Urban development in the future

There are two reports now that are interesting in this aspect. One is talking about Samsung's ambitiuos plans to transform the southern part of Korea into a "Crystal Valley" by 2010 with an investment of US$17 billion. This valley, generating 20,000 new jobs, is the location to produce next-generation display technologies, such as liquid crystal displays and plasma display panels as the "next big thing after semiconductors.

In Malaysia and coincidenting with the visit of Bill Gates talks are happening to link intelligent cities in to other intelligent cities in the world. This is planned under the second phase of the Multimedia SuperCorridor (MSC) from 2003 to 2010. According to the New Straits Times of today, "the MSC development plan, Phase One (1996-2003), saw the creation of the MSC, which includes one corridor, 50 world-class companies, seven flagship applications, a world-leading framework of cyberlaws, and the establishment of Cyberjaya and Putrajaya as intelligent cities.

Phase Two (2003-2010) aims to create a web of corridors, 250 world-class companies, set global standards in flagship applications, establish a harmonised global framework of cyberlaws and four to five intelligent cities linked to other global cybercities.

Phase Three (2010-2020) will see the transformation of Malaysia into a "knowledge-based society" with 500 world-class companies, a global test-bed for new multimedia applications, an International Cybercourt of Justice in the MSC, and 12 intelligent cities linked to the global information highway.

Bill Gates, of course had his own agenda, namely to get the support of the Malaysian government for Windows vis-a-vis the open source program Linux, which recently became nearly succeeded in being installed governmental departments in Thailand and China, where Microsoft is also battling an uphill battle.

The plans of the Malaysian government are great - and, if translated, might put Malaysia stronger onto the global map as a market player, and strengthen its position against fierce competitive forces of China, which threatens in low-value areas that are currently a stronghold for Malaysia. However, it also needs to be translated into real actionsteps to overcome the challenges that the MSC faced in earlier development stages.

Mobile data - a dream coming true

Over the last couple of days and weeks, Asia Business Consulting reported about dreams and hopes of companies betting on 3G, not only here in Asia but also in Europe. So far, data about growth for such applications have frequently been exaggerated, as most mobile phone users still use their phones mainly for voice and SMS, both applications that are quickly becoming commodities, and subject to price wars of mobile phone carriers.

However, slowly but steadily, the scenery is changing, and over in Japan, the usage of mobile data is already booming. A survey conducted by the Mobile Contents Forum (MCF) found out that Japan's paid content market for fiscal 2003 (4/03 to 3/04) increased by 31%.

While the musical ring tone service accounts for 60% of the market - and show a slower growth of only 11%, game applications are also growing rapidly.

One warning to those data - while they sound hard, and based on financial figures, we shouldn't forget who announced the results - still, if true, the good times for mobile carriers are not going to be over any time soon.

Cost of Outsourcing

Okay - we have talked often enough about outsourcing, its trends and its effects. But it appears that after the discussion faded a bit into the background in the US probably due to the rebound in the economy, the discussion now started in Australia. We reported last week (June 23, 2004) that EDS is heading towards Malaysia, from Australia.

Now, the Australian News puts up some warning signs saying that the expected return on investments is not always there. We wouldn't disagree - companies need to look beyond cost savings to reap the benefits of outsourcing. They need to identify quality providers with solid business background - otherwise, bad work and project delays might be the result of outsourcing. This is no difference to anything a business does - looking for a new supplier, a new distribution chain and so forth. If one piece of the value chain breaks, well, costs run up quickly.

SK Telecom goes for further integration

SK Telecom in Korea is a pretty strong company in the country's telecommunications landscape. Now it goes a step further - the company assumes that mobile service alone won't be enough in the future and as such, wants to strengthen its affiliate SK Teletech and acquire design house Bellwave, a handset maker.

This can be a valuable move, but more likely, it is dangerous. Consumers frequently purchase known brands to them - Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson or Motorola. Mobile carriers are somewhat allied with those companies. The move by SK Telecom could aliniate handset producers as SK enters their market place in a more aggressive manner by looking at handset makers that are not that much known in the market - a company named Maxon Telecom is in the play.

In the end, if the company cannot attract consumers to purchase its handsets, it might hurt the bottom line of the mothership, SK Telecom.

New world record in SMS typing

Well, the speed of texting is increasing. Last time, the record was smashed on June 8, 2004 (see our related entry) - it took only 3 weeks, to further lower the time, someone types the sentence ""The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human." Kimberly Yeo, 23, clocked 43.24 seconds for typing this now famous 26 words.

Microsoft and blogging

It has been only last month since we speculated that Microsoft would launch its own blogs - well, there are about 700 bloggers in Microsoft already, blogging about everything from their daily lifes in Microsoft to discussions about new products and product updates at Microsoft.

Well, it might be that soon, we will be able to read Bill Gates' own blog - which might contain business news and probably a lot of promotion for Microsoft and bedeviling of competitors), but also about his private life.

Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray would not confirm the story, but left open the possibility, saying, "Bill would love to do his own blog at some point in the future, time permitting." Well, let's see, if there is anoything new or of interest to keep track of Bill's thinking.

Korea's portals going for increased storage space

Competition pays its toll in Korea, where local portals started to increase storage space of their e-mail services. Apparently, the local battle started to heat up about 2 months back with CJ Internet Corp launched its own portal site mym.net or daum.net, Korea's largest internet portal.

The moves is following those of their international competitors Google, and Yahoo, where were followed by Microsoft's Hotmail. The latter announced a plan to increase their storage space to MB250 last week.

However the battle ends, it shows that storage space is quickly becoming a commodity - and that services surrounding the offering is what will drive the user to signing up with an e-mail account.

Great article about the rise of Korea as a tech powerhouse

The article by CNet describes in detail the rise of Korea as a tech powerhouse. It has three sections:

1.) Nation: Techno-revolution in the making

2.) Business: An industry stalwart is born - the story about Samsung

3.) Consumers: Gaming their way to growth

We are not describing the article, but just recommend it. Your computer needs to be PDF enabled, so to speak, to download the material.

Compatible gadgets - would that be nice

We all know how it is - we have various gadgets that don't work with each others and we basically curse and swear (sorry the language), that they are always not compatible.

May be this will change in the future - a group of the world's largest computer and electronic firms came together to discuss common groundrules for building compatible electronic devices that can share movies, music and others.

So while the 145 companies discussed, they came up with the idea "products that meet the specifications of the Digital Living Network Alliance will be awarded a logo that will let shoppers know that such a device will work with other certified products. The first compatible electronics could start appearing on store shelves in the end of this year."

While this sounds good, one common problem came up - the issue of protecting digital content from theft - which is apparently more important than thinking of the consumer first. There are enough studies existing that show that downloading of music, for example, has certain reasons, and does in no way damage sales of the record industry.

Addicted to mobile phones

Okay - this study comes from the UK, but we believe it might as well be applicable to Asia. People are addicted to their mobile phones - this might be the newest form (or isn't it an old hat already?), after addiction to the Internet, sex, drugs, gambling, etc.

The study, based on 150,000 respondents, reports a dramatic increase in the numbers of addicted individuals from last year. They distinguish various types, from the addicted "cyborg" to the "m-ager", a new generation of phone-addicted teenagers.

The heavy finding is that addicted individuals cannot cope if they are 6 feet away from their moble phone - and the mobile phone takes over multiple functions, such as watch, alarm clock etc. Addicted individuals personalise their phones and send dozens of SMS daily. Without indicating how the group was identified, the report states that about 18% of mobile phone users were addicted but refused to admit it - and those are the ones who spend most on their payment - always run over the limits of the sign-up and pay larger penalties.

EDS heading for Malaysia

EDS, one of the largest IT companies in the world, might move hundreds of jobs offshore from Australia to Malaysia, under the company's best shore policy.

The Australian newspaper reports that "an employee told AustralianIT that staff had been asked not to discuss the matter externally but indications were that within 12 months most people not directly servicing the South Australian Government contract would be made redundant."

While this is good news for Malaysia, it is hard for Australia which is also hit by the debate about the impact of offshoring of jobs - however the company needs to make it clear in communications - and not secrecy (pst, don't tell anyone) - that jobs will remain in Australia, and that this is a chance to focus on the creation of high value jobs. But this is the problem and challenge that many companies engaged in offshoring business processes face.

Handbag scanner - a weapon against snatch thieves

Its the newest thing in the UK, and it might as well become fashionable in Asia, where the discussion about snatch thieves is as hot as elsewhere in the world.

We are talking about a fingerprint scanner, invented by a 23 year old, that fits any handbag and stores pre-set fingerprints. It allows only the "registered owner" to open it - if the one trying to open it is not registered, the closes.

Basically a good idea, but then, snatch thieves might just use a knife to cut the bag open - so next would be a handbag with steel walls.

ExxonMobile employees not allowed to use mobile phones while driving

We all know the situation - someone in front of us is suddenly driving slower, swerving from left to right - is the driver drunk? No, it didn't appear to be like this before. In fact, the mobile phone rang - and the driver is scrambling to get it out from the pouch and on to the ear.

ExxonMobile is putting a stop to it - according to statements they forbid their employees to use the mobile phone while driving. Argument?

"With the pervasiveness of mobile phones in recent years, we felt we needed to put some requirements in place for the good of our employees and the communities in which we operate."

This is great, since they also found out that "that drivers using cell phones were found to have a braking reaction time three times longer than drivers under the influence of alcohol, and a fourfold increase in risk compared to not using a cell phone."

So - don't drive and yak, okay?

Teachers in China sell exam results

Just last week did we report about those people in China who used mobile phones to send the results of exam tests to those being tested. This one is slightly different in the sense, that teachers are involved directly - they actually used their cellphones to send messages with the correct answers to students who paid them. "Students and teachers in the scam used text messages and digital cameras to pass questions to other teachers outside the exam room, who then looked up the answers before messaging the answer to the students" - one moment - they had to look the answers up? That actually means that the teachers were not necessarily sure of the right answers and needed to check.

Shareholder meetings via mobile phones

Interesting - if you remember, annual meetings of shareholders in Asia are always connected to food, and sometimes, one does not know if th food is more important or the meeting.

In Japan, now, 14 companies, inclusive NTT DoDoMo and Sony Corp, allow their shareholders to vote via mobile phones. All 774 shareholders of NTT DoCoMo did so last week - only 774 (may be the major ones)?

How do you know, the right person is actually using the phone ? What will happen, if someone mugs ones mobile phone just before the meeting?

Smartphone anti-virus program in Korea

SK Telecom, in response to the first mobile phone worm in the world, ahs developed the industry's first antivirus program for wireless Internet platform for interoperability, Korea's standard for mobile phones.

Interestingly, it is pretty easy to get rid of the worm, if you got it in the first place. And, secondly, how big can a program be, for a virus or a worm, when there is actually none existing?

A battle of giants - Korean mobile phone makers becoming more aggressive

Three Korean mobile phone makers - Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech & Curitel Co. strategise to increase their market share in the global camera phone market against current giants of Nokia, or NEC - the article doesn't mention Sony Ericsson, but this is probably implied. However, it is interesting that the article doesn't mention Motorola - which had trouble in rolling out camera phones last year, and Siemens - Siemens mobile phone production is so insignificant for the company that it might be divested, sooner or later.

Samsung had a market share of 11.8% of global camera-phone sales of 84 million units in 2003. Samsung was ranked third after NEC of Japan with 15.5% and Finland's Nokia with 13%, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics. LG was ranked five.

The companies aim to add more features, and ramp up production to capture a higher share of the market. The share of camera phones to total production in all three companies will be around 50 percent.

The global camera-phone market this year will double to 170 million units from 84 million last year, Strategy Analytics forecast.

Energy provider Tenaga Nasional of Malaysia to venture into ICT

Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia's company currently engaged in the energy business - generation, transmission and distribution of energy, with assets in fibre optics laid along its national power grid and transmission lines, intends to venture into broadband services via its subsidiary Fibrecomm and through a tie up with communications company Asiaspace, as reported in the local newspaper New Straits Times.

Broadband usage in Malaysia is still extremely low with 110,000 subscribers or 0.44% of its population compared to its Asian peers, especially Singapore (31%), S-Korea (75%) or Japan.

There is also no real competition yet in the country with Telekom Malaysia clearly dominating the market, and even now in the current discussion, it is said that the issue of competition will have to be "sorted out" between the two local giants - for whatever this means.

It hopefully means that the consumer will benefit from the market entry. However, considering that a different mindset is needed when entering a new market segment, plus the experience of Malaysian consumers with the traditional services of Tenaga Nasional, consumers might just get the same of the old experience again.

Wi-Fi in Asian airliners

It probably is a response to upstart no-frills companies like AirAsia in Malaysia or Value Air from Singapore. Airliners like Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines (JAL) followed by China Airlines and Korean Air plan to roll out airborne internet services by teaming up with Boeing Co. unit Connexion.

No-frills or discount airliners over the last couple of months, especially, threatened to take away major business from established carriers - it even let to a discussion in Malaysia to allow AirAsia to serve all domestic flights with Malaysian Airline System (MAS) concentrating on long-distance flights - MAS is profitable on the latter, but looses money domestically.

All in all, this indicates the will of established carriers to fight back and concentrate on those niches and segments of the market that still generate the highest return for them.

China's mobile telecommunications market becomes more competitive

It is happening all over the world - mobile carriers grow rapidly, when the market is still new. In the beginning, they just sign up any subscriber they can. At a later stage, carriers mainly focus on the high end of the market, on those subscribers that generate the highest bills and use most of additional value added offers of a company. Than, suddenly, this market segment saturates - high end users need to be enticed with more and more incentives to sign up with the carriers. In order to grow subscription, mobile carriers redirect their attention to other market segments - and everything becomes more competitive.

It now starts to happen in China - the country with the highest mobile numbers in the world. While the companies in the segment still add four to eight subscribers each month, still making it a fast growth market for the time being, it becomes more competitive to add subscribers and incentives are being shelled out.

The online version of the Wall Street Journal (Friday 16, 2004) reports about growing competition and competition is so fierce that "Chinese phone companies are establishing VIP clubs for their favorite, high-end users. According to the study findings by BDA China Ltd, perks include gold-plated membership cards, special airport lounges and programs that dole out airline frequent-flier miles for consumers who spend a lot of time talking on their phones" - which naturally puts pressure on their margin.

Computers stolen from fair about crime-stopping technology

One can do a lot to increase security - you can increase the height of your fence, install security cameras, or use more locks. However, this doesn't help much, if you leave the door open - basically. In Hong Kong, thieves apparently went into a fair about crime-stopping technology and snatched two laptop computers - where else would it be possible to try a daring stunt?

Chinese CEOs believe in customer orientation

Yesterday's Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ) reports that about 25% of CEOs in China are unhappy with their board of directors and only 28% believe their board is doing a good job.

The survey, conducted by PR company Hill & Knowlton of the US also stated that the vast majority of the Chinese CEOs focussed on the customers as the one group that has the highest influence on the corporate reputation of a company, ahead of media, government and shareholders.

Hm - can the reason for this result be that a PR agency conducted the survey under the motto, what you shout in the forest comes back to you? Or, is the CEO above the board of directors, but not responsible to them? Anyway, interesting findings.

Samsung Corp. - the challenges of being public

This is an interesting case. Samsung Corp. of Korea is one of the most exciting companies in Asia, and this despite the fact that it is not necessarily known for the best corporate goverance around. Korea is also one of those countries in Asia, where the population is very much opposed to foreign ownership of its companies. Now it might be that these two facts head towards a collision.

Foreign investors, naturally attracted by a roaring Samsung, have started to buy shares of the company in the open market - total foreign shareholding stands at 46.3% in June compared to 19.6% in May. However, this might require that foreign shareholders combine their "attack" to take over the company - something that we don't necessarily foresee in the near future, although SK Corp, another Korean conglomerate, was under takeover threats just a couple of months ago.

Marrying fixed line telecommunications with mobile services

Every fixed line operator, nearly all around the world, is faced with declining numbers of subscribers. Subscribers that quickly move to mobile subscribers. Various measures have been applied to make the fixed line business more attractive, such as SMS via fixed line - not realising, that the beauty of SMS is that you can do it on the run, and that the target group of SMS via fixed line is pretty small.
KT Corp, the largest telecommunications company in Korea is now trying something interesting to keep its subscribers of all segments in the ICT industry - Internet, fixed line, and mobile. The company has been granted a license by the government for a "One-Phone" service, effectively allowing customers to use both, fixed-line and mobile phones with one device. It basically works like a call forwarding function in the manner that an inbound fixed line phone call will transit automatically to a mobile handset when the user is inside the house or the office. While this is still somewhat inconvenient, it is a begin. How about one number, as one step further, for both fixed line and mobile?

NTT DoDoMo goes for virtual wallets

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's mobile phone giant, battled with growing competition, is betting that mobile phones will develop into virtual wallets. From July onwards, subscribers can buy handsets with smart card electronic cash, train pass and identification card functions. Top-ups can be downloaded from the Internet. The nice piece is that once you loose the handset, owners can lock it remotely, to secure the cash balance that might still be on it.

Singaporean says "no more spam in 2 years time"

We all know that Spam is clocking our inbox - and while employees in companies frequently say that the amount of spam went down, it is only, because IT departments spend more to get spam filters up. In Singapore one adjunct associate professor called Ravi Sharma in the division of information studies at their Nanyang Technological University says that just because society doesn't like spam, it will kill spam - and this will happen over the next 2 years. Really? He argues that in a society, "you never have a majority suffering under an onslaught from an inconsiderate minority. An equilibrium will be achieved." Well, there is probably only a minority, who does like wars - and we still have wars. Or, we would love to have a clean environment - but how far have we moved from this? Okay - give the guy a benefit of the doubt, and let's check again June 17, 2006, will we?

China mobile numbers growing

China, already the world's largest market for mobile phones, is growing the numbers further. A US High Tech market research firm even predicts that by 2008, the country will have 118 million 3G subscribers - okay, we reported earlier that those numbers should always be taken carefully, as for example, Nokia's President Pekka Ala-Pietila stated recently (AFX, June 14, 2004), that the main growth of subscribers in China will mainly come from 2.5 G networks.

Overall, the market research firm also estimated that mobile subscribers in China will grow fromclose to 270 million in 2003 to nearly 500 million in 2008 - giving it an annual growth rate of 11.7% and a penetration of 37.6% in 2008.

Earlier (South China Morning Post, June 4, 2004), another market research firm called Asian Marketng Research Directions noted that current mobile phone penetration in rural areas has reached 13%, 51% in cities and 44% in towns - showing again the pitfalls for accurate numbers in Asia, and the need to compare findings to come to a somewhat accurate conclusion.

Mobile phones used during Chinese college entry exam

Five suspects have been arrested in China, accused of "stealing exam questions". The suspects apparently succeeded in arranging for others to enter the exam site, sit as exam takers and leave the exam room with questions, before the testing was over - this actually leaves the question of supervision of exam takers, since some of the suspects were jobless juveniles - and finally sent the right responses to exam takers via handphone.

Responses were sold for up to US$120. Parents even complained that some of the responses sold were not accurate.

In a different area in China, a survey had been conducted among college students and half of the 900 respondents stated that they had cheated in exams at least once. And 18% of those respondents who have not been caught admitted that they would do it again.

Korean companies voted into BusinessWeek's Information Technology 100 companies list

We reported about LG's culture in Korea back in April 16, 2004, and compared it to the Samsung culture. LG now made a point - it was voted in the top slot of the magazine's 2004 Information Technology 100 companies list, saying "the home appliance company is making strides in shifting to consumer electronics". Besides LG, Samsung Electronics as well as SK Telecom Co. made it to the list, on rank 11 and 23, respectively. Congratulations!

Nokia goes hip

Nokia, battled with declining market share, has finally decided to go hip - they finally offered a phone in clamb-style fashion, long after their main rivals from Motorola, and Samsung.
The Finnish handset maker's slide began in 2003 and has continued this year, as reported by ZDNet. Nokia accounted for 44.7 million of the 153 million phones shipped in the first quarter of 2004, down 11 million from the previous quarter, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

Well, consumers sure can look forward to great things to come, since competition always creates more innovation.

Creditcard skimmers in Shanghai

This is kind of cute or daring - waiters in a Shanghai restaurant didn't want to skim a customer's card. They simply told him that something was wrong with his card and asked him to wait - following they went to a nearby mobile shop to buy handphones.

The customer only recognised the case when the creditcard company called him to inquire, if he just bought mobile phones for US$3,000. How daring, and good to have a good creditcard company, right?

If you can't beat them, entice them ...

That is what China currently seems to try, accoring to the related Yahoo article. Realising that it is pretty difficult to filter all the material that is considered non-desirable and to control the current 80 million Internet users, they now established a webpage, that allows "people to report unlawful" content.

Justifying its tougher policies, China states that the young should not be exposed to violence, and pornography, which is blaming the tool, namely the Internet- and not the person, actually logging in to such sides.

Singapore moblogs the National Day Parade

Still some time to go until we reach August 9, but Singapore gets ready for its Independence Day already, in a rather unusual way - they are moblogging the event - and the committee has established a related webpage - check it out at their webpage.

While it might be true that they are the first and so far only nation in the world who is moblogging their national event, we are not sure about the reality of their second claim - namely, that they have the largest per capita of bloggers in the world - as reported in the related article on ChannelNewsAsia (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/technologynews/view/89250/1/.html).. We never saw such statistic - has anyone?

Camera phones encroaching digital camera territory

It was sure to come, but interestingly, after all the books and studies about disruptive technologies, it still isn't a trend recognised early enough or dismissed as irrelevant and not appropriate - until it is happening. Now it is happening to the digital camera manufacturers - the Kodak's and the Canon's. Reuters reports that especially Asian mobile phone makers roll out handsets that get better and better and better.

What does this indicate? That the megapixel market moves upwards, away from the 1 megapixel or 2 megapixels, to higher and higher values - soon, 6 megapixels or even 8 will be more common.

Camera phones' greatest advantage simply is, that they can be connected to the Internet and you can send pictures to friends, families or just moblog. Will we have digital cameras that can connect to the internet or which allow to send pictures to friends? What is so far missing is the strength of zooms.

To give some impression of the growth, let's give some nubmers: sales of camera-equipped phones outnumbered those of digital cameras in 2003 for the first time, rising almost five-fold from 2002 to 84 million.

Strategy Analytics (US) forecasts the market to double in 2004 to 174 million phones. Digital camera shipments are expected to grow at a slower 40%- pace tp 68.5 million units, peacking at 77.5 million phones in 2005 and falling in 2006.

Interestingly, Casio from Japan will be ahead of the pack when they, together with telecommunications carrier KDDI, launch a 3.2 megapixel handset that competes against its own digital cameras. Cannibalisation - that is what it is called, and that is the way to go.

Demand for mobile phones continues to grow

We have some new numbers on mobile phone usage - globally and here in the Asian region.

Gartner Research reports that "153m mobile phone handsets were sold in the first three months of 2004,which is 34% up on the same quarter last year,with mobile phone sales for 2004 on track to hit 600m by the end of the year." Already yesterday wsa reported in the AWSJ, that the China government is of the opinion that 25% of the Chinese population is owning a mobile phone by the end of this year - astonishing numbers!!

Another report, this time by IDC (and this is the beauty of reading Asia Business Consulting, since we have that many sources, combining them all for a perfect overview - okay enough of that), forecasts that "30 million people, or 17 per cent of US mobile subscribers, to use the web on phones in 2006,while currently in Japan about 44.8 million people, or 58 per cent of internet users, access the web on their mobile phones. Internet access will be available on most of the approx 600 million mobile phones expected to be sold worldwide this year." Impressive numbers and we look forward to the browser wars on mobile phones.

New World Record in SMS

On May 7, we reported about a new world record in SMS speed typing. Remember, Briton Mr James Trusler typed the sentence "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human" in just 67 seconds.

Well, the record didn't stay there for long. It took Singaporean teenager Joshua Tay just 58 seconds to smash the world record for the texting. Amazing.

Technology to change cultural values

A study has been published in Australia indicating that the texting habit (SMS) and internet chatrooms participating of the youth is actually indicating that they search for community - and to get a sense of belonging.

Social researcher Hugh Mackay said that "having grown up knowing only instability, uncertainty and unpredictability", Generation Y had instinctively drawn together to cope". He continues by saying that "They are the most intensely tribal, herd-based generation of young Australians I've ever known."

It was always clear that technology enables change - one can reach out to other cultures and countries, can find friends in places like Friendster or report from places like Iraq that are mired in a different kind of challenge. And sure it also allows people to start to express themselves - one can approach others and doesn't need to be too conscious about looks, in the beginning. So naturally, values begin to shift - and people begin to build communities of interest again, away from pure individualism. Interesting.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Karaoke on the mobile phone

Last Sunday, we reported about taxis in Taiwan that allowed passengers to sing Karaoke, and we didn't realise that a similar concept actually exists in Malaysia already, however, here, you can sing Karaoke on your mobile phone. Celcom, one of Malaysia's largest mobile operator, introduced the service in December 2003 for those subscribers with a GPRS enabled handset.

Last month, in May 2004, Vodafone introduced such service in Japan -

We haven't heard anybody in Malaysia singing Karaoke on the mobile phone - or may be it is done in the jams, and with the car windows closed, we do not hear the singing, what might be a blessing -, but it could take off in Japan - Japanese love Karaoke (is this a prejudice?). Their webpage promotes it as follows: "You download backing tracks to the phone from the web, plug the handset into your TV, and sing into the mouthpiece. Hey presto, voice plus music issue forth from the TV speakers. Fun at parties! Just don't invite us." (http://www.textually.org/ringtonia/archives/003823.htm)

Sony and the Walkman

Everybody attributes Sony with the invention of the Walkman. It basically puts the company on the map as being one of the most innovative companies. However, Akio Morita, former CEO and suppose to be the "inventor" of the Walkman would turn in his grave if he would know that Sony paid several million Euros to a German inventor who patented the idea in 1977.

The battle and negotiation between the person, Mr. Andreas Pavel, and Sony went on for about 20 years, all in all, and actually, he once was nearly bankrupt in course of the lawsuit. Well, it didn't start off that badly, but went on for a longer time, but was conducted on a friendly basis between the two parties first. CNet reports that " Sony always rejected Pavel's claim that he had invented the gadget. In 1989, Pavel turned to the British justice system to establish his ownership of the rights. After more than seven years, Pavel's suit was dismissed, and he found himself near bankruptcy because the court costs--nearly 3 million euros (US$3.68 million)--were charged to him. Pavel threatened to continue his battle in other countries where he held a patent. In 2001, Sony changed its stance and agreed to start new negotiations with Pavel, which led to the settlement." (). Interesting story!

Sing Karaoke in the taxi

Karaoke is all the rage in Asia, and who would have guessed that in Taiwan, one can sing along a happy tune in the taxi . As quoted, it is a normal looking cab, from the outside, but once inside, but has a TV screen installed on the dashboard between the driver and the passenger. This can only happen in Asia, can it? Or do we have a similar story from elsewhere?

Smoke alarm detector most innovative tool

We found this article on BBC on Friday already but while we think it is kind of cute, we weren't sure how to sell it on Asia Business Consulting's web blog. But here we go. There is this survey conducted in the UK by Innovation by the Nation, asking 2,000 people of what they think is the most innovative gadget.

And it is hard to believe, but it is the smoke detector. Ahead of digital cameras, mobile phones or other useful things like the microwave. Hmmm - makes you think of the general environment in which the British are living, but in the report is mentioned that the smoke detector has been installed in all buildings in the UK. Okay, and that is persuasive, and may be it gives the British a feeling of security. More security than, for example, the mobile phones, that came in second place or the microwave oven. What do the British want to have as innovation? A third was voting for a washing machine that washes, dries and irons, others want weight loss drinks (probably instantly), or a time capsule that beats traffic jams.

I believe that the latter is very welcome in Asia, too, while for the washing machine, well, there are still the maids in Asia and countries like the Philippines or Indonesia would loose a lot of foreign revenue, if countries like Malaysia or Singapore would use those washing machines instead of having maids in their households. But Asians would never think of a smoke detector (may be only if given the choice), but surely would never give up the mobile phones. In fact, we believe that this is considered the most innovative gadget in Asia. Any opinion?

E-books on the mobile phone

We are not sure if we would like it, as a different mindset to do so is important, but well, everything seems possible in the e-world of Korea. A company called Booktopia, that earlier published e-books for PDAs realised that there business model didn't work anymore - no one is buying PDAs in Korea anymore. Instead of giving up, the company showed agility and ability to adjust and now - there books are available on the mobile phone with apparent success - the sales grew by over 200% annually since 2000. And since screens on the mobile phone are getting bigger, well, it should be possible even for us to soon read our books on their screen. Nice job!!!

Korea to lower legal adult age to 19

This is good news for many Koreans. Once implemented as law, they can do a lot more with 19 than what was allowed earlier. Apparently this involvesvote, marry without their parents' permission and drive once they turn 19, under a government plan to lower the age of majority from the current 20. They will also be able to enter independently into legally binding contracts. And it might be that they finally are allowed to view restricted movies, videos and Internet sites, purchase lottery tickets, apply for credit cards, visit nightclubs and casinos and buy cigarettes and liquor - all of which are now officially off limits to anyone below 20.

What do we believe? We believe that the government is legalising what was very common earlier. Sneaking into movies, visiting clubs, or internet webpages. Only now it gets legal.

Website fight leads to murder

This is sad. In Japan, an 11 year old girls is suspected of illing her 12 year old classmate after a conflict that arouse from instant messaging (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040603a1.htm).

Taxing SMS in the Philippines

We wrote about it earlier, way earlier already, and we thought that it died already - certain quarters in the Philippine government - the Department of Finance - think about imposing a tax on SMS or short messaging. Reason? Firstly, it is the right of the state to impose taxes. Secondly, SMS has some characteristics that make them taxable, like high usage - an official says there is too much texting -, especially jokes. Well, it is the job of the finance minister to think about ways to get taxes higher, but may be they should concentrate on finding those that evade taxes. PLDT and Globe Telecom, leading market players in the Philippine telecommunications industry protest already with various reasons. But clear is that the Philippines are the texting capital in the world - and that telecommunications and IT are among few of the sectors growing. They should think of ways to enhance those sectors further against growing competition, instead of milking what is there.

Sony to pull out of non-Japanese pocket computer markets

Declining sales in the traditional PDA markets, may be an ongoing refocusing of Sony on key markets, might have led to the decision by Sony to pull out of all its Personal Digital Assistant markets around the world, except for Japan. Instead, they want to focus on wirelessly connected devices that can play movies, games and music - thus cornering a niche, where the company is strong in in the first place.

NTT DoCoMo - going for 4G

We have mentioned it a couple of times already in our postings, that sooner or later, 4G will be coming and what would be the impact on the telecommunications landscape and 3G. Yesterday, we mentioned that India wants to leapfrog into 4G, without even considering 3G. And today, we can report that NTT DoCoMo is in a serious testing stage, so a launch date has yet to be announced.

The company said that the test they conducted achieved a maximum downstream data rate of 300 Mbps with an average of 135 Mbps in a car running at the speed of 30 km per hour in areas 800 to 1 km away from a 4G wireless base station.

They want to inrease the speed - the goal is to get a wireless data rate of as high as 1 Gbps, when not moving.

It gets a bit complicated in the article (http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/wcs/leaf/CID/onair/asabt/news/310782), with loads of appreviations, but basically, a new technology is moving forward - is it time to throw away your 3G handphonse? Or postpone the purchase? Well, the technology will take time to develop, that's for sure. And the companies that spent so much money on purchasing licenses will surely not support a new technology straight away, so here is a major impediment. But sooner or later, we will have some systems running side by side - 2.5, 3, and 4G - reminds me of the old AMPS, and GSM time - but one system will sooner of later dominate. So keep it coming, companies.

Nokia 3220 - wave messaging the way to message in the future?

Nokia launched a new mobile phone - the 3220 and apparently, one can flash pre-recorded messages or images. You can flash the message from up to six meters away.

We can see how it will be used - in discos, to ask people, where they are. In concerts, fans will flash "I love you Britney, or Robby, or whatever. Demonstrations will have their own unique flash. Soon, we will flash all over - in cinemas, concerts etc. Is this good?

To get a look at, click here and than continue to click "wave messaging" to get some insight.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China bans videogame

We have to say that China is a class in itself. It is not only emerging as the world's economic powerhouse, but also full of contradictions. But what do you expect from a country that on the one hand proclaims a socialistic outlook while on the other hand, embraces capitalism? It sure is interesting. Let us explain: Yesterday's Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ) reported that the country is opening its doors to foreign retailers, against any existing opposition of protectionist forces.

But in contrast to this new opening, the country clamped down on this Swedish video game called "Hearts of Iron" on Friday, May 28, 2004, for "distorting history and damaging China's souvereignty". The ban is understandable from China's perspective, since the game shows the Manchuria, West Xinjiang and Tibet as independent countries, and Taiwan as belonging to Japan. Okay clearly, someone in the Swedish developer team didn't do the homework and figured out the accuracy of the game.

Juggling two tasks at once and living and working in ambiguity is one of the characteristics of great executives, but China shows that this apparently also applies to countries.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

India jumping to 4G technology

The rest of the world talks about 3G and when it will finally take off. Nokia is having problems selling its smartphones and looses market share, but slowly, the market for smartphones is developing. Distruptive technology is killing markets and developing new segments. Why do we ramble? Well, we were wondering why do companies spend so much money on investing in 3G, when there is something creeping up that is called 4G services. Of course, it might take time to develop the technology but if someone is able to move on to it, what will happen to the rest? Will they be left behind?

India is now saying that it wants to leapfrog 3G and will straight go for 4G (http://www.thestandard.com/article.php?story=20040527232143939). The country's new minister for IT and communications Dayanidhi Maran said that 3Gwasn't cost effective, and he wants to take his country to the enxt level. Okay - it is a new government, and all ministers paint rosa clouds during their first few weeks in office - but let us ask, why not? If something is already there, why bet on something that is already looking a bit older? And where you are behind already? Just grap the next best thing and run with it. Right?