understatement in the original post. I made some revisions in the first paragraph above and added this postscript to clarify.
- It is difficult to determine the value of Allen and Liv’s work in a two-sided market where Globe earns through customers’ use of the app even as costs are spent in another activity, product development.
It could very well be just the difference between in-house cost of development minus the sum of OJT cost plus other cost to bring the app to launch. Globe defined and assigned the project meaning they could very well have done it themselves.
Indeed, the most likely scenario was that they were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the OJT work. In the future, Globe must think really hard about subsequent commercial use of OJT output where real intellectual property results. Unlike most OJT which involves consumable service, creative OJT is a different matter altogether.
If Globe agrees to my valuation scheme above, the best recourse is for them to donate the difference – a modest sum I think for Globe – to Mozilla Foundation, and maybe some more ex gratia, to support Firefox in the duo’s behalf. - It confirms my choice to post this story. It feels good to deal with such keen and gracious intelligence.
Hi,
I’m the head of Future Applications from Globe Labs, and I supervised the Summer of Code program. Without going into the boring details, the assignment to the two students was to create a plugin, which would enable a browser to send out SMS and MMS. Part of the requirements document also included the specification on sending out content from the browser, which was in the app created by the students.
However, a lot more work was put into the app after the students completed it. Changes in the UI, integration with a different API for SMS and MMS sending, adding of charging functionality, bug fixes and several other minor and major functionality changes. I do not discount the effort put in by Olive and Joot, but a lot more work was done outside of the prototype completed by them.
Obviously, it was also made clear to them (and via signed release docs) that all work would be confidential and all intellectual property would belong to Globe, as with any employee-employer arrangement.
Thanks.
Sherwin Sowy
Hi Mr. Sowy, I agree with you wholeheartedly as I noted in my Note 2 in the post above. Indeed, I also guessed and noted that Globe added on a lot of work to bring the app to the point of launch. Finally, indeed, Globe owns the intellectual property contributed by the duo as with the typical employee-employer arrangement and as confirmed by the usual release docs.
At the bottom, all I really said was that Globe paid for what contribution they had to Web2Module with OJT-time pay. And thank you for helping set the record on that straight.
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