MAKATI CITY, Philippines -- Globe Telecom awarded P300,000 each to six winning teams in a recently concluded Globe Labs Challenge.

Launched in August, participating local teams were given at least two months to design and develop mobile applications using Globe's platform.

Globe Labs chose a winner in each of the following categories: location-based services media and file sharing, graphical user interface or GUI services, enhanced SMS/MMS, mobile social networking and mobile shopping.

The telecom firm launched Globe Labs in June to gather and support local developers.

There are more than 800 individual members in Globe Labs' developer community, according to Globe.

Harvey Libarnes, Globe Labs head, confirmed that Globe intends to commercialize these applications, although he did not say when these would be offered to subscribers.

"Some of these applications have immediate potential, some need to be developed further," Libarnes said in a press briefing.

Local developer D3 Systems won for an application called “Big Deal,” which allows users to purchase via GCash.

Another application called GCab is meant as an SMS system for taxi appointments.

"If you look at each of the categories, these will serve very concrete and specific user requirements," Libarnes said. "Instead of applications that are 'one-size fits all', we aim to create many applications that do different things."