COMDDAP Davao Expo 2009

Last July 2 this year, some IC students including myself attended a seminar showcasing the new innovations of technology. COMDDAP or Computer Manufacturer Distributors and Dealers Association of the Philippines held an annual IT event, COMDDAP Davao Expo 2009. It was held at the Grand Ballroom of Apo View Hotel in the city that will last until July 4, 2009. As expected, I was entertained as I keep on seeing the sights of all the technologies or products exhibited in every booth from different companies. That event was really interesting because it not just let somebody see the new technologies but it also give someone the idea that technology is one good example of a thing we called fast changing.

Want to know the shortcut to brilliant? In my journey during that day was the fact that I am amazed and the one who attracts my attention is the products of ADOBE. Through their product you can always communicate that way you wanted to.
However, behind these successful event is an association of the country’s top information technology businesses. I have here an introduction of this organization. To promote the sustainable development of the country’s information technology industry through voluntary collaboration of its member companies as their primary objective. The associations objectives are: promote the use of information technology and elevate its standards in the Philippines; make computers affordable and available to the masses; provide and create opportunities for users to develop themselves to their fullest potentials; supply the market with quality products at reasonable prices with good after-sales support; to work closely with the government, the private sector, and international entities in promoting the use of information technology; provide a forum of discussion on matters relating to the computer industry; and foster and cultivate harmony, cordiality and camaraderie among the members so that they can work together as one for the benefit of the industry.

The vision of promoting and elevating the standards of Information technology (IT) in the Philippines fueled a group of prominent computer companies to form the Computer Distributors and Dealers Association of the Philippines or COMDDAP. Its initial member-companies represent the world's leading makers and providers of computer products, solutions and peripherals. COMDDAP holds regular exhibits, more popularly known as the COMDDAP EXPO, which has become a consistent crowd drawer and has in itself set new records in terms of the quality of the exhibit area, of its exhibitors, visitors, and venues. The annual COMDDAP endeavor encourages its participants to launch their products and services, as well as hold seminars with a variety of topics in the areas of technology, trends, applications, and information management. Indeed, COMDDAP has gone a long way from a mere assemblage of premier IT companies and enthusiasts. With the support and enthusiasm of its member-companies, COMDDAP expects and looks forward to accomplishing more worthwhile projects in the future as COMDDAP is committed to the stable growth of the Philippine computer industry.

Seminars are also one of the highlights during the COMDDAP Davao Expo 2009. It has two sets, three sets actually, but the last one is for those people who are invited. The first one was conducted by the Jupiter Systems Inc. and it was presented by Mr. Celmer Santos in which they presented their system, the Empowerment Resource Information and Control Dealer Management System or ERICDMS to make it short. The system was said to be an end to end software solution for automotive dealer operation, parts and other service businesses. The system also covers the full range of dealer activities from marketing to sales and services. DMS also includes a full Enterprise Resource Planning and completely automates and integrates back office operations all the way to financial reporting aside from its core business operations. According to Mr. Santos, with ERIC DMS you can have a full visibility over all operations and achieve total control over your dealership business schedule prospects for test drives and follow an appointment, monitor and increase sales, delight customers with gentle reminders for appointments, manage vehicle inventory, deliver impeccable service, control parts and consumables cost, monitor and correctly implement warranty for parts and service and report your financial bottom line.

The next session in the seminar was entertaining and you will really force to listen because they will be giving freebies like USB, T-shirts and mouse. The second speaker is a Market Development Manager from HP, Mr. Leonardo Zap. It was all about the new technology from HP which is the HP Thin Clients. A thin client or a slim client is a client computer or client software in client-server architecture networks which depends primarily on the central server for processing activities, and mainly focuses on conveying input and output between the user and the remote server. He also differentiates a thick desktop client from thin clients. As what I understand, in thick desktop clients, an application generally runs locally while applications run remotely in thin clients. Thin Clients has enhanced security, easy manageability, high reliability, environment friendly and has lower overall cost. HP Thin Clients can run well virtually on all types of applications it can run applications from stand-alone, to client-server, to web-based. One of its unique features is that it does not have any moving parts like the hard drive and fan but still it is more capable of performing most of the normal functions of a personal computer. Because the HP thin Client does not have movable parts, the machine can run on a lower power and more robust and can boot faster. Heavy lifting for processor or disk intensive applications can be done on the server. Thin clients have a much longer lifespan than standard computers and use significantly less power. Lower maintenance costs are another benefit as software application updates, virus scanning and patches can be executed on the server. Deployment costs are also reduced as thin clients can be remotely configured and do not need to be set up individually. Break-fix simply requires replacing the thin client.

This event is one of the best, so far, event I have attended. I learn a lot from it and hoping that there will be lots of the same kind of event to happen.
PS. The CR is nice..