One more music download site

We have Napster, we have Real Networks, we have Apple's music store iTunes, in the UK, we have newspapers that look into music stores (Guardian Unlimited - http://www.newmediazero.com/lo-fi/story.asp?id=248243), there is McDonalds that plans a deal with Sony, you can press your Music CDs in Starbucks (at least in the US, not yet in Asia) and now, Microsoft is planning to enter the game - as usual, their strategy is to sit at the sideline, and than, once they see that the market develops, blast into it and try to capture a large piece of the pie. Not sure, if it will work straight away, but the company has the resources and the patience to be successful.

Around 1 billion SMS send daily

These numbers just rock - The IHT reports that worldwide, around 360 billion text messages are sent annually - 1 billion a day. Texting or SMS is transforming the way people communicate, it transforms how companies do their business.

I remember that back in 1996, I conducted a market research study for an Indonesian mobile phone company and we tried to estimate the potential of SMS for this company. At that time, users were confused, they rejected the notion of SMS, didn't understand it. A year later, and in a follow up study, this had totally changed, and they embraced texting totally.

And we are just at the beginning. The author of the article writes that in Hong Kong in 2003, he received a message from a shoe shop that he passed by, alerting him to a sale in that shop. This article (http://www.iht.com/articles/536384.html), together with another one from Norway (http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article857203.ece) reporting on the growth of handphones amongst the younger age group shows that we are still in the beginning of a communication revolution - and we are enjoying every minute of it.

The article says that in 2002 only eight percent of 7-9 year-olds had cell phones, a year later this number had doubled to one in six having mobiles. In the age group 10-11 years 58 percent use mobiles, up 12 percent points in a year. But if you look around in Asia, we see the same trend. Let's just hope that mannerism doesn't fall of the cliff.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) - India stands to lose

Markets emerge and replace old content. Countries become new players in an existing market and might push other countries aside if those haven’t been able to upgrade their options. This is the somewhat natural way how economies develop.

India has been seen as the number 1 scapegoat in the US for absorbing a lot of white collar workers in the business process outsourcing industry. The market is still booming, however, the first warning signals appear stronger and stronger. Partially, language issues play a role. Indians are traditionally good at English, but Spanish-speaking countries in South-America cater to the US, countries in Eastern Europe start catering to countries in Western Europe and so on – what serves the development of different segments in the same market. It gets problematic if countries speak the same language and promote the same service – countries in Southeast Asia.

Offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) earned India an estimated US$3.3 billion in 2003. This represented more than a 80% share of the global BPO market. However, the Gartner Group group warns that India’s share is bound to decline to 55% by 2007. Why? Well, the government apparently didn’t draft a long-term roadmap for the sector, similar to what has been done for the software and other mainstream information technology sectors. Gartner called India as a nation complacent!

And once again, we might see a giant falling due to its own success. Others call this creative destruction or the innovator’s dilemma.

Family values in Asia

Over the last couple of weeks, Asia Business Consulting reported a couple of times about the impact of technology on family values. One of those reports stated that the way family trips are organised is changing. Instead of exchanging stories, or playing together, children prefer to text that peer groups .

Another study found that children actually prefer to be in their own rooms instead of sharing their days with their parents in the living room. Reason being, again, the persuasive power of new technology. They simply preferred their room, since there computer games, PS2, and so on.

At that time we asked, how this could differ from Asian values.

Recently, we also wrote about a study by Intel, which found out that values with regard to technology differ in the US from Asia.

Synovate, a market research agency, now reports findings from their own research, basically saying that three out of four Asian businessmen have maintained or increased the time they spend with their families. However, a sentence later is stated that more than half of the businessmen who responded to the survey said they have increased their working hours.

While family values in Asia are obviously intact, the article in The Star (Malaysia) does not describe what actual takes place in the households. Just that business people spent more time with family. Now, computers are prevalent, Asia is the region where texting is most common etc. So it is easy to work from home. Children weren't apparently included in the study as the article writes about businessmen. So yeah - businessmen (where are actually the business women) spent more time at home, but does this relate to a higher quality life? Not necessarily!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

A different kind of smartmob - SMS alerts public to mysterious Python in Malaysia

Smartmobs are those mobs that are alerted to a certain event via peer-to-peer networking (SMS) or other technological means. They are an expression of how people organise and share information in this age, and the groups are decentralised - so much for a definition.

The most famous ones were those smartmobs that were alerted to demonstrations in Manila and that grew so rapidly in size and power that ultimately, former president Estrada was ousted from power.

The Star (Malaysia) reports today that an SMS alerting the public about a huge Python with the girth of a car tire that would live below the market in Muar.

Apparently, residents and visitors came in from far away with bomohs arriving from Thailand and Indonesia, causing massive traffic jams.

New study about spam blames US as source of spam

We have to take care with the numbers in this report since they come from a firm called Sophos (http://www.sophos.com) that promotes anti-virus and anti-spam software. But the numbers from their research put an interesting spin to existing perceptions, as they are saying that about 42.53% of all spam actually originates from the US, followed by South Korea (15.42%), and China and Hong Kong (taking a total of 11.62%).

They provide some more numbers for other countries, called "the dirty dozen". These include Brazil (6.17%), Canada (2.19%), Japan(2.87%), Germany (1.28%), France (1.24%), Spain (1.16%), Britain (1.15%), Mexico (0.98%), and Taiwan (0.91%).

It is quite difficult to believe that countries such as China, are that far down the list, actually. Remember, they were earlier accused of being one or the major source of spam. It is also not clear from the article, if the numbers include those spam messages that were fired from so called zombie computers.

The Real Future of Mobile Video

Over at The Feature, they had a great article or comment about the real future of mobile video. It says that those who just put content on a mobile phone won't last long. It is okay to watch some TV from time to time on your mobile phone, but that the function is much more workable, if you can use your mobile phone to communicate to the other party. Like in old times with voice, only this time via messaging, or "videoing".

The author brings a couple of great examples - so let's put in some quotes:
"Using the mobile device to record changes the video from a form of content to a type of communication. There are plenty of other ways I can watch the highlights from last night's football game. Most of them are more convenient, a better experience and cheaper than my mobile phone.

However, if I want to give my wife a virtual walk-through of the apartment I'm looking at right now, or show my parents how their granddaughter is starting to crawl, or show my friends that I was just standing across the street from Madonna, there is no better alternative. Journalists and would-be journalists will use the same technology to cover news stories live from the scene.

Users will share popular video clips as MMS messages, the way they ship them around to PCs as email attachments. People will record how-to guides, recipes, and video tours. And they will share their daily experiences in video weblogs, or videoblogs, which are already springing up. A video-enabled cameraphone with the right software and back-end hosting becomes an instant videoblogging factory."

New Straits Times (Malaysia) goes digital

It was reported to today's New Straits Times, and full of pride stated that readers will be able to read the exact replica of the newspaper's print version. Other newspapers from the same stable will also go online soon.

The only advantage will be for those who live overseas - they will be able to access their news from home online. But it appears that otherwise, the newspaper will be published not only with the same content, but probably only once in a day.

Again, this shows the lack of understanding of the digital world. The digital world is about communication with someone - not about content alone. Content is important, sure - if you don't have content, you will lose. But - online is communication, it is ongoing cooperation. It is reaching out to your readership and, moreover, to new readership. Most of the times, newspapers or magazines, for that matter, don't reach their "old" readership. The old readership will, for the vast majority, stick with the print version - being online doesn't change the habits. And those, who don't read the current print version will probably only access an online version, if the online version is different. So - it will be interesting to see subscription numbers once available, or access to the webpage.

Request for telephone line turned down - after 28 years

The article we are commenting on here is a bit older, from last week, but it still is something worthwhile reporting since it is quite an amusing story. We all remember the times when we applied for a telephone line and it took so long to receive one. How often did we call up the respective company and complaint, that we still haven't received a line yet.

It still happens across Asia Pacific, and the newspaper sections "letters to the editor" is full of complaints. However, we haven't heard of anyone who had to wait a total of 28 years for his telephone line, only to get his request turned down? Well, it happened in Romania, and he recently received a letter from Romania's state-run Romtelecom, telling him it still has no lines available. It was difficult to get a telephone line in former socialistic Romania, but now, this period is more than 10 years behind us.

In the letter to the requester, the company also asked him, if he would like to uphold his request. We believe he did not want to, since he said that a lot of things changed in his life since his original request - he got married, had two children and have even gotten a phone line in my new home.

Political websites in Malaysia losing bite - really?

The New Straits Times (Malaysia) on Friday had an article, titled “Political Websites Lose Bite”, that we nearly overlooked. The article compares election results from 1999 to the 2004 polls, and is based on the paper by Associate Professor Saliha Hassan, called “The Internet and political websites in the 1999 and 2004 Malaysian general elections” which was presented at the Fourth International Malaysian Studies Conference. The essence of the article is that the influence of political websites is waning in Malaysia. Our conclusion? The author of the paper doesn’t understand that the Internet represents the most dramatic change in the way people communicate and transactions are conducted in the last 100 or so years.

It says that in 1999, the number of Intenet users in Malaysia was about 650,000. During the elections there were 40 pro-Anwar websites (former DPM Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, ousted by former Prime Minister on grounds of moral misconduct and corruption) and 20 pro-government websites. The article said that the opposition’s websites were more interesting. Today, there are more than 8 million Internet users, political websites total hundreds not inclusive political weblogs and news sites. Read on.

The Professor states that those websites nearly duplicate what was said in the media already. The article says that those websites developed by independent non-partisan organisations, analysts and concerned individuals often dealt with more substantive issues relating to the democratic significance of election and the importance of voting for the right candidate. She brings some examples of websites that don’t load or that look very similar to each other. Gerakan appears to be an exception. Its party secretary general Chia Kwang Chye, who also is the Internal Security Deputy Minister who is quoted in the article also argues that the limited reach of the Internet is a problem in its usage during elections and that in “some of the interactive ‘independent’ and ‘not so independent’ websites would be the tendencies of ethic slurring, religious dogmatism and use of abusive language. Most of the culprits were in Internet forums and discussion groups. Saliha concludes with questioning the Malaysian voter’s capability to use cyberspace responsibly and their sense of respect and recognition for differences and opinion. “It would seem that for the government it only proves again that Malaysians are not ready for unharnessed but self-regulated freedom of expression.”

Sorry for the long replication – but do we agree with the statements made? Absolutely not and we have made this clear a couple of times in our history but those who want to read some older stuff, please follow the links below.

New technologies, and this means the web as well as the usage of mobile phones, is revolutionising the way communication is conducted. If the websites of political parties look similar to what has been said in the printed media already, it only shows that politicians or those responsible for web design and web communication just don’t understand the power of the Internet. It is a different media and it needs a different mindset. If the mindset has not been changed, of course, websites are outdated, or just don’t load, as indicated in the article. Does this mean that Malaysians are not able to work unregulated in the Internet? No – absolutely not again. May be it means that they grasp the impact of the Internet more than any of the media representatives or those running political parties. Slander and abusive language? That is normal and a different problem. But other users in any of the groups frequently manage to regulate those who use abusive language. They are reminded of the rules in a forum, and, if there are repeats, might not be able to access the forum anymore. But look at groups and forums in Yahoo – they are full of abusive language. Is this bad? It is not good, but at least, “opponents” talk or exchange ideas, at least in general, something which doesn’t necessarily happen in the real world. In the real world, they wouldn’t talk to each other at all and keep living in their own cocoon. Tom Peters, a management guru from the US said something like that there should be a board comprised of youth in every company as they would get new technology. May be the same is true for politicians. May be there is a need for a lot of young blood in the political parties.

The writing described the use of new technology in India. http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_asiabusinessconsulting_archive.html#108451450238894119

Here, we talked about the elections in the Philippines http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_asiabusinessconsulting_archive.html#108254838425739148

BusinessWeek had a great article about the influence of the Internet on the elections in general. http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_asiabusinessconsulting_archive.html#108254666944712485

Hackers contest in Singapore

There is a short article at the back of today's New Straits Times (Malaysia) saying that there is a hackers contest in Singapore. About 12 persons participate. Put into teams of two each, they have to defend their networks and attack the other team's system. The winner will win a DVD burner and can attend computer classes - One moment? Computer classes? Must be really high level. Hackers are already pretty good at what they are doing. Some work at world-class institutions to help those defending their system.

How to reject someone

Have you ever met someone and realised, that, actually, he or she is not the right one? Has it been difficult to get "rid of the person"? Did he call you constantly, or send e-mails? Have you been too shy to just tell him or her off? Well, help is on the way.

A new company has sprung up in the US, that provides a service that tells someone off - check them out at http://www.papernapkin.net.

Okay, you, as the "victim" need to give them an e-mail address that ends with papernapkin.com. So if you give this e-mail address to someone, and they actually try to contact you, they might be in for a rude awakening - as they will get an automatic response:

This is the message that is currently sent out to rejected people (written by solarrhino).

Subject: Nice to hear from you

Ha ha, just kidding. Actually, this is a rejection letter. The person who gave you this email address does not want to have anything to do with you.
This is probably bad news, and many people cope with bad news in phases: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Let us help you through these:

"It must be a mistake": Nope. You got an address in the form anyname@papernapkin.net or anyname@paamail.com, right? Well, all we here at papernapkin.net do is send rejection notices. If you got this email address, it wasn't an accident. No, you've definitely been rejected.

"Why is this happening to me?": Well, there are two main points. First, the person you wrote to obviously had this email address ready to give you, so they probably get hit on a lot. Second, for whatever reason, that person would rather let you get this rejection letter than reject you in person. So who should you be mad at: all the other creeps who have hit on this person before you, ruining your chances; or you yourself for being too intense or scary to be let down gently? Either way, you really shouldn't be "angry" at anyone - what good does that do?

"I promise I'll do better next time": Fine, great, but just not with this same person, okay? The message being sent here is pretty clear. Besides, it may not even be your "fault" - as we pointed out above, this person was hit on enough to memorize anyname@papernapkin.net long before you came along. Maybe you're just out of your league here. Maybe this person's has built up walls around themselves that are just too thick to breach. Either way, don't try again. If you do, you're just going seem like a stalker... or worse! Go ahead an clean up your act if you think you should - just be sure to find a different audience to try it out on.

"I don't care anymore": Aw, we can't leave it like that! Buck up, little nipper! It isn't all bad! At least you were rejected in the privacy of your own email account; you had no chance to do or say anything that you would later regret; and you've saved the time and effort of pursuing a no-chance relationship.

Besides, you didn't just get rejected - you've learned about a great new tool: papernapkin.net. After all, this is nothing personal to us. We have no beef with you, and we'd be just as pleased to serve your rejection needs as we are to serve anybody else. So if you ever need to reject somebody, be sure to tell them to write to you at anyname@papernapkin.net.

How's that? All better now? Good. And good luck to you, buddy. Maybe next time you will get a real email address!

Sincerely,
-PN: http://papernapkin.net/

Okay, separation wouldn't take place in the nice way and someone must have some pretty hard nerves to stand such kind of rejection.

Check their webpage!

Security hole in Microsoft Windows XP SP2

Asia Business Consulting was weary about potential security holes in the new Windows SP2 security pack
(http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_asiabusinessconsulting_archive.html#109176520102667414 ) . While we appreciate the effort of Microsoft in bringing to the market a package that would enhance security, it is just the history of the company to go to market and than get back to the drawing board, once security holes have been found.

Now, Yahoo reports the first one in the SP2 upgrade and writes: Security researchers inspecting a new update to Microsoft's Windows XP found two software flaws that could allow virus writers and malicious hackers to sidestep new security features in the operating system. Ummph - and the update is just being launched - can we say, better now than later? Or will this be the beginning of a long string of updates?

Motorola, Samsung and Nokia - fighting for market share

Samsung is saying that they are going to replace Motorola as the world's second largest handset producer for mobile phones, while Motorola is stating intentions that they are on the roll and will stay the number two in the market.

To fight the battle, Motorola is planning to roll out an additional 20 models until the end of the year that will sustain its growth. Last month, Motorola's second-quarter earnings showed a 67% increase in handset sales, a 50% jump in unit volume and a 16% increase in average selling prices.

In addition, it is planning to go to the higher end of the market, a segment that Samsung currently dominates. But the company stumbled last year with late product deliveries, something that is currently haunting Nokia with its 6230 model.

Samsung, too, had a strong second quarter - it continued to get closer to the number two in the market - at the end of last year's second quarter, the company held 10.5% of the market, and at the end of this year's first quarter, it had 13.1%. In the second quarter, the figure grew to 14.5%, putting it within a point of its rival.

The Feature reports extensively about this. So check out the link!

DaimlerChrysler and Hyndai separate

Oops - here it goes. DaimlerChrysler announced that they are going to sell their stake in Hyundai, but despite the move, the company intends to continue with some joint projects with the Korean carmaker. This follows their retreat from Mitsubishi earlier this year. The question is, will Hyundai remain as successful as they have been over the last couple of years, after "this divorce"
Actually, it also continues to show that Asia is not such an easy game to play. It was thought that after the Asian crisis in 1997 and 1998, foreign companies could easily come in and just pick up the pieces left from Asian corporations and establish their presence here. Western companies tried it, and many succeeded, but, especially in the telecommunications industry, many companies failed in their concept. There is Vodafone in Japan, that is struggling, and just hired some high level executive from DoCoMo. Virgin Mobile tried to establish a MVNO business model in Singapore and retreated after one year. Deutsche Telekom retreated as well from the Asian Markets, and Verizon from Indonesia (did they?).

So, yes, experience is needed to be successful here. The question is, will Asian companies be more successful in their overseas venture? SingTel just sold their stake in a Holland telecommunications company, but not because they saw it as a failure.

Indian companies start venturing overseas, and than there is the long history of Japanese companies, that was followed by the Koreans. To repeat: We are not saying that Asians do things better and there are plenty of cases of companies that are successful - the P&Gs, Unilever, and so on. But certain sectors are more "dangerous" than others, apparently - may be?

Americans are different from the rest of the world

Or so... that is at least what Anthropologist Genevieve Bell has found out for Intel. She was hired by the company back in 1998 to study the daily life of families and individuals to find out how they use technology (appears to be a recent trend in our postings) and travelled around the world for two years, living in remote and central places in locations such as India, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, China or Korea (in short: I AM SICK) , to just find out about this. Ethnographers in the respective countries helped her to find a place in families in the different countries, where she could stay for a while.

What she says is that technology per se is not interesting and only becomes interesting if seen in a context - which is interesting:

"Ms. Bell found it very easy after that to explain that there are very few forms of universal human truth, but lots of forms of cultural logic and truths. The Malaysians, she says, worry that their children would be lonely if they weren't sharing a room with siblings. The Americans, she says, were reverting to their cultural model of everyone wanting to have their own stuff in their own place. ""I had a lovely moment with some guys in the States and some guys in Malaysia," she remembers. "I was explaining to them that one of the differences between Asia and the U.S. has to do with the physical size and configuration of people's homes. Intel is very interested in the digital home, and we have to be careful about the assumptions we're making about what that home looks like." When an American designer said that each of his kids had PCs in their rooms, "the guys in Malaysia said, 'Wow! Your kids have their own rooms? Aren't they lonely?'"

During her travels, Ms. Bell found people in China who take their mobile phones to a temple to be blessed, Muslims who used the GPS capabilities of their phones to locate Mecca for their prayers and Asian families who burned paper cell phone offerings for their ancestors to use in the next world."

Well, one thing that is misquoted or that she didn't really get correct is the word "kiasu".

The San Jose Business Journal writes: "While most of her field work could be done in English, she found that working in countries like Malaysia, where various Chinese dialects are spoken, could be just as productive. "I began to hear the term 'kiasu,' for which there was no English counterpart," she says. "They would use it in talking about the education of their kids, when they were concerned about their kids not being left behind." Kiasu refers generally to the parental effort to provide private tutoring and after-school educational experiences."

But overall, it surely is an exciting job that the lady has. To read more, follow the link above or this one: http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2004/08/16.html

Mobile phones, and digital cameras in conflict with bookstores

Bookshops are upset - upset that there are users, or visitors that use their mobile phone to take picture from books, instead of buying books - in Korea, books victimized are those that are expensive, such as those books on architecture or design, or those wit fast-moving contents, such as computer or education books . More and more bookshops across the region start to put up signs saying that it is forbidden to use a mobile phone in the stores.

The article quoted says that it is possible to take 100-200 pictures at a time and that the bookshops would occur a loss due to this. Now - let us think through the argumentation. First - we believe that the memory of such a mobile phone must be huge to be able to take 100-200 pictures. My own mobile phone starts complaining about lacking memory the moment I hit 60 pictures - but this is just a matter quantification and since the memory of phones become larger, it might be or will become a valid argument. The same can be said for the quality of the pictures. The picture quality in mine is not the best, even so I have a Sony Ericsson, which is suppose to have a better camera - but the quality of cameras in mobile phones is improving all the time anyway (and might soon threaten digital cameras).

But there are a couple of arguments that need to be considered in favor of the users that take pictures. Books, at least in some countries, are pretty expensive, even for those in the "working population". So it might be a problem of pricing and re-evaluating duties or taxes of books in general. And politicians complain frequently, that the "youth" is not reading anymore but only engaged in computer "toys" - well, may be the computer provides the possibility to access material that is too expensive elsewhere - in books in stores for example.

There is one bookstore that allows users to browse, and probably copy or print content. Amazon.com lets browsers scan the contents of a book, before purchasing. It is easy to copy a couple of pages and print them out - recipe books is a great example for this - but Amazon makes it convenient for users, and their business is growing rapidly, despite this service, and other, price-decreasing services offered by them, like the free shipping offer.

Now let's look at a solution.

Marketing of products and services in general becomes increasingly difficult - the flood of advertisements, promotional campaigns and new products drowns consumers' attention - and they become increasingly unreachable and withdrawn. Now, as a bookstore, if you have a consumer in your shop you have someone who intends to read! This is your target group - and surprise, surprise - they are in your shop, where they actually might want to buy something. Treat them well. How often will they come back to take pictures of a book? May be 5, 10, 20 times? Okay, this is a loss, if you multiply it, but how many books will they buy, if the service targeting their interest is there - where is the calculation about the lifetime value of a customer? If a student who graduates remembers how the bookstore treated them when they were a student - criminalizing them, or treating them well?

But one question is there that we need to ask in favor of the bookstore - how can it be that someone who can afford to buy a mobile phone with a camera - which is not that cheap - have no money to buy a book? Did they spend all the money to buy a mobile phone and than have nothing left to purchase the book? Endless discussions!

Australian Labor Party plans Internet censorship on pornography

The discussion reaches Australia, after an intensive discussion in the US, the UK, China and probably in other countries as well. The Labor Party in Australia proposes that all Internet service providers are forced to block hardcore pornography to protect children. "A confidential paper from the left-wing think tank the Australia Institute, which is now being considered by the Opposition Leader's office, proposes that ISPs install compulsory filtering programs so only adults who can verify their age could view X-rated material."

The article ends by saying that a vast majority supports the policy proposal - a stunning 93 per cent of parents of 12 to 17 year-olds according to a Newspoll survey - but that the proposal is expected to face some opposition from libertarians and frontbenchers including Kate Lundy, the Opposition spokeswoman on information technology.

The big question, so is how they want to do it. In China, search engines have a list of 40,000 keywords that are banned, which might also cause innocent pages to be banned - but this probably is collateral. But may be it is just a matter of checking and learning, just like we learn to fight spam, and spyware. And staying ahead of the game!

But it could also be a political game in Australia - elections are coming up and everything might be up for grasps.

Launch of Islamic mobile phone

The Islamic world is starting next stir in the established branding order. Earlier, we had the establishment of Mecca Cola - which was very much a protest against the dominance of Western brands, especially Coca-Cola. The company went so far to enter the Israeli market as well, indicating the business-like mindset of the owner. It now operates in 52 countries across Europe and the Middle East.

Now, Dubai based Ikone Mobile Telecommunications Company developed an mobile phone with features specifically tailored at the Islamic market. The new phone features Islamic applications, including the complete text of the Holy Quran and its English translation.

The new mobile phone, to be retailed at Dh1,300, offers automatic precise prayer timing anywhere in the world with actual Azan (call to prayer), establishes Qibla direction from anywhere worldwide, provides Hijri calendar converter and automatic alarm for Sohour Imsak and Iftar during the Holy month of Ramada. The company's CEO, Mr. Saqer Tellawi, estimated the current size of the mobile phone market in the Arabian Gulf States at five million units a year. The CEO estimated the growth rate of this market at set 40% annually

This follows South Korea's LG Electronics that in September 2003 unveiled a new mobile phone that includes an electronic compass to show the direction of Mecca in Saudi Arabia in the hope to expand its market share among the world's 1.1 billion Muslims.

Family values and "electronic stuff"

Asia Business Consulting wrote a similar piece a couple of weeks ago that outlined, how new technology is spoiling traditional weekend trips with the family .
Another study, just published, comes to similar results, only that this one talks about the living room. British kids apparently prefer to be in their own room to play with all kinds of gadgets - communicating with friends via mobile phone texting or e-mail. The Daily Telegraph writes that "Seventy-seven per cent of children aged between 11 and 14 have a television in their bedroom, and 64 per cent have their own DVD player or video recorder, it found. One in four also has a computer in his or her room.

Computer game consoles also prove popular, with 66 per cent playing computer games in their rooms and as many as one in three only ever playing computer games on their own. At least one in four boys spends more than 15 hours a week playing with computer game consoles."
But have things really changed? I remember from my own time that it was fun to be in my own room away from my parents and - but instead of playing with gadgets (non-existing at that time), I played with cowboys and red Indians, which allowed me to follow my own imagination. Or similar. I once spoke to a CEO of a large Malaysian corporation who said that he enjoys playing PS2 with his son and that he would connect with him while playing. Talking the same language and learning from each other.

As such, may be it is the initiative of the parents that is to blame here, or, better, the lack of it. May be they are just happy to have a peaceful weekend, with "disturbance from their kids". And complain in a survey about a breakdown in communication - again, interpretation of findings is needed.

Text messages can multiply with new tool

This could be good or this could be bad. Good, to get many people together at once. Bad, since it allows to actually spam mobile phone users.

The new tool developed is called Txtmob (http://www.txtmob.com). Wired News writes that it was "unveiled last month at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. There, TxtMob allowed more than 260 subscribers to automatically blast text messages to the mobile phones of every other subscriber."

Basically, it can be good because it is possible to quickly alert people about imminent threats, gather them to assemblies, and disseminate messages to a widely dispersed workforce. But, it might also increase the amount of spam messages on the mobile phones, if used by the "wrong guys".

However, isn't this the case in anything? So we might have to get used to it. Wired News continues in writing that currently "TxtMob is being used exclusively for political organizing. Still, once the technology has been fully proven after the conventions, it can be launched in any number of environments", as indicated above.

Internet penetration in Korea

Some news coming from Korea is quite interesting:
First, Korea's Internet population reached the 30 million mark in the first half of this year. Penetration rate is now 68%, just 10 years after its initial launch to commercialisation.

Overall tendency? Growth in penetration is slowing down and the average user spends less time on the internet - down to 11.5 hours per week from 12.2 hours last year. The government sees the reason in the introduced 5 day week - (does this mean, that those working on Saturdays spend a lot of time on the web?).

In addition, and not surprising, there is a usage gap according to age. Penetration rate is highest amongst teens and users in the 20s (95%), reaches 87% for those in the 30s. People in the 40s had a 58.3 penetration and the figure was down sharply to 27.6% for those in the 50s.

Read the full report at the link provided above.

Mobile phone penetration in Asia Pacific - some more numbers

We wrote about TNS and their survey about the telecommunications industry in Asia on July 31, 2004.

Their data stays in the news - today, Telecom Paper reported about SMS usage across the region in addition to more details about mobile phone penetration.

What does it say?

Mobile phone penetration in the Asian region (major cities in the demographic group 16-69) averages 67%.

Hong Kong has the highest mobile phone penetration in the region - 83%
Australia's two major cities follow with a penetration of 82%.
In Japan, penetration in Osaka and Nagoya stands at 80%
In China's 12 major cities, penetration reached 66%.

What are other findings?

In Hong Kong 3/4 of those with handphones own more than one handset, most have more than 4.

Ownership of mobile phones in Hong Kong begins, when the kids reach the 10-12 year old age bracket.

In Asia, 15% of those with a mobile phone want to change in the next 6 months
Regarding the usage of SMS, the study found that Hong Kong users don't use SMS that often with 43% using SMS services - which comes up to 23 messages a month. This is well below China's rate of 124, Vietnam 136, Singapore 219, and the Philippines with 466 - staying the capital of messaging (three metropolitan areas).

Well, may be this is also the reason that a consumer group is organising a first ever cyber protest in the country to denounce the government's plan to impose a tax on texting.

The New Straits Times (Malaysia) of today reports that mobile users can sign up to join the protest by sending an SMS to a dedicated mobile phone number, which will collect all messages. The final petition will be submitted to the Cabinet. Good luck!!

Telephone stories from Australia and Malaysia

What people do to get their habit going. In Australia, a teenager was jailed because he stole products and cash worth $30,000 just to finance his mobile phone. The judge mentioned that he is fearful of a trend that has started (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10351049%255E1702,00.html).

This follows further news from Malaysia about a guy, who apparently was 1,448 hours on the phone participating in a contest. The contest required callers to accumulate points by answering six multiple choice questions each day and a total of 100 questions in total for three months - the man must have followed tediously - he and his family telephoned 16 hours a day throughout the contest which ran up a bill of about US$1,600.

He said he accumulated 1,910,210 points at the end of the three months duration and won 28 weekly prizes along the way. When the final results were published his name wasn't there and he didn't win. He now wants to see the points accumulated by all participants. The organiser, Telekom Malaysia refuses to entertain his objections. He is quoted as saying that
"They (Telekom) replied 10 days later saying that whatever decision made was final and that correspondence and complaints such as mine will not be entertained." They came also back with another "company speak", namely, that the results were audited by a firm, and that from their perspective, all necessary actions were undertaken in compliance with the terms and conditions of the contest.

They write in the New Straits Times of today: "As stated in the letter, we have indicated that the judges' decision is final and neither appeals nor correspondence will be entertained. We trust that we have clarified Telekom Malaysia's position on the matter."
Could be - but then couldn't it be said a bit more customer friendly - a bit more understanding?

Japanese content provider For-Side.com enters the US market

Over the last couple of months, we have reported about Indian outsourcers companies that ventured out of their country to acquire outsourcing companies and call centers in the US. Some Japanese, long used to moving overseas with their companies, follow this time in a different segment and in a pretty smart move.

Moconews reports that For-Side.com (http://www.for-side.com), a Japanese content provider active in mobile communications with presence in Korea and other countries, now purchased Vindingo (http://www.vindingostudios.com) and Zingy (http://www.zingy.com), two smaller content providers in New York.

Why do they do this since there is no market for content in the US as of now? Because they are clever. While there is no market, it doesn't mean that there will never be one. And than, the Japanese are there already, with all their expertise gained from their home market and with a presence in the US, that has been relatively cheap. A smart move, so to say!!

Microsoft to finally release Windows Upgrade Service Pack 2

We all have been waiting for this for a long time and, it is a huge, 80 MB upgrade. To allow users to keep working, Microsoft will upload the service slowly. Nearly US$1 billion has gone into the package and the free upgrade is designed to make users safer from cyberattacks by sealing entries to viruses, better protecting of personal data and fending off spyware.

The upgrade is delayed, as the company needed to make sure that it works with all those other programs that are installed on a user's computer, from games to music download services. Users will be required to act more often with the computer - they will be asked if they really want to do what they intend to do - download and install programs. This is to protect them from being hit by a virus or to allow spyware to be installed.

The update is needed - too many things happen on the internet and users of the internet are frequently overwhelmed by requests to react. However, we are worried for two reasons, which are based on earlier experience - how long will the service pack be safe from attacks? There are too many attacks on Microsoft and frequently, just a couple of days after earlier updates, Microsoft released additional batches and again and again.

Okay, times are changing and attackers are learning, but there were cases that old security holes were left open or re-opened accidentally. Additionally, it is not clear how the communication between the computer and the user goes. Very often, these "inquiries" are technical - and the question is, does the average or normal user understands what is required or what is being asked.

How good is your communication with your child?

Well, in another sign that SMS is really changing the way we communicate with each other, a survey in Britain has found out that are increasingly getting addicted to mobiles and communication gadgets and that those gadgets replace more traditional, other games - especially on a car trip. It was found, to further outline, that sing-song or story-telling are increasingly being replaced by children being involved in text messaging. Youngsters said that they prefer to listen to music through their mobile while 55% said that they spent the trip sending SMS to friends - what does this tell us?

Basically, they don't like to listen to the music their parents like to play on the radio or via tapes or CDs - what is normal. Who likes to listen to music from a different generation, when all that counts amongst your friends are the bands that are up-today now?

So basically, you replace Mick Jagger or Queen with Britney Spears or Beyonce. And to communicate to friends via SMS - nothing really wrong with that - there is something that is called generation gap.

While it is great to have parents and children talking to each other, having the same wavelength, parents also need to understand that kids develop new ways to communicate and develop. May be parents should communicate with their friends - oh stop - we communicate or text with our co-workers or still work on the project we left behind.

So may be this really is an issue of understanding each other better, finding common grounds and simply talk?

Is Microsoft's X-Box strategy still working?

Apparently, Microsoft has set its eyes on Nintendo. Gates stated at a meeting in the US that "he would immediately make an offer if Nintendo is ready to sell itself. If Hiroshi Yamauchi, the biggest shareholder of Nintendo and its adviser calls, "he will directly transferred to me", Gates said - let's hope they do understand each other, as we are not aware that Gates speaks Japanese, and that is is rather likely that Hiroshi-san would speak English.

However, what are the implications of the deal? Does it mean that Microsoft is trying to change its strategy to overtake Playstation 2 of Sony, for the lack of software and demand for the product, and sees the solution in shifting the battle ground to another arena? Are the software developers better at Nintendo than they are at the X-Box center - although both cannot be directly compared? It surely is an interesting thought that Bill Gates has thrown into the air.

Star Wars creator to settle in Singapore

Not everyone will know Lucas Studio, but probably everyone knows Star Wars. Well, they are the ones who created the Star Wars Saga, and they come from the US to Singapore chosen as their first establishment overseas.

This is exciting for Singapore, which tries to establish itself as a regional center for entertainment and aims to get rid of its reputation of "straightness".

It is reported that they "joint venture with the Singapore government and local tech firm Creative Technology, Lucasfilm will produce digital animated content for films, television and games aimed at the global audience." Good luck!

Didn't we say it? Portal business is exciting!

In a further sign that the portal business is exciting and continues to grow - yesterday, Asia Business Consulting reported that Daum Communications of Korea purchased Lycos in an effort to expand overseas. (http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_asiabusinessconsulting_archive.html#109152915256922985).

Now, in a next step, it is Yahoo's turn to expand to new geographies - Australia under the domain name http://www.au.yahoo.com. This follows the earlier trend seen elsewhere that local portals are more successful in attracting local audiences, especially when one considers that there are very local communities already that, for instance, advertise the restaurant next door with maps and how-to-get there guides, or book or magazine delivery with the extra free price of a personalised map of your own area (really, it exists!) on the cover of the envelope.

We also have a number for the global search advertising market to share. It is estimated by Microsoft's internet arm MSN to be worth US$7 billion by 2006 - which explains some of the excitement of portal or search companies.

Yahoo's main target group in Australia is small businesses, who might want to advertise online. In doing so, of course, they take on incumbent Telstra and companies that produce business directory companies - but this is the normal way of how things go.

New SMS service in Malaysia

Living in Malaysia and driving a car can be quite a hassle sometimes. Not only driving, also parking since the lack of suitable parking is quite obvious. In reaction to this, Malaysians park anywhere they can - and this often means double or even triple parking. And there is nothing more annoying than to sit inside the car and to wait for the other driver to come - and to honk and to honk and to, well, just boil!

Well, challenges for one create opportunities for others. The Star (Malaysia) reported yesterday, that there is a new company called Worldwide SMS Network Link Sdn Bhd that allows one driver to SMS with another driver anonymously with each other using a unique messaging service known as Driver-to-Driver SMS.

The company's Managing Director says that one is sending an SMS to their service number 39888 would allow the sender to hide his or her identity - which is good considering that spamming mobile phones or crank calls is just one or two of the possible nuisances that could cause harm to someone.

There is no interconnection between different providers of this service - if there are more than one, which means, that one needs to sign up with Worldwide SMS Network Link to be able to communicate with each other. Let's hope that they will open the lines for each other, otherwise, the service might not be that good.


And please, don's SMS while driving - there are plenty of accidents because drivers were inconsiderate enough to text while driving, as textually points out, quoting an article from The Age (http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/004776.htm) .

In this story is stated that Research by Telstra in June showed that more than half of Australian motorists under the age of 30 may be reading text messages while at the wheel.

The research also showed that 58 per cent of motorists surveyed aged 17 to 29 admitted to looking down at their mobile phones to read text messages. Superintendent Peter Keogh is quoted as saying that "That (texting) is blatantly stupid, dangerous and people only have to think of the unfortunate people who have been killed or seriously injured in crashes to really understand and recognise the dangers and change their behaviour."

Lycos bought by S-Korean company

Remember Lycos? Remember the dot com boom? It has been rumoured last week that Lycos would be sold cheaply to some company in S-Korea, but we didn't want to report on rumours (Well, we do, but only if we have the strong feeling that there is some truth in it).

Now it has been confirmed and Wired News reports that "South Korea's top website operator, Daum Communications, is to buy the U.S. portal business of Spain's Terra for $95 million, less than 1 percent of the US$12.5 billion Terra paid near the height of the Internet boom." This put Daum Communication, a fast growing S-Korean technology company into the global tech spotlight, however, the sharemarket hasn't appreciated the move as of now, since Daum's shares declined! Lycos also runs Tripod, a service that offers users free webpages, and is also the owner of Wired News.

Lycos was bought by Terra of Spain back in 2000, for US$12.5 billion (see the difference?) , and is ranked 7th in the search engine rankings in the US.

(Actually, we are wrong in talking about search engines - they are actually portals, but revamp themselves from Search Engine to Portal to Search Engine - but this is another entry)

Fighting the SMS tax in the Philippines

The last time, we reported about the proposed SMS tax in the Philippines was on June 2, 2004. The matter is still not settled yet, and pressure is mounting on Malacanang and Congress following earlier proposals made by President Arroyo and her finance and budget secretaries to include tax on text messaging among the administration’s revenue measures. We will stay tuned, so to speak!

Mobile service study - What's wrong with this?

Just published results from a survey called the 2004 Asia Telecom Index by TNS show that current and future wireless subscribers look for mobile phones with coloured screens, integrated digital cameras and MMS.

Naturally, there are differences between the various countries in the region based on their development status.

The regional manager of TNS says that it is important for companies in the market to understand the "hot buttons" of the consumers.

The study is build on the responses from 9,942 adults derived from 12 countries across the Asian region, and it sounds interesting.

However, what is wrong with this study?

Well, for one, cameras with a black and white screen are hardly available in the market place and there will be out, pretty soon, may be with the exception of some models that address the lowest need in the market.

Another point could be made that consumers in general respond to questions provided - and they respond based on their experience.

Which, again, is historical experience - "I like what I know already. I respond to the features that are mentioned in the study." When the study says that so and so many want to have these kind of features in their handphone, than this is not revolutionary, doesn't provide any major input for companies operating in the market place - in short, the disruptive input is missing. The disruptive input is coming from the edges of the survey findings and they will most likely be ignored, because this is not where the current market is.

The responses of the consumers will not favour those handphones that are currently coming up in Korea - phones for the elderly (we wrote about it just last week) or phones for the very young.

It is interesting to note that The Feature is just providing a great inside article on the assumption why Mobile Services are bound to fail. The are quoting designer Jenson who interestingly states that WAP and MMS are going to fail as they look at past success instead of looking forward to new and untried ways to use mobile services.

The Feature writes: "WAP and MMS failed to meet expectations because services were designed by what Jenson calls "default thinking," a clichéd and unquestioned mindset that combines "a weak collection of axioms of design, broad market visions, or rules of execution that aren't clearly articulated. This collection exists in the background, much like the assumption that gravity exists." The companies who assumed that the coolness of sending photos would automatically make MMS an even bigger hit than the accidental success of SMS were victims of default thinking: "While indeed, there appears to be an intuitive value to 'sending a photo,' additional questions such as 'Do people really need this?' and 'What are they doing in their lives where this is a large value?' need to be asked."

The study by TNS surely provides an important guideline to companies. But data alone don't help companies to succeed in the market place. Strategic knowledge is needed and to look at more input in addition to considering the input from consumers only.

(By Asia Business Consulting)