MANILA, Philippines -- Filipino software developers should focus on open source in order to take advantage of existing market trends, a top executive of Sun Microsystems said.

Reggie Hutcherson, head of Sun's technology evangelism group, said today's generation of developers is challenged to learn multiple programming languages.

"Before, developers need only to master a few programming languages such as C++," Hutcherson said in an interview with INQUIRER.net. He visited Manila recently to speak at the Youth for IT Congress in UP Diliman.

He added: "Today developers are being challenged to learn multiple languages. You need to know a scripting language. You probably need to know a database infrastructure and integration and networking technology as well."

He took note of new and predominant technologies, such as PhP, Python and Ruby on Rails, used to create Web-based applications.

"The real challenge for developers is pick up all these technologies and use them across the board in terms of consulting, developing applications and integration," he said.

Based on industry data, the local software industry is composed of some 400 companies, although most of them are providing related services such as maintenance and customization.

Hutcherson noted: "There are a lot of multinational companies that have invested in the Philippines and what they are looking for are individuals that understand the changes taking place in technology."

Local developers are learning a great deal by providing third-party services to offshore customers, he said.

The Philippines, as an industry, can capitalize on its advantage as an English speaking country, he said. "Brazil, for example, has a lot of open source development," he said.

"But you cannot export a lot of the internal technologies they use in Brazil whereas in the Philippines that's not a problem," the executive said.

"The real challenge for the Filipino developer is learn various open source technologies and use them in heterogeneous environments and provide services to local and foreign companies," he added.