Malaysia may allow FDI in broadband

Now that is great news.

Malaysia, badly slacking behind its regional competition in broadband penetration (the article states 1% for Malaysia) but with great aspiration as seen in the development of the MSC now considers foreign direct investment of telecommunication companies in broadband.

Let's hope that this is not empty air - it might not be since Prime Minister took Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi over, a lot has started to change.

This new "threat" can also be seen in connection with the condition "imposed" on mobile operators in Malaysia to provide total connectivity across the nation. Well, let's just do it!

(by Asia Business Consulting)

China reigns in the economy, raises rates

Some will say, finally, although there are others that say it is not necessarily, especially considering that recently, there were clear signs of a cool down of the Chinese economy. Earlier numbers showed that the growth of car sales, for example, slowed down dramatically. But other efforts to cool down the construction and property sector, in particular, failed to reign in the overheating economy.

However, it happened and "China's central bank raised official borrowing costs for the first time in nine years Thursday night, a step aimed at slowing breakneck economic growth and inflation but one that could risk social unrest if heavily indebted state companies respond by laying off more workers. Beijing also removed the ceiling on what banks could charge for loans, a measure that paradoxically could make more loans available to risky private enterprises and ultimately enhance China's long-term growth prospects and give its economy much greater stability."

This surely has impacts economies across the globe, as China was one of the countries that kept the global economy going. Other Asian countries are influenced in that they increasingly focused on China as a way to expand their business by either establishing a presence in the country or developing their exports.

Cheap computers and wearable computers

A computer exhibition in Seoul is showcasting next generation's computer technology.
"Advanced Micro Devices, a semiconductor manufacturer of the U.S., has planned to make inroads into the next-generation PC market by setting forth its personal Internet communicator at a very low price, US$185."

In addition, wearable PC that links computer chip, data storage and battery together with clothing is steadily forming markets as a forerunner of the next generation of PCs. IDC expects about 75 percent of teenagers in five years will use wearable PCs.

Is this for the generation on the run? For those who want to surf while being with friends? Who don't want to carry along their PDA? Sit together with friends in a Starbucks to enjoy surfing? We can see a variety of other potentials, and look forward to the innovations.

The Web is about Interactivity

The Internet has “educated” users that interactivity is great. This contrasts to the way, corporate companies or broadcasters frequently see it, namely that the Internet is a medium that can be used to publish ones own messages.

We just posted the message that a blogger from Delta Airlines has been grounded for blogging and referred to the point that such news spreads like wildfire online.

Yet another study, this time from Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that a substantial chunk of internet users want to voice their opinions online. “More than 33 million Americans, or a quarter of all adult internet users in the country, have rated a product or service, the study said, underscoring the value of ratings systems that give users input about content or products they find online.”

This follows Amazon.com ‘s recent move into even greater interactivity and community building efforts, where it allows its customers post photos alongside product reviews.

(by Asia Business Consulting)

Blogging is hazardous to your work

A stewardess from Delta Airlines has been grounded over blogging about her worklife. She started blogging in January this years as this helped her over the death of her mother (interesting reason to start a blog, right?).

Over time, her blogging developed into a semi-fictional report and that is how she called her blog Queen of Sky (queenofsky.journalspace.com). She didn’t mention her employer’s name, however, showed herself in uniform. Apparently, there also was no policy about blogging in her workplace – which is normal, of course, since blogging is relatively new – long around but only now spreading somewhat exponentially.

A director of the law and technology programme at the University of Dayton, said personal websites can be hazardous for both employers and their employees followed by the incredible statement that “you have to remember that as an employee, you don't have total free speech anymore”.

This follows another high-profile dismissal of Joyce Park, a Web developer at Friendster in the middle of this year.

She hadn’t posted much about Friendster, only about improvements that she made to the site itself and stated after the dismissal from the company that this “is especially ironic because Friendster, of course, is a company that is all about getting people to reveal information about themselves”.

Can both dismissal be seen as a failure of companies to understand the power of blogs? News about such dismissals spread quickly - showing the power of word of mouth and the independence and interactivity of Internet users

In Ross case, bloggers called for termination of friendster account to protest - some are now saying that they believe Delta's reputation has been spoilt.

By (Asia Business Consulting)

Is your computer infected?

We recently wrote optimistically that companies put in place tools to make surfing on the Internet safer from viruses or spam. May be we were too optimistic. A new study commissioned by AOL and the National Cyber Security Alliance suggests that home computers are very, very unprotected. The study found that users do know about the threats but that their computers have installed antivirus software – probably because it has been preinstalled at purchase – but not frequently enough updated. Imagine those numbers from the study:

One poor victim had 92 viruses on their PC, and another an incredible 1,059 spyware/adware progies.

Two thirds of users had no firewall or packet filter, and 14 per cent of those who had them had misconfigured them. And only nine per cent had any sort of parental controls in place.
Conclusion can only be that something just doesn’t tick well with the users, especially considering the fact that almost three quarters of those surveyed reported believing that their PC is very secure or moderately secure. There are enough campaigns that show the threat from the Internet regarding virusses, spyware, and the need to upgrade your protection and have a firewall. The study doesn’t indicate why there is this big gap behind the belief that you are protected and the brutal reality that you are not, and this would be an interesting to know fact.

(by http://www.asiabusinessconsulting.com)

Google helps your discovery of the world

Google just bought Keyhole, a supplier of online satellite maps that allow users to zoom down to street level to specific locations.

Hoefully that will also be rolled out in Asia. As an application it allows you to zoom to various locations around your neighbourhood or anywhere else in the world.

"The three-dimensional, interactive software gives users the option to zoom in from space-level to street-level, tilt and rotate the view, or search for other information such as hotels, parks, automated-teller bank machines or subways."

While their competitors have similar offerings already, it really shows how Google wants to take on the world it is easily understandable how they want to integrate into their service range.

Imagine that it would you to do such searches on your mobile phone? You would never run out of fuel, the next ATM is just around the corner. Or you find your way around that traffic jam in front of you. Well - may be don't use it when you drive. The screen of a phone might be too small but what about specific related screens in your car?

(by Asia Business Consulting)

Giant pandas in China reserve get Wi-Fi

That is a nice story that shows how technology can help an endangered species.

Intel installed Wireless Technology in a mountainous 500,000-acre reserve of Wolong. This will help researchers to communicate with one another. The great thing is that they can download and record data about the pandas' lives and movements - simple activities that were cumbersome and time-consuming in the preserve before the technology upgrade, and probably also speed up the process. Speed is important in protecting an endangered species - just like it is important in the business world (hm- we always have to draw parallels) About 300 giant pandas live in the mentioned Wolong Nature Reserve - half in captivity and half in the wild. Only about 1,500 of the animals are left in the world.

Before it thought that WiFi is more suitable for smaller and populated areas so the geographic extend can be a challenge - but a challenge is always something to learn from.

(by http://www.asiabusinessconsulting.com)

Racing its own race - Samsung introduces Korea's First 7.0 Megapixel Digital Camera

Last Wednesday, Samsung introduced the world's first handphone with a 5-megapixel camera. At that time Asia Business Consulting said that this is very disruptive to the makers of digital cameras since now they would be threatened on their own territory.

To spite its own advancement, Samsung now introduces a 7-megapixel camera. Isn't it nice if you can run a race with your own runners on the field, chasing each other? Pity the competition.

(by http://www.asiabusinessconsulting.com)

NTT DoCoMo to Add Singapore to FOMA Videophone Service

Well, probably the two Asian mobile phone powerhouses combined. Singaporeans that participate in the current 3G trial provided by Singapore Telecommunications can now place videophone calls to Singapore or Japan.

Will this take off? Both countries are also economically strong, so there might be a need for teleconferencing. In addition, both countries have a tech-savvy population, and businesspeople that are constantly on the run. So, they market need for those might be there and since both countries also have a free trade agreement, it might just fulfill its purpose and take off.

(by http://www.AsiaBusinessConsulting.com)

Do you send from or receive personal emails in your office?

EMail Systems, says that about 20% of all incoming mail to corporations are of personal nature. And since they are in the business, they also offer employers the option to sell them a monitoring system.

Why? Isn't it the case that even in Asia, more and more employees work over the weekend, on the road, are reachable over the weekend, bring work home and work there?

Studies have shown that employees with free access to the Internet are happier and more productive. And trust your employees to work from home. Many believe that they would indulge in gaming - not so. While speaking of American employees a survey also showed that "employees with Web access at both the office and at home, spend an average of 3.7 hours per week engaged in personal online activities while on the job, but they spend more time — an average of 5.9 hours per week — using the Internet at home for work-related purposes."

But believe us - nothing beats trust in the workplace. What effect has strict monitoring services?

(by http://www.asiabusinessconsulting.com)

Don't know how you feel? Check your voice - call this number (in Korea only)

Not sure if this is something that is going to ring with users but LG Telecom is releasing a service that allows users to analyse the mood of users by assessing their voice tone.

The emotions are classified by different categories such as happy, sad, bored, true or angry. LG Telecom also provides services like 'couple management center,' where users download the 'affection analysis' system.

Hm - how about: I don't know if I feel angry right now, let me just call this number?

Will prepaid phones be outlawed in Japan?

This has been captured by a blog and no source has been provided to support the statement. According to this blog, the Japanese government is considering to outlaw prepaid mobile phones based on the argument that too many crimes are being committed.

While DoCoMo would be off pretty well, since they have hardly any prepaid users, companies like Vodafone and Tuka suffer.

Can we conclude that just because a probably small minority commits crimes with phones or through phones, the majority of users are going to suffer?

Is Nokia your mobile operator or what?

The Feature is running a great writeup on the findings of a survey by Unisys that was published during a telecommunications conference that took place last week.
The youth segment is growing rapidly amongst the users of mobile phones – we can all see it. More and more kids and “youngsters” sport a mobile phone and frequently, it is the newest model on the market. Handphones also exhibit more and more features “to play with” – the manufacturers believe that the youth “knows it all, wants it all and demands for more”. Is this true?

Not so: While the youth clearly "...understand technology better than most, most reject techno-jargon and consider MMS to be a gimmick they don’t need. They have deep pockets, but are heavily cost-conscious and overwhelmingly choose their provider on the basis of price. They are fickle, lack loyalty, switch providers often and have multiple SIM cards."

And operators were shocked to find out that the youth believes that the brand of their handphone is equivalent with the one that provides the service. Like - Nokia is my operator in the Philippines instead of Smart Communications or Samsung is the one in Malaysia, instead of Celcom. Okay, the examples are made up, but to give you the numbers: "Over 75% of respondents in the Unisys study thought Nokia was their service provider.

That’s how little they know or care about operator brand."
May be it is because their parents pay the bill, may be they really don’t know better, but whatever it is, can operators dismiss the findings?
Operators across the world also push services and content to their users.

Frequently, they hope that the youth follow the Japanese examples where such services took off. However, the study found out that the youth actually "want cheap, easy-to-understand service bundles that couple lots of voice minutes with even more SMS. While there is growing excitement around music services and ringtones, this doesn’t transfer (yet) to more advanced mobile data offers."
This means that the youth appears to still reject MMS services - it is growing but not in the manner the operators want it to be. They don't necessarily see a sense for it - it is "not cool", so to speak.

So forget about rapid growth rates (well, may be not really) – we wrote yesterday that fixed line service operator are in trouble – it seems that mobile phone operators also need to take a hard look at their business model.

Google Desktop Outshines Windows' File-Search Capabilities

Last week, Google launched the beta version of its file-searching system.

We haven't installed it yet, as such we couldn't test it. However, the Washington Post has quite a glowing review of the system. It basically states that Google "assists" Microsoft by improving tools of Microsoft that really didn't work well, if at all. Like, the Google toolbar, or, as said, the desktop search tool. Try to use Microsoft's version, and it, firstly, takes quite some time, if you have a lot of files on your computer, secondly, it doesn't provide too much flexibility and thirdly, either throws up a lot of files or hardly any. But never right on target.

However, it might be interesting to note that the first security flaws in the tool have been found already. The Register runs an article on this.

Let your books roam freely

This sounds like a great thing. Imagine, there are lots of books in your bookshelf and you set them free - you leave them behind in a place of your choosing. Someone else picks them up, reads them and sets them free again. How does it work?

"You first select a book (or several) that you liked. You then go to the BookCrossing.com web site to register and get a unique BCID (BookCrossing ID number). You label the book with that particular number and you set the book free for someone to find - “give it to a friend, leave it on a park bench, donate it to charity, “forget” it in a coffee shop, etc.”

Hopefully, the person finding your book will read the label you wrote in it and will visit BookCrossing.com to enter its ID number and get you automatically notified by e-mail so that you know that your book has found a temporary reader who might, in turn, “forget” it somewhere later on. You can also create so-called “Release Notes” on the book, and entice other people to try and track it down. So far, the hunting is going on in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, and the United States."

We are not sure if it has reached Malaysia or if this movement has started already. Sounds like viral marketing, right? Who is going first? Drop us a note, if you wish and we publish about your adventure.

Nokia: Consumers Increasingly Giving Up Their Fixed Line Phones

A global study by market research company MORI, conducted for Nokia confirmed the trend that increasingly, subscribers switch to mobile services away from fixed lines. Sure, we can be critical and say that Nokia is in the business of producing and selling mobile phones, but this is not the first time that those numbers are coming out - Telstra reported last week that
only a strong first quarter growth in mobiles helped the company to beat off the continued decline in its core fixed-line business. But they warned that a sharp deterioration in revenue from its traditional telephone services is just around the corner.

"Fixed-to-Mobile Substitution (FMS) is occurring across the four major markets surveyed - Great Britain, USA, Germany and South Korea - with upwards of 45 million consumers estimated to now make all their voice calls from their mobile phone in these markets alone."

Before, fixed line operators were betting that because of broadband and Internet, their business model was somewhat secured, but the study also established, that this is changing slowly, further squeezing fixed line operators.

Why do people keep the fixed line? Well, mentioned are reasons like emotional attachments, costs considerations and so on. Another reason that we can think of is the still frequent occurrence of drop-outs particularly in countries where the coverage of mobile services isn't that great yet. We still see people checking their mobile phones and "counting the bars" to identify clarity of reception. Another reason is convenience and may be tradition. We are used to fixed lines, have used them for a long time - at least the older generation would argue that way. It is easier to sit down and have a conversation when you talk on a fixed line. People tend to run up and down, when they use their mobile phone.

But we are aware that people don't necessarily install fixed lines when they move into a new house. The study established that a significant number, in particular in South Korea, consider they would not take out a landline subscription on moving house or flat. In fact amongst the South Korean sample, 65% of the respondents make all or most of their voice calls from a mobile phone." We haven't introduced demographic differences that were established in the study.
Overall, it means that business models are changing - faster than many companies in fixed line business assume it would happen. To cope they need a change of mindset, and develop strategic plans to slowly phase out old and phase in new and more attractive services.

There is much more to say but clearly companies need to take a hard look at their businesses. The trend is there, it is unreversible, and will become a mainstream in many countries, sooner or later. Even in those countries that see themselves as insulated.

Taiwan looks to make wireless leap beyond 3G

Even so it is Saturday evening, we just have to write about our findings. Call it passion, call it amazement, but well, it is also fun to see how things develop across the globe.

Just when Philadelphia wants to build a city-wide Wifi network, Taiwan takes it a step further (so we don't believe that the respective leadership has talked to each other). The government has said that it "plans to blanket this island's cities with wireless networks that are integrated with cellular phone services by 2008 as part of an ambitious US$1.1 billion project, called M-Taiwan." Wow, talk about ambitions.

Online advertising pops up some more

There are different trends in online advertising. Some of it becomes real good and engaging while other online advertising still annoys.

Wired just published quite a lengthy article with the main message being that "ads that annoy also work".

This follows our recent blog entry that more companies now plan to go online with advertising.

Given this "interest" let's expand on it a bit more.

CNet earlier this year ran an article that showed that online advertising increases and tops the heavy times of 2000. Online ad sales will top of US$8.4 billion in 2004, up more than 5% from last year, and above the 2000 peak of US$8.1 billion.

Online advertisement can be engaging and interactive – The same article described the case of General Electric. "GE's Etch-A-Sketch-like ad, featuring the tag line "All big ideas start with a sketch," allowed users to draw with a virtual felt-tip pen. The result was a sketch tool that inspired Web users to begin swapping their doodles via e-mail and spawned online galleries--a major branding coup for GE.”

It is important for companies to get it right in the online world, since study after study shows that people are spending more time online and less time focused on other media, such as television and magazines. When done right, an online advertisement is proving to be a worthwhile investment.

Online advertising is about interactivity and it shows that a different kind of advertisement, a toned down and non-intrusive one that engages users, can actually work.

There are studies that show this pretty clearly.

However, the other side of the coin is that some online advertisements and especially pop-ups also become more intrusive – and not only those from the “bad boys of the Internet” – think about the ads that overlay the webpage that you intend to reach. It currently becomes more and more common even from well-known companies and their number is growing - in July 2003 alone, around 7.3 billion pop-ups were served.

The article linked in the subject line starts by reporting that "if you wished to check out the latest cricket score on one of the many popular Indian portals, chances are you would have had to negotiate a maze of pop-ups before getting to read the scorecard."

As one person in a research said: “[pop up ads are like] “…interrupting somebody… [they] …divert your attention away from what you want to pay your attention to.” ().

The interesting “piece” is that while companies think pop-ups work, “nearly nine out of 10 click-throughs on one leading brand's pop-up ad were made by mistake because the close button was difficult to find. The average time taken for people to close the ads was 59 seconds.” You can say what you want - the new world is tough and it is easy to think that you as a firm are doing something right and efficient, while ignoring your audience. The mentioned facts show that there is still a lot of ground to be covered.

Countries competing for the best foreign film Oscar

There are 49 countries competing for next year's best foreign language film Oscar. Among them is Malaysia for which this entry is a first. It is putting forward the Malaysian movie "A legendary love."

Other countries are Afghanistan, Brazil, last year's winner Canada, China, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Palestine, the Philippines, South Korea Taiwan, Thailand, Venezuela and others.

Let's take a look at other movies presented:

"The film "A Legendary Love" is the tragic love story of a princess and a Malay warrior and was well received at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year.

Afghanistan's entry is director Atiq Rahimi's film "Earth and Ashes," a wrenching drama about life during the country's intractable civil war.

China's "House of Flying Daggers," from director Zhang Yimou, will represent the world's most populous nation at the Oscars.

Nobody Knows," from filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda was selected as Japan's entry and is the moving story of four children who are forced to rely on one another after they are abandoned by their mother.

Spain's entry, Alejandro Amenabar's "Mar Adentro" (Out to Sea), about a paralysed man who wants to commit suicide, won the jury grand prize Silver Lion award at the Venice film festival.

France's submission, "Les Choristes" by Christophe Barratier, tells the story of a group of reform schoolboys having their lives in post-war France changed by a choir-master and was a major hit in its home country.

"Le Chiave di Casa" (The House Keys) by director Gianni Amelio is Italy's hopeful for the best foreign language film gong, telling of a young father, meeting his 15-year-old handicapped son Paolo for the first time.

India's official entry is Sandeep Sawant's low-budget "Shwaas," which cost just 76,500 dollars to make, and was picked to compete after beating out big budget Bollywood films."

Sorry for the long quote, but well, it is worth mentioning, isn't it?

Yahoo buys e-mail search company

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo - the battle of the giants in search technology, online advertising and community building is ongoing.

Google opened the front with their huge and searchable e-mail accounts, followed by search technology that allows to search your desktop. In addition and in between, they relaunched book searches.

Yahoo so far countered every move - increased the size of their inbox, made their emails searchable (via Oddpost). This tool now got improved when Yahoo bought Stata Labs that sells an e-mail application called Bloomba that lets people search message text and attachments.

Microsoft also has designs to integrate desktop, e-mail and Web search from the operating system, and toward that end it recently bought a small e-mail search company called Lookup.

Where is Amazon's A9? They will be there soon as well, we bet.

After Malaysia, Research In Motion moves to India

Its just a month ago that we talked about a tie-up of Research in Motion (RIM) with Maxis Communications in Malaysia (http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004/09/maxis-and-rim-announce-plans-to-offer.html).

Now, RIM moves further and tied-up with Bharti Tele-Ventures. The interesting piece here is that Singapore Telecommunications owns 20% of Bharti Telecom and holds a stake of 15% in Bharti Televentures, which is the holding company of Bharti's service operations. Why is this interesting? Because SingTel also has a share in Telekom Malaysia, a fierce competitor to Maxis.

Now, will this new tie-up in India have an effect on the tie-up in Malaysia? Do we see co-optition or preemptive moves?

More spend on online advertising

Oh no - more companies intend to spend on online advertising.

A newly published study says that although one in four companies do not use the internet for marketing, the number allocating more than 10% of their marketing spend to the web rose to 10%.

Expect more pop-ups, more advertising banners, more everything, to keep Internet users annoyed. Companies still don't really understand how to reach the consumers in a better and engaging way.

Companies also need to realise that the world of advertising is changing. Consumers talk to each other nowadays about their satisfaction level with companies, have the chance to switch brands very quickly as there are enough substitutes available at reasonable quality and prices, and reject “in-the-face-advertising” and non-engaging advertisements.

Samsung unveils 5-Megapixel camera phone

Here we go - the time is moving on - we wrote, back in April that cameras with installed cameras will slowly but surely encroach the territory of digital cameras. At that time, Casio developed a 3.2 Megapixel phone.

Now Samsung unveiled the world's first 5-Megapixel camera phone - what shatters the walls that still existed between camera manufacturers, such as Kodak, and mobile phone producers. And they announce further improvements already by saying that "The next version of the SCH-S250 model will be equipped with more advanced functions like optical zoom, which allows people to take a picture remotely without compromising resolution."

Asian countries in global growth competitive index

Last week saw the release of the Global Competitiveness Report.

"The GCI is composed of three “pillars,” all of which are widely accepted as being critical to economic growth: the quality of the macroeconomic environment, the state of a
country’s public institutions, and, given the increasing importance of technology in the development process, a country’s technological readiness." It also says that "critical importance of technological innovation for core economies is taken into account in the technology index. Specifically, more weight is given to innovation, by means of the innovation subindex, for the core economies, than for the non-core."

The rankings are drawn from the results of the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive survey conducted by the World Economic Forum, which this year polled over 8,700 business leaders in 104 economies worldwide.

Leading countries that keep their rank are the Finland, the US, and Sweden. The first Asian country is Taiwan, ranked fourth, up from 5 last year. Other Asian countries located in the top ten are Singapore (7, down from 6), and Japan, now 9th, up from 11. The country continues to climb - it was ranked 21 in 2001. The related press release states as reasons for the continued ascend "its improved position reflects a combination of factors, including the strong economic recovery under way which has boosted business confidence, and notable improvements in various indicators which assess the transparency of public sector institutions."

S-Korea, another declared powerhouse slid to 29, what is interesting to note.
Interesting results that show the resilience of the early "technology adopters and developers", such the US, Finland and Sweden.

Tokyo Cabs to Try RFID Payments

It works in the way that one has got some funds allocated on the mobile phone. JCB, a Japanese credit card company, is first running a trial of its QUICPay with Japanese taxi drivers but intends to roll out the system to grocery stores if the trial is successful - target date - 2006.

Google 'saved' Australian hostage

There are always the stories that Google saved this person from this menace and that person from that.

But we didn't know that the kidnappers that abducted Australian journalist John Martinkus agreed to release him after they were convinced he was not working for the CIA or a US contractor.

In fact, they googled him and found out that he is who is claimed to be. Now sometimes it is good to be found on Google!

Downloads to be forbidden in Singapore

So here goes Singapore, following Japan, the UK and the US. According to amendments to the Copyright Act, "people found to be illegally using software or downloading off the Internet will face a maximum six months in jail and a fine of US$11,900 for their first offence."

They are not saying that those who download songs on a small scale will be "punished" but those who push the 1,000 songs. "The tougher laws are part of Singapore's commitments to its free trade agreement signed with the United States that came into effect this year."

However, this just follows a confusion of what actually is allowed and what not. In the US, it is the uploading of songs (or others) that is forbidden as it becomes accessible for others to download. This is similar in Canada - in 2003, downloading copyrighted music from peer-to-peer networks became legal in Canada, although uploading files is not.

This all in the face of a failing business model of the music industry.

Additionally and something that the music industry does not like to reveal - CD sales are not threatened by music downloads.

"People still want to own hard-copy music and 92% of people said that CDs are their preferred music format. The latest findings from Entertainment Media Research found that people buy legal downloads when the music they want is not available in-store, or to help them decide whether to buy a CD or not. More than 60% of the 1,400 respondents said that they were likely to use legal music downloading to get hold of tracks because it was not in music stores, and over 50% said that they used legal downloads to get a few tracks from recent albums. Getting hold of music quickly was another strong impetus for the use of music downloading, according to a recent survey.

But well, it is difficult to learn new facts, adjust a business model, treat customers right, when there is too much money in play. When will they finally change?

Offshore Outsourcing - Who can stop the juggernauts?

IDC reports that "the worldwide market for offshore IT services will grow to $17 billion in 2008 from $7 billion in 2003, achieving a compound annual growth rate of 20%."

Wipro, one of the Indian companies, reports "a second quarter profit jump of 79% on increased sales of 44%, beating both the market's and the company's expectations" - these numbers also mean that they managed to increase the value of their work.

India's second-largest software services firm, Infosys Technologies Ltd., posted its biggest quarterly profit jump in three years as telecoms and financial companies increased outsourcing. The company raised its full-year earnings per share growth forecast to 43% from 34%, citing higher prices paid by new clients.

There are also rumours that trends of outsourcing, offshoring, or global sourcing (as this is also called) will accelerate after the elections in the US and that many companies don't want to commit before to avoid a backslash of voters for those that support outsourcing.

Conclusion - be relevant. All those other countries, for example Malaysia, the Philippines or Australia that aspire to be part of the game - fasten your seatbelt and start pressing the accelerator. Otherwise - you will quickly become irrelevant.

Understanding technology - a missed fax worth Euro 100 million

Who is still faxing documents nowadays? It becomes more difficult, even for me, who grew up in the fax period. People tend to get used to one technology and older ones just fade away.

This might have been the challenge for a lawyer in Europe who had to fax 100 pages to the European Court - 100 pages seem to be a lot - it would take me a couple of hours and I would dread the task. The best thing is that the lawyer faxed the pages with the wrong side inserted, meaning, all 100 pages were received blank.

As such, the court had to decide in favour of 5 banks that were originally accused of running a cartel to fix foreign currency exchange rates ahead of the introduction of the euro and fined 100 million Euro. They, of course, objected. The lawyer, their opponent (so to speak) had to fax the statement for the European Commission, which subsequently lost the case, as the documents were not received on time.

Question also: Why didn't they use e-mail? While e-mails can get lost in cybespace, the procedure is faster, and one can quickly check if the mail arrived. Another question: Why didn't the lawyer check somewhere in between, if the documents were received? I won't settle my cases with this lawyer, that'sfor sure.

E-mails become a plague and the Internet collapses in 2006

There is spyware, and adware together with Popups. Those are following us through the usage of the Internet.

Than there is spam. Spam now diversifies into SPIM - Spam over the Instant Messaging and SPIT - Spam over VoiP.

Argh - now we have a new study that repeats old findings. Spam makes e-mailing worse. "A British conference heard last week that 60 per cent of all e-mails were spam, up from 10 per cent in 2001."

Nothing new in this - only may be but not mentioned, that spammers become more intelligent and using keywords in the e-mail to cheat their way through a firewall. That is when you see those funny words in the end of a spam letter - in case you opened one.

In addition, a Finnish researcher says that due to spam and viruses, he predicts that the Internet will collapse in 2006. He comes to the conclusion by basing his findings on current trends. However, Techdirt correctly points out that a lot of the staff that he is proposing to save the Internet" is actually already happening. That happens when you look at historic data and extrapolate trends without considering other influencing factors.

China jails four for running mucky site

Its been a while since we reported about the ongoing campaign in China against online pornography.

Nevertheless, there crack-down is still ongoing, according to the article by The Register.

It reports that since mid-2004, some 445 people have been arrested and 1,125 web sites have been shut down.

Asia attracts animation studios

Asia is further gearing up for animation studios in a sign that the region becomes more influencing in the global entertainment industry. It started with the establishment of Lucas Studio in Singapore in August this year.

Bangkok also gets its share as Indian animation company Maya Entertainment Co Ltd plans to join hands with one of three potential local Thai partners, namely GMM Grammy, True Corporation and Shin Corp. This would be their first as well, similar to Lucas Studio, which took its step outside the US with the establishment in Singapore.

Well, Manga, Bollywood and - what else - is showing the world the way to go!

Googling the Datuks

Googling the background of people is a new common trend amongst headhunters (when was the last time you googled yourself?).

Now, the Sultan of Selangor, a State in Malaysia, intends to set up a website that allows the public not only to check on the progress in the state will have an interesting section, where the public can check on the background of Datuks in the state.

Datukship is normally given to outstanding personalities in Malaysia by the Sultans or the King personally - sometimes, and in special cases, the title Datuk can also be bought. However, recent scandals, such as a murder case, suspicion of corruption or the total number of Datukship's granted, engulfed the whole institution of this formerly very exclusive "club".

In perspective, the Sultan's move into the Internet marks a significant step forward to transparency in the whole process. Let's just hope that the website will be updated frequently to keep track of the number of Datuks and to allow the googling public to gain as much information as possible.

Australia could be eco-superpower

Ecology and the recreation of devastated or disturbed patches of land clearly is an emerging market sector, where the market leaders as such have yet to be established.

Australia pushed into the territory with the launch in Sydney of the world's first online centre for the emerging trade in ecological services, which syncs with the ongoing development of the Kyoto protocol.

The system, found at http://www.EcosystemMarketplace.com is a clearing house for eco-markets and the emerging trade in credits for carbon, water quality and biodiversity.

"The online centre would spread information about emerging markets, report trades, connect buyers and sellers, and reduce transaction costs."

Mobile link to tumour

A new study from Sweden adds on to findings that the usage of mobile phones can cause harms. That is nothing new, and we now have to wait for the next study that claims that the usage of mobile phones is not harmful.

The Swedish study claims that "people who use a mobile phone for at least 10 years might increase their risk of developing a rare benign tumour along a nerve on the side of the head." It also says that children shouldn't use mobile phones over long periods since their brain is still developing.

So - shall we wait for the next study? We believe it is good to take precautions. Use a hands-free set (although there are studies that suggest that hands-free is also causing harm). Pick up a fixed line phone every now and than - the incumbents would appreciate this anyway. Mobile phones are still relatively new in the market - so studies on longterm effects will be with us for a long time to come.

Online security in S-Korea

You would think that S-Korea, with the highest broadband penetration, an online culture that seems unstoppable, would have security in place to prevent the leakage of data. Well, they probably have but - and this is a big BUT, once the human factor is calculated in, a lot of security can go down the drain.

15 mobile company employees were arrested in S-Korea, who apparently sold privacy data of 920,000 customers to a telemarketing company. Going price per customer address - US$2.9 - and since the data is verified, wow, this is a good price. They sold information such as name, mobile phone number, identification number, e-mail address and type of cell phone used.

Police is at the lookout for the culbrits.

Asia's Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises

A new study has been published presenting Asian companies that outperform their competitors across a wide variety of financial and non-financial metrics through innovative and knowledge management.

The 2004 Asian MAKE Winners are (alphabetically):

- Canon (Japan)
- Honda Motor (Japan)
- Infosys Technologies (India)
- Kao (Japan)
- Nissan Motor (Japan)
- Samsung Electronics (S. Korea)
- Samsung SDS (S. Korea)
- Singapore Airlines (Singapore)
- Sony (Japan)
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (Taiwan)
- Tata Consultancy Services (India)
- Tata Steel (India)
- Toyota Motor (Japan)
- Wipro Technologies (India)

The interesting thing is that Japanese companies are represented in highest numbers with Indian companies catchin up rapidly. And this is interesting, since usually, Japanese companies are known to be hierarchical and with a lack of knowledge sharing. But look at those companies - a constantly roaring Toyota, Nissan, that was turned around by Carlos Ghosn, and Canon, that slowly becomes a powerhouse in the digital world as well, together with Sony - although we indicated challenges for Sony in earlier postings. If you add Honda to it, you have got the powerhouses of the automotive industry and here, design is what counts nowadays a lot.

In contrast, the Indian companies are what you know India for - software, and outsourcing, as presented by Hewitt Associates and their Top Company for Leaders Study in December 2003 . In their study, you could find a similar mix of companies - Tata Steel, Wipro, but not Infosys, showing that roaring companies roar in different lists checking different levels of performance - speak: knowledge management, customer service orientation, innovation, human resources etc.

The companies that made it to the current list were chose by "The 2004 Asian MAKE Winners were chosen by a panel of Asian Fortune Global 500 business executives and leading knowledge management experts."

They were recognised as as best practice in:

- creating a knowledge-driven corporate culture
- developing knowledge leaders and workers
- innovation
- maximizing corporate intellectual capital
- collaboration and knowledge sharing
- creating a learning organization
- managing customer knowledge
- transforming corporate knowledge into shareholder value

So, well, good or great companies can be found in different studies from different organisations, however, that does not mean that those companies stay atop of the mountain forever. Smaller companies, that are not necessarily included in the study due to a chosen methodology, might be excluded from the selection. But for the moment, these are the giants. Congratulations to them. Enjoy the glory, enjoy the day.

Telekom Malaysia outlines five-pronged strategy to be more profitable

Telekom Malaysia, the Malaysian incumbent in the telecommunications market, yesterday outlined a five pronged strategy to be more profitable.

To recall, the company is the market leader in the fixed line business and in the Internet dial-up service plus in the nascent broadband sector. It struggled in the mobile sector and digested a couple of smaller companies over the last couple of years. Its last acquisition of Celcom Malaysia propelled it to the top of the market, at least for a short while, surpassing Maxis Communications. However, recent numbers showed that they have lost their lead again. This is frequently happening to a company engaged in the internal integration of another large company, since the focus of the company is than directed inward, instead of outward.

In addition, there were changes in the top leadership with Datuk Abdul Wahid Omar taking over the helm of the company a couple of months back.

Now, apparently, they are ready to direct their intention back to the market. The basic outline is suppose to be a greater customer orientation, something really needed at Telekom, if one follows frequent complaints about the company in the local newspapers. But let's take a look at the strategic direction, and frankly, we were a bit surprised. Their five broad strategies encompassed:

1.) Grow cash flow and increase asset utilisation at the company's fixed-line business
2.) Capitalise on sustainable growth in the cellular sector
3.) Focus on data, broadband and value-added services;
4.) Develop a customer and service-driven culture in the organisation;
5.) Prudent international expansion

It might be a semantic word game, but to declare that a company will become more customer-centric and than put the strategy at number 4 out of 5 does not make sense. And remember, what is written in words, is triggered in the mind and might be executed in this order. So let's see, how this develops, and may be, may be, the customers become a different priority over time and increase their ranking. Or is it just us?

Infosys banks massive growth

Infosys is one massive success story for India. Aggressively expanding in the outsourcing business, and going globally in the meantime.

The company yesterday announced a quarterly net profit increase 49% on the back of the sustained outsourcing boom.

They might have some kind of a problem when John Kerry wins the next presidential race in the US - John Kerry has taken a somewhat more critical view at outsourcing. However, since they expanded globally already, they might be ready to find "legislative restrictions".

We don't deny that outsourcing is critical for companies. As Jack Welsh once said "What is the backoffice of your company is the frontoffice of others" and it makes sense to outsource what can be done better by others. The strong factor here is better and there are enough stories that show that companies don't necessarily manage the outsourcing game professionally. I am referring to Jikon at http://www.jikonlai.com/ who recently reported a massive failure of customer service at Dell Computers.

Other companies see outsourcing of certain service functions critical - it shouldn't be forgotten that it is a way to connect with your user or consumer. A Richard Downes, customer marketing manager for BMW was quoted last year as saying that:

"If you've got somebody sensible on the end of the phone who knows about the product range and has some common sense, that's half the battle. Keep it simple and do the basics right. It's about making sure a customer is sent the right brochure; if someone wants a price, making sure that's available; having a web site that's easy to navigate and has the right information. It's the old Keep It Simple, Stupid. All the hype about CRM misses the point that customers just want to be treated well. So get some very good people to answer your telephone enquiries. We look for the best people around and we train them and we hang on to them. That human touch is very important, especially with a high-value item like a car.” (Management Today, September 2003).

Well said.

Is there a market for Voice SMS

Voice SMS would allow people to send short voice messages over their mobile phones. "The technology behind this, called push-to-talk over cellular (POC), works like popular instant messenger software such as MSN Messenger and ICQ, but lets people send voice instead of text messages"

Ericsson says that up to 20% of the phone users interviewed in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Phlippines would be interested in such service. They said this is above the average user acceptance level for new services, which would be around 15%.

It is an interesting model, for sure, since it avoids the endless typing of SMS messages - no more worldrecord in SMS than.

"We believe they got acquainted through the internet." - Suicide pact in Japan

These were the words of the police after nine people committed suicide after forming a pact.

This is not the first time that technology has been blamed to cause suicides or murders or other social "habits" but it should be realised that it is technology that assists in facilitating those events in the wrong manner. And when it does so, it is called upon the society to counter the threats with education, and not with more rules that would drive facilitating circumstances into the underground.

Greatness is not permanent: Investment strategies must shift with realities

When we talk about permanent greatness, we talk about books from management gurus such as Jim Collin that wrote "Build to Last" or Good to Great", or Michael Treacy who wrote "Double-Digit Growth."

We think about the Dell's, Amazon.com, Microsoft, Merck, Wal-Marts and others, right? According to such authors, it seems that those companies should be able to keep growing. But there is something that might make them fall, just like other companies do - disruptive technology, a concept pretty nicely outlined by Prof Christensen in his books on the "Innovator's Dilemma" and "Innovator's Solution".

Before the world changed, it seemed like a nice system to have. You have great employees that create happy customers, that lead investors to invest in your stock, and in turn creates happy shareholders. Somewhere along the line, the function was broken.

The Boston.com outlines the case of a couple of companies that failed to deliver on the promise:

Lucent Technology, Fannie Mae, Coke, Merck and Microsoft - all companies that were blockbusters a while back, but where the stock is down dramatically.

The columnist writes that "Greatness is not permanent. It can disappear as easily as it can appear. Changing tastes, fashions, and technology can knock the legs out from under even the best companies. This process of creative destruction isn't new."

Thanks Tom, for pointing to this article in the first place (www.tompeters.com). Doesn't make me feel much better about the stocks I hold, so I only have a few shares in some (other) companies.

Expect changes in Australia - Big reform push is on

Expect changes in the business landscape in Australia after the last election win of the Howard government.

Telstra, the telecommunication company is on the block with a proposed sale of 51%. But apparently, there is more to come, and Senator Coonan promised a series of initiatives ranging from insurance to immigration that will substantially change the technology sector. There is more in the article but the interesting part is the "outlined plans to allow freer movement of people in the industry, making it easier for companies to get IT skills from overseas through the temporary visa system."

In addition, the government plans to merge the Australian Communications Authority and the Australian Broadcasting Authority, and the creation of a new federal role of Australian Government Chief Information Officer.

Amongst other initiatives is a roll-out of HealthConnect, a national health information network that provides a platform for collecting, storing and exchanging consumer health data in a secure environment. Also expect the continuous development of the biometric passenger processing system, SmartGate.

Well, this shows big ticket items, and with the backup of a government, trickle down effects to SME's can be expected. The competition between countries for the future of IT is exciting to watch.

Electricity wasted by unused appliances

Do you leave your Stand-By option on? Do you know that this causes a lot of electricity to go wasted?

Well, Korea has now established, that a total of 11% "of the nation’s total electricity consumption was wasted by active standby that occurs when unused electrical appliances are left plugged in."

Okay, it depends on the load usage of the different products - in Korea, the Wattage is higher than in the US, but nevertheless, it has to be realised that this is a way to save electricity, that small amounts make up a lot, and that ultimately, we give earth and environment a short rest.

Downloaders Push Music Stores to Brink

The headline is probably a bit wrong. While music download from the Internet plays a role in the fact that music retailers go out of business, it is also a sign that the whole business model doesn't work anymore the way it used to.

There are plenty of stories around that show that musicians and groups can thrive if they embark on the online journey. Only that the music industry doesn't see it and prefers to aliniate their customers by suing them - as it happens in the US and recently started in the UK - their motto is that they don't trust their customers.

When you go through the streets in Malaysia or in China or in Indonesia (not necessarily in this sequence) or anywhere else, probably even in the US, you are able to find cheap knock-offs of music and movies. So clearly, the sign is that something else is on the way here, and that this disruptive movement is going to put you out of business when you don't change.

It happens everywhere in every industry. In the US, a debate has started around the fact that people start to shop offline - decide what they want to have - and than go online to purchase the product - 69% of U.S. online shoppers admit to browsing in traditional stores before buying over the Internet, according to USA Today .

The same is happening in the music industry in Korea. The article quotes a retailer as saying that "Before then (before the event of online music - ABC comment inserted), if our customers liked the songs from our sound system, they used to buy the CDs here. Since about two years ago, most of them just ask the title of the song and walk out, then download it later on the Internet."

Get used to a world that is changing. Change is hard, but if companies don't see change coming they are out of the business. Park Joon-hum, music columnist and director general of Kasum Music Industry Policy Research Center in South Korea is saying that "the fundamental problem is that the music industry has totally failed to come up with a new marketing strategy to meet the changing demands of music consumers." True!!

Nintendo seeks to dominate portable game market with new console

The market size of the portable game market, dominated by Nintendo, is shrinking rapidly. "According to the latest industry survey, the Japanese video game market contracted for a third consecutive year in 2003, with the market size dropping to only 60 percent of the peak in 1997."

This nevertheless means that competition can be fierce, as market players try to stay atop a shrinking market or want to keep their revenues. It means that there are exits from the market and that those remaining in the market can actually still grow.

Nintendo aims to rejuvenate the market with the release of a Nintendo DS, a hand-held double-screen console.

This comes after Sony recently released a slimmed-down Playstation 2 that goes heads-on against Nintendo.

South Korea issues warning of possible cyber terrorism

Korea is a bit paranoid currently, but was it Andy Groove, founder of Intel, who said that only the paranoid survive?

Well, last week, there was this article floating around that N-Korea - of all nations - would have trained 500 computer hackers to attack the US, South Korea in a cyberwar. This from a country, which bans the use of mobile phones, and only recently set up their first Internet Portal - it is tough to believe that N-Korea is able to do this, but then, well, they also probably developed nuclear weapons while leaving their population in poverty and isolated.

Today, S-Korea rings the alarm again. "Local computer security companies have reinforced their checks on Internet traffic as a precaution against possible cyber terrorism, after Ayman al-Zawahri, a deputy of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, called for terrorist attacks against U.S. allies, including South Korea, in an audiotape aired by Al-Jazeera television on Oct. 1." This might be more appropriate as a possibility - or are we too paranoid now?

Blogger debate in Malaysia - or: I haven't learnt anything

Our position should be clear. We try to value objectivity and put respect for other bloggers, groups, individuals, corporations and so on and their opinion above anything else.

There was the debate in Malaysia last week about a comment left on one blog that clearly insulted Islam (http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004/10/blogger-debate-in-malaysia-ongoing.html).

This debate was very actively followed and commented on by bloggers as well as by the New Straits Times (Malaysia), the country's leading newspaper.

Over the past two or three days, the debate died down, and there was some sort of agreement, communication or discussion between all parties involved - so far so good.

One of our posting called "Have money - Will spend" (http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004/10/have-money-will-spend.htmlreceived this comment:

"There are tonnes of allegations poiting at one Jeff Ooi as a politician in disguised as a 'free' blogger ..."

The comment was written by someone who called himself "The Allegations". He or she (let's call him a "he", for the sake of simplicity) also runs a blog. I originally didn't want to link to the blog to avoid giving publicity, but if you would follow the links above, you would be let there anyway - so here it is http://bolehtalk.blogspot.com. Reading through his blog only reveals some arbitrary lines of business in his entries - difficult to follow and hard to understand.

Mr. Allegations claims to have guest bloggers who follow their own opinions. One of them is called Mr. X. Others are "Dave", KTemoc, and WakWat. Two of the profiles work, the others are not existing. Mr. X has a write-up, in which he accuses Jeff Ooi to be some kind of hidden agent for whatever and gives him a deadline of 3 days to come out with a statement. The blog entry is in badly written English with mistakes in it.

Question - if "The Allegation" doesn't support the comment of Mr. X, why does he comment on our blog?

And reading through his blog, there is hardly anything that is substantive - only follows some arbitrary lines of thinking in his entry.

I believe he wants to stir up emotion, and we reject the intention. It is just stupid (sorry for the harsh word), shows no respect and develops some erratic lines of thinking throughout the whole blog. This individual hasn't learnt anything. I wouldn't publish this, just like I don't publish press releases, or company promotional material without the chance to comment on it.

I gave this blogger too much space already by having this write-up. Sorry "Mr. Allegation", wrong address.

Google and Symfonic Launch Search Tools for SMS

Well, Google continues to expand its services - showing that there is a life behind search technology.

Over the last couple of days, they started search that extends to books. Well, it actually is a re-launch - they did this launch last year December already, but apparently not that successful.

Now, following other companies, they extend their service to allow you to search and access content via SMS.

The sad thing is that while they realise that SMS is way more important in Asia and even Europe, this new beta service is first available in the US only.

Have money - will spend

Synovate, a market research firm has published results from a tracking study. The tracking study tracks the spending behaviour of the top 20% of income earners in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, India and Australia.

They found around 13 million of those big spenders, which spend on more than 8 million cars and made nearly 4 million leisure trips from July last year to June this year, spending 38.5 million nights in hotels.

Let's have some numbers from the article:

"The wealthy in Singapore have a smaller budget compared with those in Hong Kong. Their average annual household income of US$53,400 is nearly half of Hong Kong's US$98,600 but higher than Malaysia's US$44,100 and Thailand's US$38,900. In addition, 9.5% of Singapore's rich said they intended to buy a car within the next year, compared with Thailand's 28.9% and Malaysia's 24.5%."

Its money, money, money or money makes the world go around. Is it a wonder that the economies grow so rapidly? But also that the landfills are full?

Broken Trust - The trashed deposit boxes of DBS

In a Hong Kong branch of Singapore DBS bank, deposit boxes that were still filled with customer material were accidentally trashed. Apparently, the boxes The boxes at a branch of DBS Bank had been selected for scrapping in error. People send to the scrap yard to find the leftovers didn' find anything.

The chairman is saying that "all claimants will receive HK$50,000 (US$6,500) and those willing to settle 'quickly' will be paid an additional HK$100,000 (US$13,000)."

This is probably done in the face of angry customers who lost much more and who threaten with legal actions and reported the incidence to the police already.

A difficult situation. Some customers say that they have lost much more - while the bank is worried about profiteers. They say that if the claims sound fishy they would ask a lot of questions.

It is a difficult situation but in the face of customer relationships, the bank should just pay up. No questions asked. It doesn't sound right and rather worried, actually, when the chairman says that those who want to settle quickly get more. Sounds like the offer from a salesman who tells you that this is the last day of the sale, and that by tomorrow, all the goodies are gone. Okay, it is possible that some customers will claim more than they actually deposited - but shouldn't the value of a relationship measured higher? How do you value the lost memories of items that now are trashed?

Compare this with recalls done by pharmaceutical companies - something much more expensive and wider in coverage. They handle this very professionally, at least most of the time. May be DBS can learn something from their cases.

While it is difficult to handle such situation, a professional way out needs to be found.

Copyright protection - the beginning of the end?

It appears that more companies dump dump copyright protection and clearly state that copyright protection on CDs is not necessarily the most customer-friendly way of treating your most valuable people, the buyers.

Sony said in the beginning of the month that it will dump copyright protection. As reason given was that according to Sony, "Japanese consumers now have a far better appreciation of the issues surrounding copyright and music piracy, and the law is now tougher on those who flout it.

More to the point, however, buyers have not responded well to the technology and the limitations it places on legitimate music buyers in order to hinder folk from duplicating discs for chums or profit."

Following Sony is European Indie label K7 with an even more drastic move - the label is branding all its releases with a sticker proclaiming the absence of any such control measure. ""Copy protection kills customer relationships," the label says on its website. "That's why, from now on, !K7 releases will carry a new logo: 'NO copy protection - respect the music."

Now this is customer friendliness and by companies that finally realise that the old business model of music distribution (followed by the movies) has been destroyed by new technology and needs to be replaced by new, and more innovative approaches. Suing your customers is not the best way to make money.

Job interviews - are you looking good enough?

Everybody knows that in a job interview, the first few seconds count very much - it is the first impression and if you mess this one up, it it tough to go any further. This happens despite various rounds of interviews, job seekers have to go through, or tests that will be conducted - once you take the first hurdle.

A job consulting firm called Scout has now made it scientific. If you don't look good, it messes up your job opportunities. Well, okay - what they found is a bit obvious. Guys shouldn't have bushy beards, and women shouldn't wear heavy make-up. Those are just some of the criteria, companies look at. Alcohol is a no no (but it never was, we thought?), but we haven't found a definition of a "peculiar hairstyle". Any help from our readers here?

Here are some more of the criteria that puts you of the job map:

"For male candidates, these included a bushy beard (31.3 percent), the smell of alcohol and cigarettes (25.9 percent), a peculiar hairstyle (23.5 percent), strong cologne (9.9 percent) and ostentatious clothing (4.9 percent). For female candidates, these included the smell of alcohol and cigarettes (38.3 percent), thick makeup (30.0 percent), extravagant clothing (16.9 percent), strong perfume (7.0 percent) and a peculiar hairstyle (3.3 percent)."

It relates to Korea, obviously, as the firm conducted the study in Korea. But we wouldn't be astonished if the firm is not also engaged in the grooming business of job seekers.

Blogger Debate in Malaysia Ongoing

There is a debate ongoing in Malaysia about a comment made in one of the weblogs commenting on Malaysian events (http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2004/10/my_apologies.php and others). The comment, made anonymously under the name "Anwar", was offensive and insulting and has since been removed by Jeff Ooi - the original writer was banned from further commenting as well. The overall situation came to a heat after leading newspapers in Malaysia picked up the entry over the weekend and they continue with the story in an ongoing coverage (http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/National/20041004082626/Article/indexb_html).
Some comments from us - there is no anonymity on the web. This is long gone. So when someone posts something under an assumed identity, there is always the chance to trace him or her down - this has been shown in the recent SMS probe in Malaysia as well (http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004/09/sms-threat-probe-in-malaysia.html) and repeats itself when seen in the write-up of the New Straits Times of today.

Secondly – there is the chance that the whole event is picked up elsewhere. It is pretty easy due to the widespread penetration of blogs across the globe as the recent debate in the US has shown (http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004/09/power-of-blogs.html) in the case of Dan Rather - which might not necessarily help the whole situation. Malaysia prides itself in having the Multimedia Supercorridor and correctly points to its progress over the years that were supported by an unregulated usage of the Internet and supportive governmental policies.

Thirdly - writing on the web and publishing is also about Respect - Respect for Others - it is hardly possible to erase something that has been posted somewhere. It is living forever and will stay in the domain. So think before you post - something that was called "think before you speak" in an earlier period - posting can hurt people's feelings. So it is important that simple basic rules are followed (without wanting to sound patronising). Be respectful to other's feelings. And don't do to others that you don't want to have done to you.

How is that?

Update:

And here we go: Slashdot has the story.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/05/1823254&tid=153

There are plenty of comments posted there - take your own judgement about the quality, but well - Slashdot is one of the most widely read blogs globally.

The last place in China gets connected to mobile phone network

China is a huge country with a lot of isolated places. Now, they are all connected with the last one recently connected - the district of Drung in the mountainous county of Gongshan in southwestern Yunnan province.

"The district has a population of 3,990 spread over an area of 2,000 square kilometers (781 square miles) and is one of the poorest areas in the country."

This is not a large population and probably they are pretty poor. It shows the ongoing effort of the Chinese goverment to integrate its population and to spread the economic wellbeing to other areas apart from the ones that benefitted from its congoing boom.

Smart in partnership with Singapore MobileOne

This is a wonderful segmentation strategy. Smart, a mobile company in the Philippines, is signing an agreement with MobilOne in Singapore catering to 85,000 Philippinos living in Singapore. The service offering? Give overseas Philippinos access to Smart's products, such as cheaper messaging, voice call rates and similar.

This agreement is following a similar one that catered to Philippinos in Hong Kong, and a rollout to the US, the Middle East and Italy is in the pipeline.

Why is this great? Simply because Smart is marketing or segmenting to circumstances - Philippinos overseas in need of contacts to the Philippines. This contrasts to traditional segmentation strategies, which breaks down groups into demographics, income, gender, and so on resulting in a noise for all the other user groups.

Way more successful and useful in the same time.

Dial 070

Internet telephony will get regulated in Korea and consumers will be able to receive phone calls over the internet or can call out. It is possible to call long distance or overseas at the cost of a local phone call or even free.

The Ministry of Information and Communication will assign the prefix 070 for Internet-based telephone numbers.

And on we go!!

China texting away

The International Herald Tribune runs an article outlining the business that texting is creating for mobile operators.

What is fascinating is the number of SMS send in China - a total of 131 billion messages in 2003.

However, when we disect the numbers we come to the real potential - this 131 billion equals only 10 billion messages per month (and a bit - forget about the rounding). In a country of 310 mobile phone users, this results in only 30 messages per month per user.

Around the same as an individual sends in the UK. This, however, compares to a total of 252 messages per user in text-crazy Philippines. May be this is a better yardstick, since Asians are normally more tech savvy - and would indicate a tremedous potential for SMS and content providers in China.

What is another interesting piece amongst all these numbers? Well, the same source IHT originally wrote, back in August, that there are 360 billion messages send annually - does this now mean that the China share of the total global SMS market is around 30%?

What do you think?

SMS and TV in Malaysia

Do they finally get it? The New Straits Times (Malaysia) runs an article today about the phenomenon in Malaysia about chatrooms run by television stations. In this case, the SMS chatroom is displayed on national television, for everyone to see. As such, participants talk to each other via SMS and make their opinion count to Malaysia as well.

This is a great service showing the beginning of a different kind of television. Television frequently was one-directional. The viewer sits in front of the TV and has just to absorb what is shown. In a few cases, listeners or viewers could call and ask an "expert" a question. In a change of time, this was expanded to include faxes, or, nowadays e-mails or SMS.

However, the current offering is interactive. This means that viewers can discuss about a television program (think Akademi Fantasia, Malaysian Idol or American Idol) independent from what is given to them from the station and even discuss amongst themselves. A woman is quoted in the article that she even met people that she got to know on TV. This is a further sign for the dawning of the experience economy in Malaysia.

Asian telcos closer to consumers

At least that is what the GSM Association says that holds its annual session in Bangkok.

They are saying that mobile companies in Asia were successful in penetrating their target markets and that European and US companies could learn from them. The association is quoted as saying that "Asia’s mobile operators are unique in being close to the street, less bureaucratic, more open to ideas, and resilient by playing in a more competitive arena than the rest of the world."

Lim Chuan Poh, CEO of SingTel Mobile is quoted as saying that the Asian market would be as large as the European market and would be three times bigger by 2008.

However, we don't necessarily agree with his comments that handset makers should start focusing on low end models to entice more users to enter the market. Yesterday's Asian Wall Street Journal (Sept. 23, 2004) described that low cost handset makers in China are losing their market share gains against the traditional handset makers, such as Nokia, Samsung or Sony Ericsson because users demand higher end models, and those handset producers won't have the capacity to increase their R&D efforts to move up the value chain. They also don't have the relationship with suppliers that would allow them to access pieces and material of high-end mobile phones for production.

Still, this doesn't mean that all is lost. It just means that companies producing those handsets need to focus on their markets - razorsharp - they have a chance due to the high fragmentation of the Asian markets where penetration ranges from as low as 2% to more than 100%.

Volkswagen In Talks With Malaysia's Proton On Partnership

It simply had to come! Proton, the local car manufacturer in Malaysia started to lose marke share, especially against foreign car makers, but also foreign competition.

The cars were useful but the brand had the stigma of bein protected, not good enough and "we switch to other brands when we can."

Every now and than, there was the discussion of a takeover by a foreign carmaker. ranging from Ford to DaimlerChrysler. When Mitsubishi Corporation sold their stake in Proton in the beginning of this year, talks heated up, but were, as usual, rejected (http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004/04/who-will-get-proton-in-malaysia.html).

Malaysia is one of the biggest car markets in Asia, but its locational advantage was dampened as the market was or still somewhat is, and many of the larger car companies decided to settle in Bangkok - which is also called the Detroit of the East.

Now, it appears that Volkswagen of Germany is in hot discussions about a potential partnership. Volkswagen itself faced a bit of a problem with their brands recently, and is losing market share in China, where it was or still is, one of the biggest car makers. It would be an interesting tie-up, for sure, but may be also critical, since both are companies that struggle to move up the value chain.

Unreliable credit system, post dwarf online sales

It is clear that with the current infrastructural provisions, and the perception of China as a haven for spam, software piracy and others, online sales would encounter problems taking of.

A research firm estimates that its online shopping market was worth US$507.5 million) in 2003. A doubling is expected in 2004.

The article further states that "only 10 per cent of China's estimated 90-million-plus Web surfers buy things on the Internet, compared with 38 per cent in the United States". It is saying that about a quarter of online auction transactions in China are completed in person, and just 30 per cent of all Web shopping payments are handled over the Internet.

Now, the last statement indicates the opposite approach to the Internet compared to the US.

USA Today reports that 69 per cent of U.S. online shoppers admit to browsing in traditional stores before buying over the Internet.

Fascinating differences and something that requires companies active in online sales need to consider. Western approaches don't always work in Asia.