BSA said Asia-Pacific including the Philippines can experience total recall in business via cloud computing services, provided the right infrastructure is set up first and an appropriate policy environment is put in place.
“The prospect of integrating cloud computing into our local enterprises promises improvements in sustainable job growth, higher wages and standards of living. It would change the Philippine market and play a large role in the evolution of our country to an innovation-based economy,” said Roger Somerville, BSA’s senior director for policy in Asia.
BSA, in tapping research firm Galexia, discovered the following factors and policies that are needed in order to promote the development and adoption of efficient and innovative cloud computing services. Among these factors range from IT security, cybercrime, interoperability, data privacy, intellectual property rights, international harmonization of rules, free trade, and also infrastructure.
Somerville noted that under the infrastructure issue, cloud computing can achieve its full potential only if there is robust, ubiquitous and affordable broadband access. And this can be achieved through policies that provide incentives for private sector investment in broadband infrastructure and laws that promote universal access to broadband.
Meanwhile, lawyer Bien Marquez, BSA consultant for the Philippines, observed that the Philippine legal system has some strong points, mainly in the areas of electronic commerce laws, electronic signature laws and some cybercrime laws.
"Cybercrime legislation has been under development for some time now and the enactment of these new laws could provide the security we need to meet global standards,” Marquez said.
However, as for the Philippines' intellectual property laws are concerned, Marquez said they only provide limited protection.
“There is no coverage of rights management information or circumvention technology in Philippine law, nor any privacy legislation against the exploitation of personal information," Marquez said. "These have been proposed and discussed in the legislature for several years but have yet to be approved.”
