Changing of the IT guards

There's another strong storm coming to the Philippines this weekend, but I won't go into this topic again just like what I've been doing in the last three weeks. I'm hoping, however, that this approaching typhoon won't create as much havoc as the two previous storms did.

Instead, I want to comment on a recent piece of news that I stumbled upon last Wednesday night--the surprising recruitment of Oracle Philippines managing director Ryan Guadalquiver, as the new country general manager of Hewlett-Packard Philippines.

Oracle and HP--both IT giants--haven't issued any formal announcement regarding this development, but the leaked information has been confirmed by various industry sources.

There's no news yet as to who will replace Guadalquiver at Oracle Philippines. David Tan, the outgoing country general manager of the local HP office, is reportedly heading back to Singapore to assume a regional role after a two-year tour of duty here.

Guadalquiver's selection also comes at a time when Oracle is still waiting for the approval of its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, which is a rival of HP. As I've written in this blog before, Oracle's takeover of Sun has brought some complications in the Philippines because of the strange corporate setup of Sun's local office.

What made Guadalquiver's appointment highly unexpected is the fact that he had just barely warmed up his seat as Oracle's top exec in the country. He is the second Filipino to lead the subsidiary, but unlike Bernard Yu, who held the post for more than a decade, Guadalquiver stayed as Oracle's head honcho for only a year.

Before being named by Oracle as its managing director in October last year, Guadalquiver was the company's country director for technology. But, no one knew him and people even had difficulty pronouncing his surname. A very low-key person, he virtually shunned the limelight even as Oracle's top exec.

Don't get me wrong, but these qualities may have actually helped the guy work effectively. I've heard stories that he already has an extensive management experience despite his young age. This is probably the reason why HP pirated him instead of picking from its own ranks.

Two years ago when HP was in the same predicament after Nilo Cruz resigned (or was he fired?) as country general manager, HP also reportedly tried to lure Ronnie Latinazo, EMC's country manager. If the company was rebuffed then, it was successful this time with Guadalquiver.

Guadalquiver's rise as one of the tech industry's heavy-hitters has been nothing short of astonishing. He probably deserves his lucky streak, but a higher challenge awaits him at HP Philippines where his low-profile style will be severely put to test.

Rigodon Update
Last week, I wrote about Erick Olavides, who, I said, had just taken up a new job as channel sales manager for Oracle Philippines after availing Microsoft's voluntary separation program. Well, it seems I was already late in the news because Olavides has already resigned from the software firm to join his former Microsoft colleagues, Dittas Formoso and Deo Co, at Raffles Solutions Philippines.

Meanwhile, Luichi Robles, former country manager Cisco Philippines, has just been named the new country sales director of the Philippine office of Symantec. His appointment became effective Oct. 15, according to his colleagues at the software firm.

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Melvin G. Calimag

Melvin G. Calimag currently writes for the infotech section of a popular English broadsheet in the Philippines. Prior to this, Melvin served as an assistant editor at Metropolitan Computer Times (MCT), the first IT publication in the Philippines. He is currently the vice president for internals at the IT Journalists Association of the Philippines (CyberPress), and also serves as a charter member with the Philippine Science Journalists Association.