Intex Telecom Systems sells and distributes Nokia Networks, Nokia Internet Communications, and Nokia Professional Mobile Radio Systems (TETRA) products, to the extent that Intex provides services even in the roll-out of digital networks for the two leading mobile providers in our country, Globe and Smart.
This discovery of each other by Limon and Nokia has led to one of the most successful and fruitful collaborations known to local business. Ed, a Business Management graduate of Ateneo University, with an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management, has always carried the entrepreneurial spirit close to his heart. His earlier ventures as a young breadwinner, co-founding with his wife, a very nice lady called Sylvia, the Marymount Pre-School (where he found himself driving a van and picking up students of the school pro bono) showed the fire in his belly to make his enterprise succeed. Just before Limon founded Intex Telecom, his Intex Marketing and Development Corporation brought to the country the Sea-Doo power boats, the jet ski brands, and the popular Vespa scooters.
It was his keen awareness, however, that technology’s dynamism not only was so real, but will be the global boom it turned out to be, and of course, his foresight and vision, which made him set up Intex Telecom, now his flagship company. He had developed friendships with successful Finnish businessmen, strengthened by their membership to the Philippines-Finland Association. All this and hard work have made Intex Telecom Systems what it is today.
Its stellar business is currently Wireless Services Asia Inc (WSA), a subsidiary. I remember having been asked, after I left government service just a couple of years ago, to be one of the guests of honor when it was formally inaugurated. Offering services like ring tones, logos and picture messages, to the extent even of exporting these services to quite a number of countries in Europe and Asia, the Filipino’s technological capabilities and creativity are displayed as indeed on a par with the developed countries of the global community.
Less than two weeks ago, I received an invitation from Ed as president and CEO of Intex Telecom, and Claus Karthe, the Finnish chairman of Intex Holdings Corporation to be at Intex House as one of the sponsors for the blessing of three new offices. I felt bad that I was not able to attend, because I had been present at every office inauguration but could not make it now because of the Andrea Bocelli concert all the way out there at the Araneta Coliseum. And of course, everyone knows by now what a magnificent performer the blind tenor is. I am glad I went to the concert, but indeed felt bad that I missed the inauguration of three new offices at Intex House.
WSA promises to be the leading provider of cutting-edge mobile entertainment applications. The company’s product range is composed of high quality applications in the areas of mobile music, mobile imaging, mobile gaming, and of future applications that are so speedily developed limited only by human genius and imagination.
WSA now has subsidiaries in London, Helsinki, Singapore, and of course, Manila, as its hub in Asia. The customer base includes mobile operators in three continents, as well as TV broadcasting and production companies. The business focus which is both powerful and exciting is to provide state-of-the-art entertainment solutions addressing the needs of mobile users worldwide.
Content is sourced through a net of worldwide agreements with content owners in the music, film, and gaming industries, indeed an extremely exciting field, as well as through its own developments by its content team in Asia. I think it was very sensible and was indeed good judgment for WSA to focus on developing and delivering very compelling consumer entertainment-centered value added services. Using extensive research with regard to the cultural requirements and local trends, Limon, the exciting entrepreneur that he is, told me that they take pride indeed in ensuring the delivery of high quality content and services that satisfy even the most demanding customers.
William Shakespeare did say that "To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first." Of course, I don’t think he could ever have known that technology would be the way it is today. At a dinner last year, a friend of mine, big in business in our country, told me that it takes 20 years to be an "overnight success." It certainly hasn’t taken Limon and his team 20 years. In the early 1990s after we ventured to demonopolize and liberalize the telecom environment, and being worried about its successful implementation then, a well-known social scientist from Geneva wrote me to thank me for accepting his dinner invitation in Geneva and to reassure me of the success of Philippine telecom demonopolization. He wrote: "Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." I think Edgardo L. Limon and his team did just that: They set themselves on fire.