Chikka Asia goes for CMMI level 5 rating

November 25, 2005

Chikka Asia, Inc., creators of the popular Internet to mobile text messaging application Chikka Messenger announced they are now being assessed at Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Level 5 of Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI). Maturity Level 5 is the highest standard of quality in the Information Technology Industry.

SEI-authorized ECCInternational, which is conducting the assessment further confirmed that Chikka is the only wholly Filipino-owned company to be appraised at this level.

Chikka would also be the first among wireless applications services providers (WASPs) worldwide, to be assessed at CMMI 5, with said assessment expected completed within December 2005.

“We have services which are now live in operation by over 30 telco operators in 11 countries. Higher and higher standards of quality are required by Chikka Asia today as we are now truly a global headquarters whose policies are standard and are adhered to by licensees and operational offices servicing telco partners all over the world,” said Chito Bustamante, Chikka chief operating officer.

The company only in February this year received ISO certifications for IT, information security and quality management becoming the first Filipino IT company to obtain the triple certifications.

“We owe high levels of service quality to our telco customers and partners through whose networks our services in turn become available to hundreds of millions of cellular phone subscribers, thus the quest for CMMI 5,” added Bustamante.

CMMI is the internationally recognized model that organizations such as Intel, NOKIA, JP Morgan, and even NASA compare their own processes to. This model was born in the federally-funded Software Engineering Institute (SEI) established at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Manila-based Chikka is a pioneer in wireless application services development.

Currently present in 11 countries with services live over 30 international telco carriers, Chikka is the Philippines’ leading ‘exporter’ of SMS-based applications. The company’s flagship service Chikka Messenger has over 20 million users, and is the most widely-used and viewed electronic properties by Filipinos worldwide, next to email itself.

Chikka and its affiliates adhere to the new global standards for Information Security Management Systems (BS7799) and IT Services Management Systems (BS15000). Chikka also revalidated the ISO 9001:2000 standard for Quality Management Systems first obtained in 2002.

Source: The Manila Bulletin