Meanwhile, Randall Reade, chairman of the Northern Virginia Technology Council's (NVTC) international committee, pointed out in his presentation that there is a need to educate business leaders in the U.S. about the software industry in the Philippines.

"Frankly, no one even has an image of the Philippines," said Reade, who runs a company called Zipzone that exports software to Asia-Pacific and whose primary task at NVTC (www.nvtc.org) is to 'get its members interested in software overseas.'