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BUSINESS & FINANCE
www.hello-philippines.com
October 2012 / Fortnightly – No. 19 • UK & Europe Edition
PLDT launches cloud infrastructure service PHILIPPINES
PLDT has set up PLDT Cloud, its own enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure, to meet the demands of the local market that will reach ₱3.4 billion by 2014. “PLDT has already laid down the groundwork in infrastructure that has enabled us to provide an industry-grade, complete, resilient, and reliable service in the Cloud,” said PLDT executive vice president
Eric R. Alberto. The telco is now offering solutions off its public cloud starting with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a virtualized computing solution that gives businesses the benefit of a full IT resource which they can directly provision, modify and monitor. According to PLDT, enterprises using PLDT Cloud can scale to the level they require.
“This service allows the customer a level of control on the amount of required computing capacity as well as the period it will be needed. In other words, companies will only pay for the capacity that they need and the service that they use at any given time,” said PLDT ALPHA Enterprise head Jovy Hernandez. “This is definitely more costeffective than for companies to buy
their own physical server stacks which aren’t fully utilized during nonpeak periods,” he added. PLDT also promises quick response to customers’ needs, as it fully controls and manages the cloud infrastructure. “Once a customer is enrolled to PLDT Cloud, virtual machine creation can be done in a matter of minutes,” said Alberto. PLDT Cloud is housed in the
network of PLDT VITRO data centers in Pasig City, Subic, and Cebu City. IaaS is beneficial for businesses with increasing or unpredictable IT workloads over time that need IT infrastructure capable of responsively scaling up or down, such as the business process outsourcing, media and broadcasting, and banking and finance industries. ■ (BM, GMA News –
October 16, 2012)
EU investment in PHL could be affected if sin tax bill not amended – ECCP European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) executive vice president Henry Schumacher said about the progress of the sin tax bill in a press briefing in Makati. In August 2011, the WTO ruled that the Philippines’ taxation on liquor was biased against imported
brands, and that the country should implement uniform taxation for imported and local products. Schumacher said the ECCP does not support the current sin tax proposal as it does not follow the WTO’s ruling. “The Philippine government has to come up with a solution before
[the] March 8, 2013 deadline,” Schumacher said. The Philippines has until that date to implement the rulings and recommendations of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body in a manner that adheres to the WTO ruling. Earlier, Rep. Teddy Baguilat
said the proposed EU-Philippine free trade agreement could be jeopardized if the revised Abaya bill is not amended. He further said failure to amend the revised bill would result in EU retaliation through the WTO. ■ (BM,
GMA News – October 16, 2012)
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THE flow of EU investment to the Philippines may be affected if the sin tax law does not adhere to the World Trade Organization’s ruling that the country implement a uniform liquor tax, European business leaders in the country said Tuesday, October 16. “We are watching it very closely,”