From INQUIRER.net

MAKATI CITY, Philippines -- A Filipino venture capitalist advocating the open source model in software development has founded an incubation firm to help local, smaller software vendors get to market quickly­ using the software as a service delivery model.

Software as a service refers to the practice of hosting software on the web and charging users for its use as opposed to selling copies of the software to its users.

The new company, called Morph Labs Inc., will fund, house and help small software companies in the country grow, said Winston Damarillo, managing director of Global Gateway Ventures, a new venture capital firm that has several software firms under its portfolio.

Exist Global, another software company founded by Damarillo, will provide the software engineering talent to Morph Labs.

Morph Labs, on the other hand, will be hosting web applications developed by the local software vendors and deliver them to Exist Global customers, Damarillo added.

“We want to be a marketplace for software as a service,” the executive said.

Asked how different is Morph Labs' concept of incubating companies, Damarillo said previous incubation firms have focused on saving cost by sharing facilities.

“We will create a marketplace and help them make it work for them apart from just funding them,” he said.

The incubation firm is currently employing 12 people, but intends to increase its manpower to 50 to 60 in a few months.

Morph Labs will provide the marketing, operations, support, and web hosting of applications, Damarillo said.

The Filipino venture capitalist admitted that using the term incubation does not really capture what Morph Labs wants to do.

“If you're a software developer but don't know how to make a business out of it, then Morph Labs will come in and help you make it work,” he said.

Morph Labs is coming out with its first product in September, which is a documentation system for open source projects.

Steve Nathan, CEO of Exist Global, said that Morph Labs also aims to develop a re-usable framework for software platforms.

“It is going to be an amplifier for software companies,” Nathan said.

Damarillo said that this is his way to contribute to stimulating the local software industry.

“The opportunity for software as a service is being powered by the rapid commoditization of IT infrastructure and various business applications, the rise of open source software and the growing acceptance of using applications that are hosted by an external vendor,” Damarillo said.

“This presents an incredible window for Morph to collaborate with ISVs and aspiring entrepreneurs to co-create applications and web services that are delivered through a common infrastructure,” he said.