From the brains to a brand - Philippine Daily Inquirer, 23 Jan 2010

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From the brains to a

brand

By Bing KimpoPhilippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 16:29:00 01/22/2011

Filed Under: Science & Technology, Electronic Commerce

MANILA, Philippines—For severaldecades, Asian industries have seemedcontent to remain at the background,providing manufacturing, research andother support services for Western brands.

In the last few years however, regional suppliers suchas BenQ, HTC and Huawei have begun to make thatleap of faith to the forefront, casting themselves in theretail shelves and spotlights, and facing customersworldwide carrying their own names.

Here in the Philippines, Butuan-based broadcastelectronics company Marjeds Systems Inc. (MSI,www.marjeds.com) is similarly throwing its hat in theglobal game, behind its own brand, Digital ST.

Digital ST is MSI’s stamp on its line of broadcastequipment for digital radio, TV, cable and satellite

systems. The Digital ST product portfolio includesbroadcast transmitters, satellite uplink and distributionfacilities and equipment, as well as set-top boxes.MSI’s big, hairy and audacious goal is to be a keyplayer as the broadcast media industry inches closer toward full digi talization.

An ambitious goal, perhaps, but one that MSI majorityowner and CEO Ed Millana, 39, believes the companyis prepared for. After all, he himself has trained for thismoment since Grade 5.

Yes, Grade 5.

In 1984, Ed Millana’s father unexpectedly received acall to take on a job in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hehurriedly prepared for his overseas contract, but wasleft to settle one last item of business before his trip:what to do with an already paid-for non-formal coursein electronics at the Agusan National High School in

Butuan? Gamely, his fifth-grade son took his slot. Sixmonths of entire Saturdays at school later, Ed Millanafinished the course, topped his class and evengraduated with honors.

In high school, Ed carried on his passion for electronics, repairing television sets and Betamaxvideo-cassette player-recorder units from his home-based shop. He later began his tertiary education atUrios College in Butuan, where he earned acertification as an electronics technician, before movingto Manila where he earned an ElectronicsCommunication Engineering degree from theUniversity of the East in 1995.

Following a two-year stint with electronics companyWEC, where he mastered the R&D and design aspectsof radio communications equipment, Millana returnedto Butuan in 1997 to become an entrepreneur. Hefounded MSI with a starting capital of P10,000. His

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company’s business initially consisted of more repair work on radio communications equipment.

MSI’s big break came in 1998, when it wascommissioned by Keppel Communications as a sub-contractor to survey prospective cell sites in Cebu for Globe Telecom. Two years later, SMARTCommunications hired MSI to build cellsites for its newdigital GSM network, a contract that soon expanded toover 250 cell sites. Apart from SMART, MSI also builtsome 50 cell sites for Globe Telecom.

In 2006, with a worthy war chest from its lucrative cellsite construction contracts, MSI decided to investheavily in research and development, spending onsoftware, test equipment and engineers.

The gamble paid off, as MSI began bagging contractsfor R&D work from Chinese and Korean originalequipment manufacturers (OEMs). It was also awardedprojects by UK defense contractor RacalCommunications.

Three years later, armed with experience and expertiseas a subcontractor, MSI decided it was ready to breakin to the scene with its own brand. In 2009, MSIsecured permits from the National TelecommunicationsCommission (NTC) to manufacture and distributebroadcast electronics equipment. The companysubsequently began producing its own Digi tal ST-branded products.

Today, MSI’s Digital ST equipment is all over the world.In the Philippines, its transmitters are used by the likesof Progressive Broadcasting Network and block timer UNTV. Abroad, Digital ST equipment has been broughtby MSI resellers to customers in several countries—even those on the leading edge of broadcastelectronics themselves, such as EMC in Germany,RRSat and Sentinel-SMG LLC in the United States,and SET Ltd in Georgia. A Digital ST satellite encoder even reportedly sits on a rack of a Fox affiliate in theUS.

Apart from selling its own equipment, MSI now is alsothe regional representative of foreign brands in thebooming broadcast electronics space. These includethe Israel-based LiveU brand of backpack satelliteuplink equipment.

“The Filipino has always been known to be crafty,brainy—in our own l ingo, ‘wais,’” says Millana. This hasserved us well in supporting foreign business, whether as subcontractors or as service providers, he explains.

“The challenge—and opportunity—for all of us now,” heshares, “is to move up to the next level and bring our own brands to the rest of the world.”

Copyright 2011 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This mater ial may not be published, broadcast,rewritten or redistributed.

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From the brains to a brand - Philippine Daily Inquirer, 23 Jan 2010

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