Open source software provides bright spots for Philippines technology companies that aspire to market products and services globally. Even if proprietary software dominates majority of desktop computers worldwide, open source software is applied in ways ordinary users don"t realize, creating opportunities for local players.

The market for consumer devices, for example, is one area where tech companies can look into, according to Delfin Jay Sabido IX, chief technology officer of Eazix Inc., the design arm of Ayala-owned electronics firm Integrated Microelectronics Inc. (IMI).

?At Eazix, half of our business is in embedded Linux,? Sabido noted in a presentation during this week?s LinuxWorld Philippines Conference and Expo being held at the Dusit Hotel in Makati City.

Eazix has progressed from providing outsourced design services for companies like Sharp and Philips to developing and making prototypes of its own products, including those that use Linux as embedded software.

Embedded Linux system applications already developed by Eazix for OEM (original equipment manufacturer) customers include audiovisual appliances, wireless access points, vehicle tracking and navigation, voice over IP or VOIP phone, security and industrial networks, and embedded database servers.

Sabido sees more and more consumer devices, like digital cameras and ?smart phones?, running on embedded open source software like Linux.

According to a Gartner report, more than 70 percent of smart phones shipped in the first quarter of this year run on the Symbian operating system and 13 percent run Linux as embedded software. Only 4 percent run on Microsoft"s version of Windows for mobile devices.

?Linux won"t definitely overtake Windows in desktops. But adoption is growing in consumer devices and also in corporate systems like servers,? Sabido added.

Sabido, however, admitted that awareness of open source is still low in the country, even among IMI"s own engineers. He raised the need to promote open source software in the education sector in order to make students exposed to and become more comfortable with Linux.

?The natural tendency of a programmer is to build everything from scratch,? he said, adding that initial exposure to open source, for example, can be in designing Web sites.

Although the private sector is more likely to adopt open source software faster, Sabido said there are currently opportunities for open source use in government in projects like establishing community e-centers and the low-cost People"s PC.