Last summer, the rest of my batchmates and I took out internship at selected companies all over the metro. This is just actually an elective subject picked by incoming seniors in our university's BS Computer Science program.The company where two of my close friends had their summer internships in is Globe Labs, the official development arm of Globe Telecom. During their stay there, they, along with 14 other interns from 4 other universities, developed applications that may be downloaded and used by Globe subscribers upon launch.
Back then, they still wouldn't tell what the application they were working on was. It's because there is a secrecy clause in their internship contract. They only told me that it might be released in he future, so I just waited instead.
Months later, I just found out that their application was actually the first one to be launched by Globe Labs. The app, called Web2Mobile, is a Firefox plug-in that allows Globe subscribers to use their browsers as the extension of their mobile phones. This means you can already send SMS and MMS messages without actually using your mobile phones.
But you will probably say that this is just like a plug-in version of Chikka. Wrong. This one is even better, because it also allows you to highlight text or images from any website and send them by right-clicking and choosing the Send option. Yes, folks, it is that convenient. No more need to copy-and-paste or text outright any good information you see in the Web.
Of course, since the app is still in its infancy, a lot is still left to be desired. For instance, you can only add fellow Globe subscribers as contacts (though with the help of my friend, I was able to tweak the code and include them), and Globe text promos like Unlitxt are still disregarded. Even when you're on Unlitxt, you still have to pay a 1-peso charge for every text message.
But, hey, this is already a good start. With Smart's purchase of Chikka and the release of this new app, the competition between the two telecom giants has just become even hotter.
