Branding a country

Korea embarks on a branding campaign, following a survey "on the national image of some 3,000 people in the U.S., Germany and Japan.

The image survey concerned the three major entities including "Korea" as a country, "Koreans" as a people, and "Korean products".’ The popularity rating of "Korea" stood at 65 percent and the approval rating at 62 percent. The popularity rating of "Koreans’" was as high as 72 percent compared to the approval rating of 64 percent."

Accordingly, the national image survey, which serves as a basis for the development of the goal, strategy, and implementation program, will be conducted at three-year intervals.

Korea has decided that as a conclusion of this studies, they are chosing "Dynamic Korea".

Fine. Now we have "Malaysia - Truly Asia", "Amazing Thailand" and "Dynamic Korea". There is hardly any difference between the statements. Okay, the Truly Asia makes a point, and I can associate something with dynamic. But overall, and as the Whisper Blog writes, each slogan "explains their place is better/more wonderful than the next, rather than demonstrating their difference." This might help to clear the confusion.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Telekom Malaysia announces VSS

This is now old news and well, yeah, it was announced yesterday - but it fits with older entries from me. Let me comment about it.

Telekom is or was a complacent company. I had my problems with its 5-pronged strategy, but this was more regarding the priorities and not with regard to the need. The company needed to change and they did.

The acquired Excelkomindo in Indonesia, and went on to Pakistan. It would fit with its strategy to concentrate on Asia to move more aggressively into India, more than it has done already with the investment into Idea Cellular. So far it is fine.

The company is old, and that includes its employees. The average age structure in Telekom is above that of its competitors, believe me. A little observation of the company from the outside confirms this. But it has a very dynamic CEO, one who has moved other companies before. So yes, he will be able to initiate change and it would surely be good if Telekom can reduce their manpower by ten to twenty percent. This will put it on the same footing as its regional competitors - but don't think that they will stop and wait for Telekom. May be another move by SingTel is already in the cards.

Anyway, the challenges of a VSS are manifold and the press release yesterday didn't help. First, Telekom needs to take care that it keeps those employees which are high performing. Let's hope that they have talked to them already. Otherwise, these high performers take the money and start to move on. They won't have a problem to find a new job, if they are good. If this happens, Telekom would be left with all those employees that are low performing. Not a good move.

Secondly, lets hope that they don't follow the advise of one of the analysts mentioned in The Star. This one said that more VSS could follow. This would only lead to uncertainty in the organisation, and unnecessary rumours and thus hopple the envisioned operational performance improvements. Employees would just sit and wait until the next VSS comes around. And the next one might not even be better. So please Encik Datuk Wahid, make the deal clear to your employees. In these situations, please also communicate, communicate, communicate. Advise those who take the VSS, on career opportunities and other opportunities. Be a caring employer.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Cultural factors bind China and India

An interesting article that reviews the historical ties between the two Asian giants, China and India.

Both countries had its conflicts in the recent past, and only started to warm up recently and started to sign contracts with each other.

And it is important to understand the two countries since both countries arenot only important economically, but also increasingly politically.

India, for example, "is seeking a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, while China has been invited to attend the G-7 Finance Ministers' Meeting in London, after its first invitation to a similar rendezvous in Washington" in 2004.

So Hello World, here we come! But the million dollar question for corporations is of course, which country will be the better investment choice!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

The Indian car market

India is growing stronger by the day and was, at least for a while last year, the fastest growing global economy.

It will soon start competing with China for valuable resources, putting further strains on the global environment.

Anyways, global car giants are, most of the time, quick to see and realise business opportunities and in the space of just a couple of hours, Renault and Toyota released some news with regard to India - both belonging to the most efficient car companies in the world.

"Toyota Motor Corp., Asia's biggest automaker, said it would sell the Innova multipurpose vehicle in India as a replacement for the Qualis and compete with General Motors Corp.'s Tavera and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.'s Scorpio."

On the other hand, "Mahindra & Mahindra today announced a Rs 700 crore joint venture with French auto major Renault to manufacture and market Logan, a low-cost car in India from 2007."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

DVD piracy in China

Everybody knows that in China, just like many other Asian location, the sale of DVDs or CDs is rambant - in fact in such a scale that even the Chinese authorities conduct their own anti-piracy drives.

Any visit to hawkers or traders thus will reveal to anybody at a glance that the traditional business model is dead. Some musicians have found ways to connect to their audience via the web.

Warner now tries to cope with the problem in a new way. "Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Entertainment will release more than 125 movies on DVD in China at discounted prices in an effort to offset piracy losses."

Apparently, the price for a DVD is only slightly higher than the pirated version, but contains additional scenes and materials from the movies.

The big question is, however, if competition on price with some value added is sufficient to succeed. Granted, it is definitely better than suing your audience. But it is also interesting to see that they really forgo their margins in order to counter effects that trouble them so much. Shouldn't the music industry take the clue?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Samsung Mass Produces 2.5-Gbit MCP for 3G Phones

It is still not quite clear how far 3G will go, and when it will take off, even so various countries try to accelerate the adoption speed.

Samsung is heavily preparing for this service. The company has begun mass production of the world’s largest-capacity multi-chip package (MCP) for 3G phones. The 2.5Gb MCP will allow for intense video playback on mobile phones with digital multimedia broadcasting support (DMB).

It is okay to prepare - so far, the majority of mobile phone users use the phone to talk or send SMS. Mobile phones thus still are more about communicating than consuming. And the lack of suitable technology to support 3G phones handicaps the uptake of the innovation.

However, research companies keep predicting the success of the technology - and somehow along the line, beating the bush often and loud enough might attract customers. In the article here, "iSuppli predicts that the market for 3G mobile phones will grow an average of 78% a year through 2008, when 240 million units will be sold worldwide."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

The cost of the Internet

Every now and than do I find material that outlines how the Internet is changing the way humans interact with each other. Often, the changes are described in a positive or neutral light, sometimes blame is placed.

The article at hand describes a new study that says that the price of the Internet is less face-to-face interaction among its users.

The researchers from Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society say that those who use the Internet in the US "spend a whopping 70 minutes less daily interacting with family, 25 minutes less sleeping and 30 minutes less watching television."

They even quote another report saying that "on average, Internet users spend three hours online every day. More than half of the time is spent communicating, 8.7 percent playing games, 6.5 percent surfing and 4.3 percent shopping."

While I believe that the findings are right how to doubt the numbers until studies to the contrary are published, the conclusion might be wrong.

It is true that time is a limited factor and that the time spend on the Internet must come from some other activities. But than, may be the Internet is a new communications channel - think online conversations via MSN, IRC or Yahoo Messenger. Sure, oral conversations are not that common, but hey - my parents said that there is no conversation in a disco as well. May be, additionally, the web is allowing its users to make smarter decisions. How much time is saved to shop online instead of hanging out in the shopping mall to compare prices between different shops. And don't forget the time wasted in traffic jams.

It is the way that new communication is evolving - it is not the medium, but how the user is using the medium.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

AT&T and the grooming of great executives

Not really.

An article in the US Today doubts the ability of groomed senior leadership of former AT&T to be able to lead other companies. This contrasts those leaders in companies such as IBM and especially GE.

The article says that "many have AT&T on their résumé. Among AT&T's alumni are Richard McGinn, ousted at Lucent Technologies in 2000, Joseph Nacchio, ousted at Qwest Communications in 2002, and Carly Fiorina, the most famous graduate of the AT&T farm system, ousted this month at Hewlett-Packard."

Later it states that "General Electric and IBM are known for developing deep pools of executive talent and show up on rankings such as Chief Executive magazine's Top 20 companies for leaders. No one interviewed has heard of a similar list of companies that fall short, but most agree that AT&T would be on it."

I don't want to be mean (may be I am), but the dissolution of AT&T after its acquisition by SBC might solve this issue. There won't be too many new executives coming from AT&T in the future, and there won't be any major payouts to executives after the sale of AT&T units to other companies.

What do you think?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Dinosaurs in the traditional business

Well, may be the header is tough, may be not. It is clear that the internet is in the beginning stages of its life and already, companies are threatened in their business model.

The cases of digital photography come to mind - and look around you to see how many photoshops still exist - unknowingly moving closer to the edge by the day, when they don't change.

Fixed line telephony - with Skype and everything, how long will it take to change fixed line operator's business model to something more viable?

Postcards might still go a longer way - who is able to get this nice sunset on a camera without graduation certificate in photography.

But what about greeting cards? It is much more useful to send an SMS or an e-mail with a link to the major online greeting card companies. In India, the first companies complain that their business is hurt by the Internet".

"It is estimated that about a billion short messaging service were exchanged during the week between last Christmas and New Year in India."

The CEO of ITC Ltd, a greeting, gifting and stationery business, told Business Standard that the greeting card industry's business was stagnant over the last three years, but this fiscal the industry has been witnessing a 10 per cent fall in business due to the SMS and multi-messaging services.

Move or be moved. Isn't this the motto? Read the statistics provided earlier in another entry in this blog about a study in Australia conducted by Motorola that stated that 70 precent of 16-34 year olds surveyed planned to send text messages this Christmas. Here we go!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Few Asian companies amongst leading in multinational companies

I doubted them slightly (but this is my job, as well) , when I wrote that may be, just may be, they might be a bit too confident. Confidence, or, too much confidence, in business, can lead to complacency and subsequently, to downfalls - just like in real life.

The Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ), of all the newspapers, now confirmend or reassured the strength of Samsung.

"Samsung Electronics placed 11th in a multinational corporation ranking by the Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ), the electronics maker said Monday.

The electronics heavyweight was the only Korean firm to be included in the top 25 list of the AWSJ 200, which surveys 200 multinational firms worldwide." (methodology to conduct survey was not explained in the article at hand).

Four Japanese companies made it to the ranking as well - those were Toyota Motor, Sony Corp., Canon and Honda. Thus, only five Asian companies in total.

"The U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. topped the list and German car maker BMW AG ranked second, a 10-spot jump from its No. 12 ranking last year.

Hewlett-Packard took the No. 3 spot, climbing up from 16th last year and Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. slipped to No. 4 from No. 2. The Sony Corp. moved up to No. 5 from last year’s No. 6.

Also in the top 10 line-up were IBM (seventh), General Electric (eighth), chipmaker Intel Corp. (ninth) and Apple Computer (10th)." Good company!!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China's Internet industry: from childhood to youth

The growth of internet usage in China is of interest in itself. No other country sees such massive development. Even so the data are contradicting each other from time to time, the message from such numbers is clear. China is THE market.

The nice piece is that the more the market develops, the more one starts to see patterns of their lifestyle and usage of the web. The article gives a nice background to this:

"For young professionals in big cities, Internet is their life style. Therefore, diversity has developed for the model of Internet business which used to be simplistic.

The recent research by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) found the purposes of people getting online are:"

1.) Scanning for information
2.) Recreation
3.) Studying
4.) Making friends
5.) Obtaining free resources
6.) Communication
7.) Academic research
8.) Stock market transactions
9.) Emotional needs
10.) Online shopping
11.) Business affairs
12.) Going after fashion
13.) Curiosity.

Clearly, some of those blend each other out or compliment each other, e.g.; Academic Research and Studying, but overlook this for a moment.

Commonly used functions are E-mail, search engine, news service, viewing websites/web-pages, online chat (chatroom, QQ, ICQ etc.), software uploading or downloading services, BBS forum community and discussion group etc.

People are spending more and more time on the Internet. The experiences of the Internet vary among netizens who no longer concentrate on a particular activity or function.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Improve service and shun price war

Advanced Info Service (AIS), a mobile phone operator in Thailand, has set a strategy to improve its service and distribution network instead of cutting prices.

And they spend on this by building distributor center in mainly in convenience stores, service stations and banks.

While this cannot be everything - there are plenty of more things, a mobile phone operator can do - it surely is better than starting and maintaining price wars.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China's vision 2080

Country's need the vision to go foward. Now, China has revealed her own vision, after the country published the "China Modernization Report 2005", which outlines the development of the country in three stages.

"Experts and scholars involved in the study believe that China's modernization of economy is scheduled to bring it into the ranks of the world's top 40 developed countries in the first half of this century. They predicted that the country's modernization process will be upgraded in three stages to achieve this goal.

In the middle of this century, China will become a "moderately developed country" instead of simply remaining as a "primarily developed one."

Around 2080, persistent economic growth will enable China to become a "developed country" and then to be in front of the world's most industrialized countries within the next two decades.

Already today, China's economy has overtaken Germany's. There are estimates that the country will overtake the US as the world's largest economy by 2050. This gives it a period of 30 years to extend its lead and power ahead. The major danger, so, is to control the further exploitation of resources, in order to avoid further depletion of the planet.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Grammy award after web-only sales

The music industry can howl and cry and mourn, after this success about which I should have written about 3 days ago. Somewhat it slipped my attention, even so I saw it and danced through the office.

It confirms everything I said before - the music industry's business model has changed and while they can say that downloads or uploads from or to the Internet hurt their business - what is not true, clever musicians use the web to advance their career. Music is not a loaf of bread, as stated by Wilco's frontman last year.

And now this success: "Jazz composer Maria Schneider took home a Grammy for her album "Concert in the Garden," without selling a single copy in a record store."
"financed her Grammy-winning album through a Internet-based music delivery service called ArtistShare that opens the financing of production to dedicated fans."

Outch.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

3G - one moves in Australia, others, in Malaysia, don't

Telstra currently isn't my favourite company, but at least, it is trying to do something with 3G. Apparently, it "has stepped up its efforts to become a major content provider and will pull its disparate platforms into a single system for the first time as it prepares for the launch of its third-generation mobile service in July."

At least, they move. In Malaysia, the two companies with a license - Telekom Malaysia and Maxis Communications - don't.

The "nice part", so to speak is, that once someone falls asleep over business opportunities, other companies with rival technologies tend to step in - here, we find WiMax. The Star writes that "WiMAX (Wireless Interoperability for Microwave Access) standard allows for high-speed, metropolitan-scale fixed wireless broadband networks with the ability to handle services such as VoIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) as well as circuit-switched voice and data applications."

So how was this again, this saying by Mijal Gorbashov? The one who comes to late will be punished by life?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Government steps into Internet TV debate

In the US, the merger of telecommunications companies create new giants - Verizon buying MCI was the latest in the marriage cycle. This won't create monopolies, so, since already, cable companies are entering the telecommunications sector, while those telecommunications companies are entering the cable sector. This is called convergence of industries and it is fun to observe.

Regulators are involved in mergers, of course, and check on certain competition-related issues.

While I am by no means a proponent of total capitalism, it is always bad, if regulators want to assume a role that they are not predestined to do. Especially, when it hurst a country in an area, where the country is competitive. There was this issue in the Philippines, when regulators in that country wanted to impose the franchise tax on SMS. Luckily, they withdraw the idea.

Now, a similar situation is happening in Korea. Here, "cable operators have scrambled of late to prevent telecom entities from entering the broadband-based TV service, calling it the realm of broadcasters and not telecom players." The government seems to agree as it plans to limit the service areas of telecommunication companies to just video on demand (VoD) format" - although KT and Hanaro Telecom originally planned to launch Web TV services later in 2005.

Korea is strong in Internet and broadband. But for how much longer?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China's endless hunger for resources

Yesterday, the Kyoto Treaty came into force, and the US and Australia were among the few nations that haven't ratified the agreement. The US was, for a long time, seen as the country that consumes most the the world's resources - unfair, considering its share in the total world population.

However, China's hunger for resources is going to change even this. Washington-based research institute Earth Policy Institute says that "Although the United States has long consumed the lion's share of the world's resources, this situation is changing fast as the Chinese economy surges ahead, overtaking the United States in the consumption of one resource after another."

"China consumed 382 million tons of grain compared to 278 million tons for the United States in 2004, Brown said, adding that China's 2004 intake of 64 million tons of meat climbed far above the US consumption of 38 million tons. With steel, a key indicator of industrial development, use in China soared and is now more than twice that of the United States -- 258 million tons to 104 million tons in 2003. However, the United States is still solidly above China in Oil consumption, consuming 20.4 million barrels per day to 6.5 million barrels in 2004."

China will, however, increase her consumption of oil dramatically in the next few years. "It will rely on oil for more than half of its energy by 2010, when net imports will rise to between 180 million tons and 200 million tons of oil a year." "China's natural gas consumption is rising at an even faster pace and the country is projected to have net gas imports of between 20 billion cubic meters and 25 billion cubic meters in 2010, from zero imports in 2000. "

But whatever it is, the issue cannot be seen as divided between the two nations. The total consumption has to be seen as an addition - and the question has to be: What will be left for the rest of the world, especially the developing world. And, additionally, what will happen in the years to come? Will there be enough for the next generation? Remember, we don't have another world in out boot - we only have one world!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Telstra - share price orientation gone wrong

There are a couple of "things" that a company need to do right in order to grow. In a simple way, one could say that engaged employees create satisfied customers, in effect boosting profits, which, in turn, makes a company's shares attractive to investors.

Telstra just tries to beat the formula, ahead of its privatisation:

The company "was sacking technical workers and replacing them with cheaper trainees in a bid to boost its share price ahead of government sell-off plans."

Yeah right!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Mobile Music: Microsoft and Nokia to marry

It is not a merger - now that would be news. But it is an attempt by the two giants in their respective market to cooperate in mobile music and corporate email.

"In mobile music especially it presents a worrying change of direction for the mobile phone operators, which had hoped that downloading tracks would be a real money-spinner."

Well, the marriage comes about just as I said in a recent entry to this blog, but with a different slant - which is exciting in the business world.

"Microsoft has for years been desperate to get into the fast-growing mobile phone market, while Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, has been fiercely defending its patch. The Finnish giant has flatly refused to produce phones using Microsoft's operating system, instead sticking with Symbian, the London-based software developer in which it is the largest shareholder.

But for its part Nokia has become desperate to gain a larger position in the business market, in which Microsoft's Windows is dominant. The success of the rival Blackberry handheld email device - which companies can integrate into existing corporate email systems - has certainly played a part in persuading Nokia that in order to get into bed with business it must seduce Microsoft.(...)"

How very exciting!

In addition, and the most talked upon part of the deal relates to the music business. "Nokia has agreed to work with Microsoft's Windows Media Player technology so digital music can be easily played on both PCs and Nokia phones - moving tracks between devices." Now, will this upset Apple? Is this directed against Apple? Or does it relate to the developing relationship between Sony and Ericsson that to develop phones based on the famous Walkman brand, which people will be able to fill with their music library?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Talking banner ads - please, please, please don't do it!

Please allow me to rave for a little while against online advertisements, once again. But I think it is necessary. People don't click on banner ads - and Internet users don't like overlaying ads that blend out the screen, at least partially.

Adsense by Google or targeted ads by the company are successful because they are simply that: simple, non-intruding and up to the mark of someone who is looking for some product or service already anyway.

There are great ads online, but they are still not that prevalent, so let's forget about those for a minute.

A company called Adrave (weblink doesn't work at the time of writing this entry) has now developed a concept where banner ads would be replaced by a "handsome or pretty face speaking out aloud the “corporate message” instead?" Define handsome or pretty - first point, but still minor.

What I don't like is the piece of "speaking out" the message. Thank you, but, no thank you. Not for me. It would be more broadcasting from a company to the consumer, and also more expensive since it is a live person talking out and loud.

This is just one of the concepts where companies try to supplant the television concept onto the Internet, not realising that users of the Internet want to connect and communicate with each other, or even with a company, targeted. But not talked upon.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Knowledge Power by Country

The Korea Education and Research Information Service released a study about the knowledge power by country.

According to their definition, "knowledge power is a tally of the total amount of research-use information stored or imported by a particular nation, including academic materials at university libraries and academic seminar materials."

Their findings state that while Korea's knowledge power grows exponentially since the 1980s, it only remains a fraction of the US or Japan.

To quote:

"Korea's knowledge power at 0.0 in 1975, growing to 0.1 in 1980, 0.3 in 1990, 0.5 in 1995 and 1.0 in 2000. While the country’s knowledge power has grown by an unparalleled factor of 10 over the last 20 years, the U.S.’ is nonetheless 17 times as great, Japan's 7.4 times, and Germany's four times.

As of 2002, Korea ranked 29th in terms of the number of theses published for every 100 researchers (13.13). Switzerland came first with 57.47, while Germans published 26 and Americans 22. Japan tailed Korea with 11.12, finishing near the bottom.

In terms of citations from 1997 to 2001, things are roughly what one would expect at the top, with the U.S. first with 63 percent (23,723 citations), followed by Britain (13 percent), Germany (10 percent) and Japan (7 percent). Korea finished 20th with 294 citations (0.78 percent), behind China (0.99 percent) - but given the relatively small number of Korean theses published, this would suggest that they are of comparatively high quality."

One could say that this contradicts earlier findings published in this blog. However, this finding here is about stored knowledge, while the entry talked about the "most knowledgeable studnets." While there is a relation, between education, stored information and application of knowledge, it is clear that the ability of a population to extract information anywhere and transform it into knowledge is what makes the difference. Or, in plain English: Knowledge that is stored but not used, is at best useless.

And this can best be seen in the performance of companies in the business landscape, as shown here.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China shuts down 12,500 'illegal' cybercafes

The Register writes that Chinese authorities closed 12,500 illegal cybercafes, in the last three months of 2004.

I wrote in an entry back in November 2004, that since February 2004, China had closed down 1,600 of such cafes.

This looks like the speed to control is increasing. Just last month, China banned 50 computer games - including The Sims 2, Manhunt, and FIFA 2005 - to create "a good environment" for children.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Mobile spam - it's getting worse

Okay - I havent got much of this yet, and I am very, very happy about it.

But it is starting and the amount of mobile spam is increasing, at least in parts of Asia.

In Switzerland, 8 out of ten mobile phone users indicate that they have received spam. The study doesn't exactly say if this was a one time event (which I am a victim of as well), or if they drown in mobile spam already.

But in a typical move, users blame mobile operators and they also resent "mobile marketing messages from operators, which they see as part of the problem of mobile spam rather than the solution. Mobile spam generally has a negative impact on the brand of the mobile network operator."

True - I do so, and it surely damages the brand image that I have of a mobile phone company. I feel abused by them. What about you?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Microsoft: It is an amazing company

I am ranting often enough in this blog against Microsoft - but negative critics is better than total ignorance.

Whatever it is, one cannot say anything against the stamina of Microsoft as well. Frequently, when they launch a new product or enter a new market (without acquiring an incumbent), their first products fail to convince. Critics are loud, and sometimes cynical about the company.

This was the case with their Internet Explorer against Netscape, or when they launched their PocketPC against Palm. While they might have won the Internet browser war (for the time being) with somewhat dirty tricks, they come back and back and back. Prototyping.

Again, they are not very successful, currently, with their Smartphones. Rejected by many of the leading handphone operators, they team up with smaller companies. Now, they are going to market a new cellphone platform running Windows Mobile to phone makers and service providers, after they teamed up with Singapore Flextronics. The new platform, called Peabody (who brought up this name???) is a blueprint that cell providers can customise and that would cut production costs.

It is a sign of increasing competition in the mobile phone area, with new entries coming on board and established companies pushing their product margin, since the new platform is suppose to allow the production of cheaper products by the OEMs.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China's engineers to rival German engineers

This is scary news for Germany. The status as capital of engineering prowess is threatened by emerging China.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes that "three images shape the perception of China abroad: China as the world's factory, as the world's biggest market and as a huge risk. It may be time to add a fourth: China as an idea factory, as a prime location for research and development."

Or, to put it differently: China is making its mark abroad. In low value added products, and now in the higher end value chain as well. This must be frustrating for many countries and companies, but can also be taken as a call for action.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Chinese leaders reaching out

You can say what you want but Chinese leaders are, at least sometimes, simply amazing. They crack down on political opponents, closely monitor the Internet and try to regulate what they don't see as being in harmony with their culture.

On the other hand, they reach out to Internet users. Recently, China's minister of foreign affairs, Li Zhaoxing, sat down for a remarkably candid online chat with Chinese Internet users.

Now, over Chinese New Year, "Chinese authorities have made an effort to reach out to Internet users by posting Lunar New Year greetings on the Web site of the state-run People's Daily."

May be it is just a gesture to apiece the population. But it is a gesture that is ahead of that of other politicians.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Asian Growth Forecast by Deutsche Bank

This is quite an interesting article published by Deutsche Bank Research. According to the article, China and India will replace Japan as the second largest economy by 2020, with the US staying atop of the ranking.

"India and Malaysia will overtake China to become the world's fastest-growing economies over the next 15 years due mainly to strong population growth. (...) An expected average annual expansion of 5.5 percent in India and 5.4 percent in Malaysia would be largely driven by growing population levels as well as education levels and trade."

"Chinese growth was forecast to average 5.2 percent, only half the 10 percent average growth recorded over the last 20 years.

"The difference between China and India is solely due to the fact population growth is 0.8 percentage points slower in China, where the results of two decades of the one-child-policy begin to show."

Population growth is one of the determining factors in the study, besides education and research, with the importance of research pointed out in this blog earlier.

It is clear that young population is a main factor to growth - their were studies that drew parallels to Japan's stagnant growth in the 1990s to its aged population. In similar vein, Germany is suffering as its population ages. The US, on the other hand, "imports" enough young human capital to keep its growth momentum going - and if only it could assimilate the immigrants into the mainstream, the growth would be even faster.

So, have you taken a look at your population statistics recently?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Dating your wife

Nice story - bad ending.

In Jordan, two married people, who lived separately, meet in an online dating site. His name is Bakr Melhem and he communicated as Adnan. She is called Sanaa but said her name is Jamila.

Over the months, they keep communicating in the chatroom, both under the assumed identities.

Finally, they also fall in love with each other, as they discover similarities and mutual interests. They agree to meet up and to their surprise and shock come to realise the truth.

"Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: "You are divorced, divorced, divorced" — the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam. "You are a liar," Sanaa retorted before fainting.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Patent infringements

Imagine that:

You run a company calle Justsystem and develop a wordprocessing programmes in 1985 . Until now, you have shipped about 18 million of those programmes. The programme has to be purchased separately from the computer, and thus, this high number is quite an achievement.

Now, in 1998, a company called Matsushita, which produces products under the popular name Panasonic, registers a patent in Japan, and initiates a lawsuit to ask you to stop the production of the programme. The dispute centers on the way that a help function works.

The court agrees with Matsushita and asks Justsystem to destroy all existing stocks of the program.

Patents are a funny ways to protect your turf. Simply said - just re-engineer a product, that hasn't been patented and apply for a patent. What's your thinking?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Corporate Weblogs

I am not aware of too many blogs in Asia that are run by companies or conglomerates (excuse the differentiation). This contrasts the development in the US, where more and more companies hop onto the bandwagon - see Microsoft or Sun Microsystems, to mention just two.

But it should be clear to companies that they cannot escape the power of the web. People complain about their product, or their services and when they cannot get through, they carry it to the web. As simple as that.

In the US, two companies are under fire. One is Suzuki, and one is Verizon Wireless.

With regard to Verizon, it " started with a simple gripe posted on a weblog - the blogger was unhappy that his new mobile phone did not work as advertised. " He actually sues the company now because he realised that Verizon didn't move much to meet the complaints but sent letter to users that didn't mollify those users.

The man filed the lawsuit and "he decided to sue after reviewing numerous blog entries and realising that many others had already unsuccessfully appealed to the company."

This situation shows two developments. Firstly, that companies can no longer ignore the web - or do so at their peril. Secondly, that anything companies say about their own brand or value proposition is levelled through the web. The brand simply doesn't belong to the company anymore, but is, what consumers make out of it. The lesson? Listen to you consumers/ customers. And listen very closely.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Iskin.tv in Singapore

It is easy to misuse and condemn camera phones. However, it is also clear that there is something with a camera phone that puts it to good use, just showing the point that it is the human animal, who is responsible for use and misuse of technology.

Anyway - in Singapore the "world's first interactive skincare and aesthetic website, iSkin.tv, was launched to bring beauty tips closer to consumers," providing tips on demand.

"This means, if you have a problematic skin or even have some queries on skincare, instead of buying a product that you're unsure of its effectiveness, you can first consult the panel of doctors on how best to tackle your problem."

Subscription fee - S$5 per month. It would be interesting to see if there is demand for such service, but overall, it surely is an interesting idea.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Chinese pop online

It is common knowledge that software piracy in China is extremely high - so high actually that even the Chinese authorities conduct their own crackdowns.

However this is not what this post is about. It is about the growing permeation and acceptance of Chinese culture in the socalled Western World, but also an acknowledgement of the growing Chinese diaspora in overseas places.

A sign of this is that Apple and Universal Music are planning to expand their range to online music consumers by selling Chinese-language pop music for the first time in North America and Europe.

Nice move, right?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

15-yr-old stages own kidnapping to get a mobile

In India, a 15 year old student wanted to get a mobile phone from his father, which was pretty expensive and actually out of reach for the poor father. In order to get the phone, nevertheless, the student staged his own kidnapping.

The police caught up with the kidnapper, after they installed a caller-ID facility on his home phone and traced the whereabouts.

At the handover they found out that it was the son! He envied his friends that flashed their handphones in school. Sad story, and shows the problem that people face when group pressure sets in.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

We said it before: Music downloads don't hurt CD Industry

We said it before and apparently (and independently from us, probably), the music industry appears to realise it as well - until a new study (mostly commissioned by them) comes up and says talks the contrary.

"The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) reports that pirate CD sales hit an all-time high in 2004. However, this was also the year in which the trend finally reversed and the sales of CDs actually rose."

May it is also that musicians actually understand the the trend and opportunity that the Internet offered and embraced it much earlier.

I only hope that this development won't lead to further proliferation of more online music shops that are not necessarily complimentary with each other.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China's Internet population keeps growing, market attracts investment

China's Internet population keeps growing and growing and growing. I recently wrote that the number of Internet users in China hit 100 million in 2004. Now, the country puts another 34% on top of that.

This is happening despite crackdowns on Cybercafes, online gambling activities and pornsites and shows that there is more to the web than simple smug - although online gaming (not gambling) exploded by 61.1 percent year-on-year to 24 million.

This is an attractive field for companies and more and more realise this.

Is it thus a wonder that Monster.com bought a 40 per cent stake in its Chinese counterpart ChinaHR.com, following other giants such as Google, Amazon and IAC/Travel in 2004?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Investment cap in Indian telecommunications sector

India is of interest to foreign players in the telecommunications industry. Penetration in the huge country is still low, currently around 10% but up from 1% in the beginning of the 1990s. But you have to consider the one billion inhabitants to see the vast potential that this country has to offer. Even 10% equals 100 million users - and considering that growth is only tapering off when penetration reaches about 55%, one can understand the appetite of companies, such Singapore Telecommunications, Telekom Malaysia or even Maxis Communications, to participate in the growth.

In a new development and in line with its development objectives, the Indian government raised the foreign investment limit in the country's lucrative telecommunications sector from 49 percent to 74 percent, but also imposed conditions to address security concerns.

The conditions include: the company chairperson, CEO and the majority of directors on the board must be Indians; no domestic telephone traffic shall be routed from outside the country; and no user information, accounting information or infrastructure diagrams would be taken outside India.

Also, servers, networks and other databases cannot be accessed from overseas for repairs or maintenance.

Nevertheless, it is a landmark and allows the country and operating companies to raise funds for further investment. India needs US$20 billion of investment over three years to increase the number of mobile-phone users to between 200 million and 250 million. In addition, multiplier effects can be expected.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

We admit, we have security issues

Isn't this the message that Microsoft is giving to the world when they announce that offered early warnings of cyberthreats and security flaws in its software to the world's governments.

What about the public? Well, as long as the governments are secured. But the real issue might be that they want to reassure governments that they are trustworthy. Even so that everytime a security hole has been plugged, others pop up.

In addition - may be it helps to persuade some governments not to use Linux? Might this be the real thing behind this offer?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Countries competing in next-generation industries

The one who knows the future is the one who dominates the industry. In the same sense, countries, which are able to plan out the infrastructure for those industries have a headstart.

China, Japan and S-Korea are the powerhouses in Asia which compete head-on for the lead - the question is, tht hopefully, the end-result of those initiatives will be complimentary with each other, otherwise, it is the consumer and the industry in other regions that ultimately suffer.

"All 10 industries that Korea plans to strategically foster as the nation’s next flagship industries overlap with new industry development projects of Japan or China and all three countries are gearing up to preempt six of the 10 industrial sectors.

Considering the enormous growth potential of the 10 next-generation industries, there is plenty of room for Korean corporations to take the lead, but they will have to brace for intense competition given the resemblance of the industrial development blueprint of the three Asian economies.

Korea’s plan to foster the digital television and digital broadcasting sector overlaps with Japan’s plan to promote growth of the information communication device industry and China’s project to stimulate the local digital multimedia broadcasting industry.

Korea and China’s plans to foster the next-generation display industry also closely resemble the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s information communication device development project.

Korea’s future automotive vehicle project aimed at developing hybrid and electric-powered cars overlap with China’s electricity vehicle project.

Other industries in which the three countries are aggressively include intelligent robotss, next-generation semiconductors, next-generation mobile communications system and equipment, intelligent home network systems and appliances, digital contents, next-generation batteries and biotechnology.

Given the close resemblance of the three countries’ national projects to promote the growth of strategic industries, Korean business organizations, including the Federation of Korean Industries and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will suggest an increase in the national research and development (R&D) budget this year.

The Korean government spent $4.6 billion in R&D last year, but Korea’s national R&D budget is low compared to Japan’s $31.3 billion and China’s $9.8 billion. Korea also has less R&D manpower of 2.9 per 1,000 people compared to Japan’s seven per 1,000."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Too much health information is bad for your health

A new study by the University of the Sunshine Coast claims that up to 30 per cent of people are affected by cyberchondria in some way. Cyberchondria is affecting thousands of people who believe they suffer ailments after reading about them on the Internet.

They are saying that "a little information can be a dangerous thing. There is increasing dissatisfaction with the service GPs provide and we are increasingly self-diagnosing. People take in printouts from the Internet with highlighted passages. They are basically arguing with their doctors and telling them their job. It's also happening at veterinary surgeries. Patients will even cite fiction shows like ER."

Well, does it mean, we shouldn't check in online forums for advice? In reputable health pages about symptoms? Not challenging the doctor and probing for more information? Not showing that we somewhat have a feeling of what could be wrong with us?

It is a challenging time for doctors - they are challenged by patients who ask questions. Medicine is a field that develops fast - as such, it is difficult for them to stay in touch with the very last developments. But I believe it is the right of patients to start a conversation with doctors while doctors need to learn not only to advice but to listen and converse.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Short voice messaging service by Digi.com

It is not quite clear from the article as published in The Star (Malaysia) today what can be done with a new service launched by Digi.com in Malaysia. Is it something new? It resembles Samsung's speech-to-text innovation, but may be it really is something new.

But Digi sells it as the next great thing following SMS. Its marketing head Peter Tay says that "It's an alternative to text SMS, and we believe the new service will be a big hit with our customers.”

Okay - that sounds good and Digi is known for innovative services. But what happened to MMS? Wasn't there news around the globe that MMS would be the next big thing? Or 3G? Could it be that it is just the frustration with the consumer who is not buying what is offered (which would be bad!), or is it just that the company wants to offer a lot so that the consumers can chose what is provided (what is better).

But at least, Mr. Tay is smart - while he says that there is a huge growth potential for the service, he doesn't want to give market share projections. Which, across the globe, have mostly failed to crystallise anyway.

The Feature, a while back, published an article, quoting a designer as reasoing about the failure of MMS and WAP:

"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."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

The Internet is changing the way we communicate

Its been a while since I wrote about the way that the Internet is changing the cultural setting of societies.

Now, a new study from Korea shows that the Internet really is driving the way people communicate with each other.

First of all, the "average Korean is having two e-mail accounts and 41.7 percent using instant messenger programs," a number, which parallels other countries in the region.

However, Korea is a bit different and seen as a testbed in the usage of technology for companies.

And the numbers show that the change caused by the Internet bi deeply ingrained:

"The figure includes all those over the age of six who had used the Internet during the last month. People aged six to 19 used the Internet the most with 96.2 percent of that age group going online, followed by people in their 20s with 95.3 percent and 30-somethings with 88.1 percent.

The main uses of the Internet were study for teenage respondents, shopping and reservation for people in their 20s or 30s, and reading news and magazines for the over-40s. Remarkably, the time people spent online went down from the year before, to 11.7 hours from the previous year’s 12.5 hours.

Overall the most popular use was searching for data and information with 70.7 percent, followed by gaming with 53.6 percent, e-mailing with 30.2 percent, entertainment with 20.8 percent, chat and messenger services with 17.6 percent, and shopping and reservation with 15.2 percent."

While some of those expressions are wide in their definition - search for data and information could range from looking up scientific facts to reading newspapers - the high level of penetration and the young age-group starting to use the Internet is amazing. While the article is a bit vague in the issue of how this penetration is changing communications structures, combined with other blog entries that we wrote (see above), it clearly highlights the potential path that Korea is going to take.

So, how is your country faring?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Good bye to AT&T

I had a couple of stories in this blog relating to AT&T and its split-off units and their overall fading influence. Its a long, a very long story, and would explode the frame of a blog.

But AT&T has been an icon, may be THE icon in the US economy and the business economy. They, and IBM framed how the technology landscape looks like today.

AT&T stumpled, while IBM showed that even elephants can dance. AT&T will become a case study in management books on how a leader can fail to adopt to a changing environment, how the lack of focus and the flip-flop of strategies can create disasters.

The news relating to this statements?

"Telecom conglomerate SBC Communications will acquire telephone company AT&T as part of a $US16 billion ($20.7 billion) deal that will create America's largest communications company."

No talk about merger - it is an acquisition. Let's hope that the deal is handled in a transparent way.

Good night, AT&T!

(By Asia Business Consulting)