Mountain West Ruby Conference 2008

Morph sponsored and attended (and really enjoyed) the Mountain West Ruby Conference in Salt Lake City on March 28 and 29th. The one-track conference consisted of two full days of intense Ruby discussions. From Ruby internals and Domain Specific Languages, to working with Amazon Web Services from Ruby, the presentations were varied and interesting.

The event was very well organized with about 200 people attending. Congratulations to the conference organizers and the speakers for putting together a very professional and very exciting event. We are definitely looking forward to next year's conference.

You can find a lot of information about the conference through these channels:

• Hashtags
• Flickr
• Technorati

Morph Code kicks off

Today, the Morph Code Software as a Service (SaaS) innovation challenge kicked off. We were joined by key partners -- Ayala Foundation, Philippine Emerging Startups Open Inc. (PESO), and Inquirer.net.

Dickie Gonzales, CEO and President of PESO, talked about developing great ideas, citing that "sweet spot". David Abramowski, CEO of Morph Labs, discussed the rise of the MicroISVs, how to harness the Inet and open source technologies, winning strategies, the iterative process of acquiring customers, and examples of disruptive innovations. He also discussed Software as a Service and showed a demo of the Morph Application Platform.

Our three vertical specialists provided overview and insights, key technology issues, and ideal SaaS solutions in the e-health, e-government, and e-learning industries. Dr. Alvin Marcelo of the National Telehealth Center discussed an on-demand EMR solution. CICT Comm. Tim de Rivera cited ICT infrastructure problems the country is currently facing, and Prof. Hector Manaligod talked about how technology is a tool or an aid in learning.

Here's a link to the SaaS boot camp's website. If you missed today's workshops, just visit the Inquirer.net blogs on Morph Code. Up next: Stand and Deliver Elevator Pitch presentations next Saturday (April 5).

Morph's LegIT [adj., n. li-jIT]

Remember on the last post how I wrote about not existing in a vacuum? Well, I think that companies can't quite simply go about their business without running into certain networks in the industry for recognition and legitimacy - much like companies needing stamps of approval.

Now, we just got our resume polished and updated after receiving not just one , but two (2) notices of acceptance from the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA) and the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (CEDF-IT). We're expecting a few more in the month's ahead pending more paperworks and presos.

Incidentally, our induction to the PSIA will happen this week on March 26 and we're literally on a high as Morph Labs, Inc will share the platform (pun intended) err, stage with people who just came from the the top of the world. These 3 Filipinas will be the evening's special guests and rightly so for what they achieved is by no means a small feat. Here's hoping they rub some of their vibes on us.

Information Week article about Morph

The buzz is building about the Morph Application Platform. On March 19, 2008, Information Week published an article about Morph Labs and our ground-breaking product the Morph Application Platform. The article does a great job of explaining the benefits of cloud computing in general and the Morph Application Platform in particular. This is a very good article that is spot-on with every point.

Upcoming Events

There are many Ruby & Rails events throughout the year in the US and around the world. If you are a developer or ISV and you are looking to get involved in the community you should check out the upcoming events; there might be one happening near you. Conferences, workshops,
and monthly meetings of local user groups are all great events where people get together and share ideas about Ruby, Rails, and related technologies.

Morph is sponsoring many Ruby and Rails events this year. If you happen to be at one of these events and you see someone wearing a Morph t-shirt, don't be shy; stop and say "hi". We promise we won't bite you :) We would love to hear about you, your projects and chat with you.

Upcoming events where Morph will be present:

MountainWest Ruby Conference (March 28-29) Salt Lake City, Utah
http://www.mtnwestrubyconf.org

BarCampOrlando (April 5) Orlando, Florida
http://www.barcamporlando.com

Scotland on Rails (April 4-5) Edinburgh, Scotland
http://www.scotlandonrails.com

GORUCO (April 21) NYC, NY
http://www.2008.goruco.com

RailsConf ?08 (May 29 - June 1) Portland, Oregon
http://en.oreilly.com/rails2008/public/content/home

A Feedback Loop

When I got the news that I will be doing corporate blogging for Morph, I wasn't sure if they (meaning superiors) were joking or folks were just plain too busy putting on the finishing touches on the Morph Application Platform that there wasn't anybody else but myself who would have the time to write. Unfortunately for me, both were far from the truth. It wasn't a joke and Morphsters were not just busy but super busy with a lot of things as surely those who have worked with startups can attest to.

But I guess that is how it is with tech companies these days when it comes to products and services and Morph is no exception. Everyday is a never-ending saga of innovation on top of a handful of management and maintenance tasks. Whether the system we have in place continues to get better is not just for us to say, but more importantly, we need to get user feedbacks and comments to ensure that the Morph Application Platform or any of our succeeding offerings are truly useful and providing the solutions to user needs.

So I guess this blog isn't really just our blog. We don't intend to work in a vacuum. We are going after honest-to-God conversations here even if it means unleashing a two-headed beast if you will, praise and criticism, side by side. A feedback loop.

Questions?

Search for Web 2.0 innovation begins

Morph Labs will initiate Morph Code :: SaaS Boot Camp this month at the Institute of Social Order, Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City. On March 29, we will hold a series of workshops and we'll be talking about the ins and outs of building web businesses, technopreneurship, and Software as a Service (SaaS). We've got an exceptional list of speakers -- David Abramowski (CEO of Morph Labs), Dickie Gonzales (President of Philippine Emerging Startups Open), Winston Damarillo (Founder and Chairman of Morph Labs), Jerome Gotangco (Platform and Infrastructure Manager of Morph Labs), and Bill Luz (EVP of Ayala Foundation).

After the workshop series, we'll be asking participants to pitch to us their Web 2.0 ideas. For those of you who have submitted their business summaries, you get a chance to talk to Winston and the rest, to check and see if you've done the right thing. The elevator pitch presentations are set to happen on April 5 at the same venue.

Teams that advance to the third and final stage will then be asked to deliver a closed-door oral presentation detailing how they plan to execute and deploy their Web 2.0 ideas. Some projects may be eligible for financial and mentoring support through the Morph Accelerator.

The by-invitation final presentations will take place May 3 at the Edsa Shangri-La hotel. The successful team will receive up to two years? operating capital and SaaS infrastructure, as well as mentoring and global marketing support.

So, come and say hello. Register here if you are interested to join Morph Code. If you simply want to meet and greet the Morph peeps, you're also welcome!