Executives prefer e-mail as communication tool

"A poll of 1,500 executives, including 26 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, found more than 66 percent of them prefer to send e-mails compared to 16 percent who opt for phones," when communicating with colleagues. "

The interesting finding of the study is that while people said they become more productive through the use of electronic communication, and became more satisfied with their workplace condition, respondents faced the challenge of having too many telephones. The EIU, who organised the study together with Cisco Systems commented that most respondents have three different phone numbers and as higher they rise in their organisation, the more numbers they acquire.

The "strange or missing part" of the study appears to be in the missing information about SMS. I always thought that Asia is THE texting region and that employees just text away - and the SMS numbers are high. At least when they are younger, since, remember, e-mail writing is something for older people?

Additionally, where is the importance of face-to-face contacts in organisations? Or, for that matter, do organisations blog?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Ring, ring, you are dead

You remember the movie, right? When the phone rings, and you pick up, you will die, after a certain period of time. This story is about a mobile phone that has caused death.

First, its owner had a car accident and died. Two witnesses picked up the mobile phone that was at the the scene of the accident and ran away. Later, at their home, they got into a heated argument of who would get the mobile phone and one of the thieves killed the other.

Call it mobile phone of death. (what is it with me today - the second story about death and murder?)

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Murder after online theft of weapon

What is it with these online disputes over something? There was a similar story about an online dispute last year.

Now again, a "Shanghai online game player murdered a competitor who he claimed sold his cyperweapon. Qiu Chengwei allegedly stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan repeatedly in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold his Dragon Sabre used in the popular online game, Legend of Mir III."

Online game companies in Shanghai are planning to set up a dispute system where aggrieved players can find recourse.

May be this is a solution, because the question is: How do you sue someone who is stealing something from you in an online game? This question should better be answered because of the growing popularity of online games, more is bound to happen.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China protests Japan's application for seat in UNSC

Japan is applying for a permanent seat in the security council in the UN, the UNSC. This application is drawn heavy criticism from China, a country that hasn't forgotten the war atrocities committed by Japan during the second World War.

Now the Chinese vote against the application of Japan - online, that is. "Internet petitions in
three major Chinese Internet portals -- Sina, Sohu and Netease -- surpassed 10 million signatures by Tuesday afternoon."

And it is said that "more than 99 per cent of Chinese netizens who voted at cyol.net -- Chinese youth online -- opposed Japan's bid for a permanent UNSC seat."

History is still alive, especially when there are still some bad feelings on both sides.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

May I spam you, please?

Korea is trying hard to get rid of spammers. From March 31 onwards, they will have to ask nicely if they want to send promotional material or make sales calls to a cell phone, fixed-line phone or fax. E-mail spamming is only allowed (so to speak), when the mail is identify as advertising in the subject line.

This is probably the only chance to handle the problem - but it won't probably work with spammers outside Korea.

Now, additionally, Korean marketers are not allowed to simply call. They also need to send an email first, use surface mail (which might be snail mail) or websites to ask permission to call.
To make it even harder, marketers must obtain an additional endorsement for mobile messages at night between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m.

This sounds great and like the deathknell for marketing in Korea, until you come to the following line: "The ministry said legal promotional activities like telemarketing would remain allowed under the Call Sales Law and the Electronic Marketing Law."

This might be the loophole needed for the whole industry. So don't expect a huge shift to new jobs or high unemployment in the direct marketing segment. Just expect changed titles in the business cards.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Online ad sector sees steady growth

You know my opinion about online advertisements. Online advertisements without great customisation around the real need of customers don't work, in the longterm.

They only work when, by chance, I see an ad that really addresses the current need of mine. Hardly ever the case, may be even if the ad is targeted in an ad campaign with Google.

To make it personal case, ask yourself - how often did you click at an ad put aside your search by Google - adsense, so to speak. Often, or hardly?

Well, in China, online advertisements still grow, as the following shows:

"Sina Corp, China's biggest online advertising company, reported a 59 per cent year-on-year rise in its online advertising revenues to US$65.4 million in 2004.

Sina's arch-rival Sohu notched up an even more impressive 89 per cent growth in its online advertising revenue in 2004, hitting US$55.7 million.

NetEase, the other one of China's top three Internet portals, saw its online advertising revenue almost double from US$10.41 million in 2003 to US$20.66 million last year."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

I am pregnant: Getting the news out with blogging

No, not me!!

In Australia, a family documented their pregnancy via their own blog. The blog is called "Pumpkin Diary".

The diary entries are addressed to his baby -- whom he calls Pumpkin -- and he hopes his son or daughter will read it. In the US, a trend in pregnancy blogs has meant hundreds of strangers have shared first-child fears to tips on breastfeeding.

One US blogger recorded her attempts to get pregnant with IVF last year. She realised her blog's reach when a nurse at the hospital recognised her after reading it.

Does this sound familiar in Malaysia? Well, here, we have the Loopy Meals, one of the best blogs in town. THEY should write a book about their experience during pregnancy with Jesse and the following events!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Sony infringes patent right with Playstation

It was just reported that "in addition to a hefty, US$90.7-million fine for damages, Sony Computer Entertainment may be forbidden from manufacturing, using, selling or importing into the United States any of their products that include computer controlled vibrating motors because those products infringe on patents held by Immersion Corp."

I believe that patents are handicapping innovation, and are uncompetitive, since those that patent products hardly ever improve or innovate on those.

"Sony said it will to file an objection to the US High Court to fight against the decision by the federal district court in Oakland, California. United States sales as the suspension order, which covers PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles, two game controllers and 47 software titles, will not go into effect before the appeal, an Sony spokeswoman said."

But what is wrong with Sony? Already last year, there was this discussion that the Walkman wasn't their original idea (and I don't actually know what happened to this one)

Still, a tough ruling!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Protests in China over website crackdown

Last week, I wrote about Tsinghua University in China where the government cracked down on their internal chat room.

However, to keep protests down is no longer possible in the new age and students start protesting against the crack down.

"Students held a rare protest on Tsinghua's campus. They laid out flowers and origami cranes and wrote "peace" and "free" on the ground with scraps of paper, according to pictures posted on the San Francisco-based Web site Webshots.com. One photo showed a banner that read "Bless and protect Shuimu."

Interestingly, the crackdown on chatrooms, bulleting boards and internet sites might just spurn the further growth of blogs. Last year already, during a strike, workers used blogs to report on their protests.

A similar development is expected now, especially due to the fact that blogs can be hosted outside of China and away from Big Brother's eyes.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

How AFP killed an Online News Site by Suing Google

Remember, last week I wrote about the case when AFP sued Google and asked them to remove any link from their News Side that came from AFP?

Google complied, but now, AFP's customers complain about a decline of visitors to their webpage.

How? Read on - the case of Searchengineguide:

"Google decided to respond to the extortion and stupidity of the lawsuit by actually winning the battle. Google’s response? They stopped syndicating the news from sites using AFP of which this site is one. Not only is our AFP news not syndicated, but our editorials and independent news feeds are also blacklisted. Any news posted after Tuesday morning at 3am cannot be found on Google anywhere. It is a matter of time before the other services that ‘grab’ our news follow suit.

What does this mean for our site? No news aggregation, no news syndication, no news on search engines, no readers can find us, no traffic. Add all this up and you can see the economic value of the site is gone."

It clearly shows that AFP's action didn't make business sense. May be other media companies that try to impose subscription fees on their readers or fight against news aggregators should take note of this case!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Outsourcing: countries riding the wave

CIO Insight Magazine released "The Global Outsourcing Report" - and boy, it states that three quarter of all US firms did outsource some of their information technology activities in 2004. This is probably just the beginning. Information technology is the part of a company where companies feel most comfortable in outsourcing - its been a couple of years that it is being done.

However, the number clearly states that companie outsource more and more of such activities with more to come. The next activity to outsource will probably be in the HR department of a company - activities such as payroll or benefits can easily be outsourced - and will than continue into marketing. A recent Businessweek wrote, that there are trends to outsource innovation and R&D and raised the question, if this is now too much.

The impact is dramatic - on countries, companies and individual. Half of those companies mentioned in the survey above state that they have cut full-time jobs as a result of the outsourcing initiative - imagine, what will happen if the individuals don't take the time to upgrade their own skills.

"Twenty countries have emerged as the leading technology outsourcing destinations in 2004. China, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic and Hungary round out the top five countries. Looking forward ten years from now, 30 countries are featured in the future index, several of which are not listed in the current index for 2005. The Report predicts that in 2015 the top five outsourcing destination will be China, India, the U.S., Brazil and Russia."

What do you think of the results? I think that competition between countries will become more intense. There will be a clearly staggered ranking. Countries on the the top of the ranking will have to provide a lot more value to stay on top, while those at the bottom will be faced with intense price competition.

The big question is: What comes next for many countries, after the outsourcing wave becomes the "new normal"?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

No to iPods in school

Is the usage or possession of IPods a sign of selfishness and makes you lonely? This seems to be the thinking of a private school in Australia that has banned its pupils from listening to their iPods with just the same argument.

The school is basing its reasoning on an advertisement for the iPod tthat shows iPod makes a virtue of people dancing on their own, locked up in a private world only they understand.
Stupid - isn't music a connector? Wouldn't you like to listen to music, share the songs with your friends, let them dance along as well?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Search wars - and a dedicated article

BusinessWeek has an article about the ongoing search war between Yahoo, Google and MSN, which follows my recent entry about my feeling that we are back to 1999.

Interesting read - click to read it.

What will happen next? Well, we will soon see specialised search engines, catering to different users only, or trying to present this massive flow of information in a better digestable way. Additionally, we have the situation were more and more of the big boys will try to get as many useful additions onto their plate as possible.

Which search engines do you use?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

46% of mails in India are spam

Spam is annoying and I still wonder, who are the people that actually open spam? Come on, everybody should know that those at the end of the chain just try to get into your pockets, or, even worse, into your private files on your desktop.

Indeed - ask yourself: Who would open a mail that contains those funny characters in the subject line? Those many letters that just don't make sense?

There is now this report that states that "that 46.34% of emails amounted for the total junk mail received by Indian users. 40.91% of the overall mails originated from Open Relay servers, Open proxies or Zombie machines exploited worldwide."

The easy and only solution to spam? Just don't open it anymore. Put it straight into the trash can. After a while, there is no one that makes money and spam might go away. Am I too simple in my thinking?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Yahoo's 1 GB move

Now it is Yahoo's turn to get into the 1GB mail storage space. This follows its earlier acquisition of Flickr, but can also be seen as a reaction to the 1GB offer by Google.

This is also an addition to its entry into the blogging and social networking world.

It would have been cool to offer the additional space on April 1st, to commensurate the day, when Google can celebrate its 1st anniversary of its 1GB mail.

Overall, however, is this a good move? A bad move? Who is leading the race now - Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft? I won't add more e-mail addresses to my account. So whom do they try to attract? Oka, half the world - a bit more or less - is not even online (I am giving a rough number, no evidence, so please don't quote it!).

Normally, consumers are happy, if they see a offer "pricing war" between companies - as we saw and still see in Malaysia.

Here, I only see an addition to a shop. A bit more here, and a bit more there. No real value, but I take it if I need it. But than, you, as a company need to keep up with the shop next door, just in case, someone really looks for a lot of space - is this really the right thinking?

But again - not much more value, just the basics. What do you think?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Modern cinemas lure patrons

Ahhhh - this China and the new way of doing business. The movie industry across the world is complaining about those people who tape the movies in the cinemas. They also complain that the visitor numbers are declining, and that the competition from TV, VCDs or DVDs, especially pirated ones, is too strong (also market players try to beat piracy with a different pricing scheme).

It was the same in China - here, the suffering of the theaters was exaggerated by strong competition and poor quality of the movies.

However, instead of continued whining, two movies in Lanzhou, a city of inland China, have developed a unique concept - they upgraded their interior.

Imagine that customers "chat leisurely on stools laid in graceful disorder in an orange-floored room, illuminations hanging from the ceiling glitter and various drinks adorn the bar counter."


And it works - going to slap-up cinemas is becoming one of the most popular pastimes for young Chinese at weekends.

Now is this something?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Macintosh Hacker Attacks Are on the Rise - True or False

Symantec, a company providing the tools to fight the bad guys on the web - here: -viruses, came out with a study that states that the Macintosh is increasingly been a target of virus attacks.

Is this now the end to the argument that says that you should buy a Mac to get rid of viruses?

No!

Since the share of the Mac in the whole market is still small, it is not an interesting target for virus developers. There is no fame to be won to have created a virus for a Mac (okay, may be, if you are the first to prove it!).

Or, as Gartner responds: "All these platforms have vulnerabilities - it's a fact of life. The truth of the matter is that Mac is only a couple percentage points of (computer) shipments so it's not an interesting target."

May be it really is related to the fact that Symantec wants to sell more of their products?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Chatroom in Tsinghua University/ China

What is it with China? On the one hand, this country opens up, and their leaders try to reach out to their people.

On the other hand, they clamp down on anything that is out of line.

"The mainland's most-popular campus chat room, Beijing's Tsinghua University, has been closed to non-student visitors in the latest move to clamp down on the free exchange of ideas on internet forums."

That is happening against the wishes of the university and despite the fact that non-visitors, mainly former university students, enriched the conversation that took place in the chatroom.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Mobile phones at fuel stations

Its a myth - finally established. We all know the stories and e-mails going around, filling up inboxes, of cars that exploded at fuel stations, after the owner used his or her mobile phone.

Next time you get such a mail, tell the sender that it is not true. Better, use this link (okay, this is a promotion from my side).

A research by the name Dr. Adam Burgess, "of the University of Kent, will present his findings to a conference later this week. He will say that out of 243 petrol station fires attributed to mobiles around the world in the last 11 years, not one was caused by a handset."

So no more such mails, okay? Big promise?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Internet Feeding Frenzy - 1999 all over again?

HP announced that they acquire closely held Snapfish. Snapfish is an online photo service company and HP tries to move into the space to become stronger in the fast-growing online photo printing market.

May be this is a reaction of Yahoo’s acquisition of Flickr?

AskJeeves was also acquired by IAC/InterActive Corp, owned by former Hollywood mogul Barry Diller. The acquisition will put IAC in direct competition with Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and other firms that are seeking to cash in on the boom of online advertising linked to the use of Internet search tools.

AskJeeves, earlier acquired Bloglines, the blog aggregator.

In between Movable Types had some acquisitions on their own and teamed up with Friendster as well.

Have I forgotten anything?

Now – which year are we living in? Is it 1999 or 2005 – the beginning of a new feeding frenzy in Internet companies?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Google complies to AFP request

Remember, that yesterday, I wrote that AFP is going to sue Google for copyright issues. Goodle News originally contained news from AFP and the company has now agreed to comply to AFP's request. Following this it will remove articles from AFP from their Google News.

What will be the impact? Well, people will still use Google News. They just don't see articles from AFP anymore. They will lose the awareness of AFP. Anybody who is reading news and may be some day decides to subscribe to a news service would not think about AFP anymore. AFP loses relevance in the new world. That is happening, if one is deciding to fight emerging trends, tries to keep working an outdated business model and ignores facts.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Online advertising and mobile spam - a story from Malaysia

The beauty of newspapers. I really love it expecially when you see somewhat contradicting messages.

The CompuTimes Malaysia today contains two different kinds of articles. The frontpage shows one guy, very angry, looking at his mobile phone besides an article titled "Getting to grips with SMS spam".

Inside the section, you find an article called growth in online advertising proudly proclaiming that "advertisers spent between 10 and 12 per cent of their total media budget on online advertising".

Anyone sees a connection? Well, both forms can be annoying, are annoying. Let me ask you - and is spam not related to advertisements, especially if untargeted and send to a large number of users?

And, ask yourself: How high is the share of those ads that are really, really targeted? Look around you, read blogs, talk to people and you realise that hardly any ads are targeted - much less those spams.

Notwithstanding great online ads - hardly any company gets it. And many companies are just too keen to get their hands on databases of mobile providers to do just what they shouldn't do - advertising via mobile phones. While mobile operators say that they want to increase the barriers between spam and subscribers, the question still needs to be answered - who gives spammers or mobile advertisers access to those databases - and isn't it just too enticing for mobile providers as an additional source f income? to team up with advertisers to spam users, hmhm, sorry, to advertise to users.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

AFP sues Google - or: How to stop the future

It must be tough to be in the newspaper business nowadays, especially if you are publishing online (and what else is there?). Their business model is threatened by companies such as Google, whose robots function as news aggregators.

AFP now sues Google for "copyright infringement, alleging that the internet search engine included AFP headlines, news summaries and photographs published without permission."

Do they think that this will help them gain new business? What will happen? Well, it is said that AFP, as one of the major global news agencies supplies its news services to various kinds of media, including electronic. It has 600 online clients.

AFP is defending a dying model. Their readers or clients will move away, sooner or later. What could they do? How about customizing the news to the special demand of the individual? Providing better content to their users? While supporting models such as provided by Google that would help them spread their news - convince users, that they are better and entice them to sign up for AFP's customised service.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

When is broadband broadband?

I am not sure if there is a definition, but surely, broadband is usually associated with a faster connection to the internet.

However, may be this was different in India, where some providers tried to market the wrong stuff to an unknowing target group. The authorities needed to step in to make things clear to the providers. Now it is said:

"The broadband policy defines the broadband connectivity as an "always-on-minimum" download speed of 256 kbps. Branding or naming services with less than 256 kbps download speed is not in accordance with the broadband policy announced in October 2004."

May be instead of misleading consumers with advertisements and useless marketing campaigns, the provider should have taken the money and install a better service. A case for Seth Godin and his new book about marketing called All Marketers are Liars?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Samsung launches IPod rival

Apple's IPod currently holds a 70% market share in the IPod market. It is its design and easy handling features that makes it a runner in the consumer world.

Of course, it is the logic of the market that other companies want to have a bite of the cake - the models so far launched, by Dell, Gateway and Sony tried, but failed for various reasons.

Now it is Samsung's turn to enter the market and boy, they try to shake it up. Instead of just launching one model, they plunge into the market with 6 different models, developed for different aspirations of potential users.

Available in the first half of this year - of which not much is left - the music players from Samsung range from a 256 megabyte flash memory type to a 30 gigabyte hard disk drive model capable of holding about 7,500 songs.

Let's see how this new entry will develop!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Labour crunches, labour crunches everywhere

The New Straits Times (Malaysia) today runs an article about labour shortages in Malaysia. Apparently, there is a gap of 200,000 workers in the manufacturing sector, followed by 150,000 in construction, 50,000 in plantation and 20,000 in the service sector.

Partially, this might relate to the crack-down on illegal workers, but this is probably only half the story. We are back to the times of the talent wars.

Even China, of all countries, is reporting the need for professional workers. It was reported in a study from 2003 that that 35 percent of managers at foreign-owned companies in China were expatriates. This compares with 10 percent in Thailand, 19 percent in Singapore and 7 percent in South Korea.

And the numbers of expatriates in China is increasing - Nearly 40 percent of multinational companies operating in China are planning to increase the number of expatriates they send to the mainland during the next two years.

Why? Because the skill level is lacking.Ismail Shariff, the human resources chief of Apple Computer's Asia operations is quoted as saying that "it is easy to hire a local professional - China has a lot of them. The problem we have is that they have not reached the level where we can rely on them. Their skill competences are not at satisfactory levels."

And that is where the challenge is located. It is not important to just hire anybody - you want to hire those that are great "assets". That hit the floor running or those, that are adoptable to your company.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

More bad news for China

China's growth is dazzling, but the law of the big numbers dictates that this kind of growth takes its toll.

Already, we see an increasing number of accidents and reports that the country is too resource hungry. Others say that that fast growth is unsustainable.

The problem is, of course, that you can talk about bad news, and sooner or later, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the bad news is currently piling onto China.

Now comes Pan Yue of the ministry of the environment who states in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that the Chinese miracle will soon end. He outlines his case quite thoroughly.

About the wastage of resources he states that to produce goods worth US$10,000, for China needs seven times more resources than Japan, nearly six times more than the United States and, hear, hear, nearly three times more than India.

To another question he says that "currently, there are 1.3 billion people living in China, that's twice as many as 50 years ago. In 2020, there will be 1.5 billion people in China. Cities are growing but desert areas are expanding at the same time; habitable and usable land has been halved over the past 50 years."

Other tough news:

China loses between 8 and 15 percent of its gross domestic product because air and water are polluted - this doesn't include human cases.

In Bejing alone, 70 to 80 percent of all deadly cancer cases are related to the environment. Lung cancer has emerged as the No. 1 cause of death.

One third of the urban population is breathing polluted air, and less than 20 percent of the trash in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Five of the ten most polluted cities worldwide are in China.

In the future, China "needs to resettle 186 million residents from 22 provinces and cities. However, the other provinces and cities can only absorb some 33 million people. That means China will have more than 150 million ecological migrants, or, environmental refugees.

This is scary news - what do you think? Or is it just some reporting for reporting's sake?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Yahoo enters blogging and social networking markets

Strange header, but this is what it is all about.

After Friendster and Movable Type got together, just a few days ago, and Movable Type bought Livejournal, well, it was clear that the giants of the Internet would push the limits a bit further. And interestingly, this actually comes after Microsoft stepped into the game. Were they just watching - remember there were the rumours that they would buy a blogging company?

Anyway, Yahoo has now confirmed that confirmed that they will start beta testing a new community service that will let users share blogs, photos, music and other content with their friends.

Yahoo's step, called Yahoo 360, into social networking and blogging is in a beta phase only, but will open up to the "public" by end of March - so far apparently only in the US. However, participation is by invitation only, similar to a service offered by Google.

I wonder if the name, Yahoo 360 means that it is Yahoo's attempt to be a service provider for all services available - a one stop platform.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Parents get SMS when child plays truant

In Australia, eleven Victorian schools have bought an SMS system that is being used to help cut truancy rates.

Success in cutting truancy is high - truuance rate fall by 20 to 80 per cent. Under the SMS system, parents are also sent text messages if their child is late or skips a class later in the day.

Apparently, parents are happy with the system, since only one parent refused to participate in the system.

It is not quite clear how the system actually works -it sounds like a system is being used that does this automatically.

The main question is, of course, not answered. Why do children play truant in the first place and if such "forceful" system makes them better students? I doubt the second part. For the first part, may be the schools should also take a look at themselves - if they teach boring stuff, stuff that is not relevant, well, than students might have the feeling that they waste their time. If a teacher is uninspiring, and not passionate about teaching, again, a system wouldn't solve the problem.

The system might be worth more, if it helps to prevent abduction or other violent incidences - similar to what Japanese schools are trying.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

LG getting stronger

Growing faster, gaining share - that appears to be the battle cry of LG Electronics from Korea. They sweeped the most innovation awards last year and made it to the top of the Information Technology List.

The awareness of the company is so strong, that BusinessWeek put them on the frontpage recently, with a cover story.

Its CEO said that "We must be a great company with great people."

The company still pales compared to Samsung, but is growing faster. And its ambitions speak for for them.

"The company is the world's top maker of household air conditioners and the No. 3 plasma-TV maker, while its joint venture LG.Philips LCD Co. is the world's largest maker of liquid-crystal displays for TVs.

It boosted it sales of handsets from 6.9 million in 2000 to 44 million last year. LG overtook Japanese-Swedish venture Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, claiming 7% of the global handset market, according to researcher Strategy Analytics."

Now they come on even stronger in the mobile sector. "It is targeting global sales of 70 million units this year and expects most of the growth to come from European third-generation markets.

The compnay expects the world market for the third-generation WCDMA phones to reach 50 million units in 2005 and said it hopes to supply 10 million of them."

Keep an eye on them - Lucky Goldstar might just rock again!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Media and blogger - a case from India

If you follow the story of blogs, you will find that it is a discussion that emerged straight in the beginning. Already back in the old age before 2000, there were discussions if bloggers were journalists or would they compliment or replace newspapers, or other medias.

Anyway - a blogger shut down his blog after the Times of India threatened him with a lawsuit. It states that he criticised their newspaper in an ongoing matter and that this would hurt their business.

Again, this is the old age discussion - they could turn the coin around and say that anyway, he talks bad about us, bu at least, people talk about us. It might even generate new business because not everybody agrees with his decision. But old timers prefer to clamp down on critics instead of taking the chance to converse and engage critics. This happens to corporations where bloggers blog, or in the music industry.

The nice thing is, so, that actions agains bloggers tend to unify bloggers. This was what we saw last year in Malaysia with Jeff Ooi and now, the Indian blogger scene starts blogging about the case.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Nokia sued over exploding phone

A Thai man worked near a high-voltage power pole when his phone rang. The handset, tugged in his shirt then exploded, causing serious injuries to the welder leading to the ambutation of his left foot.

Nokia denies any wrong-doing, naturally. But this is not the first time that this is happening. "The Finnish mobile phone giant has been plagued by a string of reports of exploding handsets but is adamant that each of the cases was down to counterfeit batteries" - and "placed holographic sticker to its mobile phone batteries to prevent fake power packs being inadvertently purchased as the real thing."

Who is to blame?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China's FDI declining

China's attracted the highest FDI in the world over the past 2 years, raging up around US%60 billion in 2004. This was way more than FDI in the USA, which was the most favoured country earlier: "FDI flows to the United States fell to US$30 billion, that country´s lowest level since 1992 and only a tenth of their peak in 2000-2001. "

But even FDI to China shows signs of tiring - it grew in total for the first two months of 2005, but in February its "foreign direct investment inflows witnessed a negative monthly growth."

This might be due to the festive season, but let's step back and observe. May be there is more behind.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Data is Mobile Operators' Choice

I see it as spam - mobile operators tend to disagree with me. What am I talking about? The solicitation of subscribers to subscribe to value added services. It is big business, not only in India - and forced onto the companies by declining average revenue per user (ARPU) - which, again, is a function of increasing penetration of mobile usage in the different markets.

In order to make up for this - analysts tend to look at those ARPU rates) - mobile operators start looking at other sources which can be sold to subscribers at higher prices. And how to get those subscribers? Flood them with offers. In German, mobile operator Debitel sent SMS spam to subscribers of competitor Telmore trying to get them to switch providers. Poor subscribers - but this follows an earlier story already.

In most countries, such as India, the contribution of MMS services to the total revenue generation is still small. "SMS took up 70 percent of the non-voice revenues for the operators while MMS took up only around 2 percent. The report said that SMS was expected to remain the biggest contributor to the overall revenues of non-voice market in the near future. MMS services have not yet picked up as expected because of lack of handsets and high cost of service." But what is growing is the download of polyphonic tones - so keep watching out for those ringtones!

They will become more prevalent - and I think that the spamming will become more prevalent as well, once the market becomes saturated.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Blood and coal: the human cost of cheap Chinese goods

China is still known as the manufacturing workbank of the world. It is growing rapidly and it is resource hungry.

But what is the effect of all this? For one, may be collasing mines and tragic accidents. Everybody knows stories of collapsing mines and the death tolls that come with it.

Is this the price that we pay for cheap goods?

The article from the Guardian is outlining some of those problems that come with it. Let me show you some:

"Countless other accidents at small unregistered mines go unreported because the owners - often in collusion with local officials - buy off or threaten the victims' families. There is widespread anger that miners' lives are being sacrificed for economic growth."

(...)

"The five-mile deep pit at Chenjiashan had a particularly bad reputation. Four years ago, 38 men died in a gas explosion. Five days before the latest accident a fire broke out underground. "We came up, but the bosses told us to go back. We didn't want to, but we had to," says one miner, Li, who lost his brother in the explosion. "We all needed the money and there is a penalty of 100 yuan for refusing to go down."

The managers, who had reportedly been promised a hefty bonus to increase production, ordered the men to keep working even though it had become hard to breathe underground."

This is tough to take, of course. May be the price that we pay is too low - since the price of those suffering in China is too high?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

BlackBerry Goes Yahoo!

BlackBerry, introduced in India back in 2004, will soon integrate Yahoo Messenger into their product.

Normally, BlackBerry is very focussed on the corporate segment of the market. However, it appears that they change the strategy in India, since Yahoo's messenger is clearly directed towards the consumer market.

This move might be explained by the statement of the two companies. "The announcement by the two companies said, the plan to offer full-color graphical instant messenger clients on the BlackBerry was to build on Yahoo!'s strategy of extending its core services beyond the desktop and RIM's strategy to provide expandable and integrated wireless communications platform."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Network readiness index 2005: Singapore surpasses US as top tech nation

This is amazing news. The US has dropped from rank number one to number five, surpassed by Singapore as the top economy in information technology competitiveness, according to the World Economic Forum's latest annual Global Information Technology Report.

Singapore is followed by Iceland, Finland and Denmark.

Asian powerhouses India and China improved their positions climbing to numbers 39 and 45, compared to 45 and 51 in 2003.

Other Asian nations:

Hong Kong is ranked 7, up from 18.
Japan is ranked 8, up from 12
Australia is ranked 11, down from 9
Taiwan is ranked 15, up from 17
Korea is ranked 24, down from 20
Malaysia is ranked 27, down from 26
Thailand is ranked 36, up from 38
Philippines is ranked 67, up from 69
Vietnam is ranked 68, the same as in 2003/4

To get the table, click here.

The index examines the readiness of economies according to the general macroeconomic and regulatory environment for ICT, the readiness of individuals, businesses and governments to use and benefit from ICT, and their current usage.

Singapore's remarkable performance," the report says, "is a consequence of the government's consistent and continuous efforts in fostering ICT penetration and usage, as well as the quality of the country's educational system and its able use of foreign technology."

Great talent, supported by a fostering environment is everything - that basically is the message.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Lenova and IBM get clearance

The deal has been approved. Nothing much to say about it. But let's watch, how it works out for Lenova in the future.

The interesting part, so, is that China "government-owned Lenovo becomes a major supplier to the US military. But fears of espionage weren't enough to prompt further concessions. Last month Bloomberg reported that IBM had offered to keep certain customer lists private and prohibit Lenovo staff from some IBM facilities." Considering the fact that the US government criticises Europe over the possible lifting of the arms embargo against China, this is amazing.


(By Asia Business Consulting)

Apple's iTunes patent - stolen?

Okay, there are always companies, and individuals who claim that something that is successful actually belongs to them. How come, nobody ever claims a losing proposition?

I digress!

"A Hong Kong firm called local tech firm Pat-rights is seeking a share of earnings from computer giant Apple, claiming its patented technology was being used in the successful iTunes music download service." If Apple doesn't pay up, it will be sued - how original.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Defaced Webpages in Malaysia Part 2

That is the nice piece of blogging. There were a number of blogs writing about the defaced webpages in Malaysia and now, finally, The Star (Malaysia) has picked up the story. Please correct me if I am wrong here and another newspaper picked it up earlier.

The Star writes that about 45 webpages have been defaced since the beginning of the year, but that the attacks increased dramatically recently.

The Star continues to write that attacks against Malaysian websites are nothing new and provides background of some cases.

As I wrote yesterday, the main reason for those attacks probably is the lack of security implemented by operators of those sites.

I would suggest, in addition, that there are more attacks to come. I read somewhere, a while ago, that the security of US websites, for example, is extremely high and that it becomes more difficult for hackers to penetrate the system. That is the reason why they increasingly turn to attack websites of small businesses or home users who simply cannot affor the costs involved. May be, and just a suggestion, may be they discovered that the security installation in other countries, outside the US or Europe and some other countries are not necessarily the best as well?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Video kills the radio star

This was a title of a song in the 1980s. Probably, it won't be able to find this one in "normal" record shops anymore. Neither will it be played much by radiostations.

But the song is still available - this is the phenomena of the Long Tail - whatever existed can still be found, and is nurtured. In a different format, or environment, so to speak.

So the limits imposed by the recording industry, by radio stations is what is dying. It is not video that is killing the radio star, but the star, so to speak, can be found elsewhere.

USA Today is discovering the Long Tail in their edition yesterday - well, they don't call it that way, but this is what is implicit in the article. The Long Tail is not a new trend and discussed heavily in the webspace, but the paper at least discovered something that has been lost by the recording industry. The nurturing power of the Internet and the communities that are created to keep those songs, and also books and articles alive.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Remember the numbers?

There was a time, we could remember telephone numbers. From friends, colleagues, businesses, the workshop - all. I had no problem to remember any number.

But than came the "third-party" assistance, speak mobile phones, PDA, computers. And I "outsourced" more and more numbers to those tools. The scary part is, of course, when you lose the tools. In a worst case scenario, your computer would be gone the same day and you could lose your entire contact base.

Anyway, the New York Times writes a story about the whole situation, but while reading it, I realised that while it becomes more difficult to remember telephone numbers, my memory has been trained to do different tasks. Instead of telephone numbers, I am now trained to remember passwords and ATM machine numbers. Interesting!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Hip-Hop in China

A demo placed on the internet has triggered the initial success of one of China's first hip-hop groups, Hi-Bomb, according to BBC.

"Their success was triggered by Lionel placing a demo on the web - which eventually led to the pair being picked up by multinational record label EMI. Subsequently the duo had their first hit, Number One." Click on to the link to read their background story.

Nice - I wish them luck! Let's hope their music stays on web.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China imploding?

China is growing rapidly - this is a clear fact. It is also clear that the Chinese government has been able over the last two decades or so to manage their economy pretty well, in the sense that they were also able to cool down, when required.

Currently, new efforts are ongoing and probably needed due to Chinese ferocious appetite for growth, which consumes vast amounts of resources (and puts inflationary strains on other economies in need of those as well - but I digress).

Clearly, there is always the danger that the country's growth creates economic or sectoral bubbles that might burst. Strategic Forecasting Inc. , a leading private intelligence service. They are basing their assumption on "an estimated $500 billion in bad debts threatening its banking system, rapidly rising unemployment, rampant government corruption and mismanagement, and foreign investment dwindling."

Looking ahead until 2015, they are saying that "China's economic growth continuing to decline, leading to an increase in internal tensions, social upheaval and violence, which the central government in Beijing may be unable to control after 2008."

That is surely not in the cards of the Chinese government, which recently published its Vision 2080.

True or false - that is the question. Who is betting on the right horse?

Defaced websites in Malaysia

Over the last couple of days, there are reports in the Malaysian blogger scene (see here and here) about governmental webpages that have been defaced, probably by hackers from Indonesia.

Background: probably the crackdown of the Malaysian government on illegal immigrants and the unhappiness with certain groups over this.

The larger issue? Unsecured websites, that might lack the latest security features. If you relate those issues to Malaysia's aspiration to become a haven for ICT developments, it surely doesn't look good.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China's tight rein on online growth

I have stated various times that China's Internet growth is dramatic. In absolute numbers as well as in percentage values - if growth continues in the current torment, it could soon end up with 750 million people regularly going online.

However, there is always this dramatic ambiguity to the growth story - China, in its old methods, still wants to keep a tight lid over what is going on in the Internet world.

In this context I wrote various times their attempt to crack down on various related issues, such as their closure of over 12,000 Internet cafes. BBC actually says that they closed more than 47,000 net cafes were shut for breaking these laws. It is this article that quite detailed describes the race in China between the authorities and the users to control the Internet.

One example of the immense improvement of the government in doing this is in the monitoring level of Internet forums. The article said that the monitoring of comments posted in chat rooms and on bulletin boards is quite aggressive nowadays.

"Thanks to automatic censoring systems undesirable postings only last a few minutes. Less than 18 months ago, such posts would survive for up to 30 minutes." It continues by saying that "currently 54 people are thought to be in jail because they were judged to distributed "illegal" information via the net."

Numbers can be debated and whoever writes something wants to have something like an upper hand. So I believe the race is on. It is probably just so that once the Internet usage numbers get higher and the users more sophisticated, control will get harder. So far, it might still be the "innocence of the users" that allow strict monitoring. Also, Big Brother's watchful eye is getting stronger in a lot of countries recently, not only in China.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

New virus threatens cellphones

It was first seen as a threat last year, but wasn't seen as too dangerous of spreading. Now, a new mobile phone virus makes its round and this time, the alerts are ringing louder.

Data security firm F-Secure Corp says that "the Commwarrior virus is the first one capable of spreading via multimedia messaging services, which contain photos, sound or video clips." The link to their webpage also shows ways on how to identify the virus on your monitor, but naturally, also promotes its own antivirus software.

So it seems as if it is increasingly important to take care whose messages you are going to accept.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

IMF: Global economy too dependent on US, China

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) believes that the global economy is too dependent on growth in the United States and China. They are also saying that the Eurozone that was suppose to counterbalance these two growth zone faces problems of its own and won't be able to live up to expectations.

I am wondering how this view of the IMF is actually turning out when India and Brazil keeps emerging. Wasn't there the talk earlier last year that those three zones are the growth centers in the 21st century? In addition - wouldn't it be more useful to keep hammering at those nations that don't deliver, instead of commenting on those that turn out to be the engine of growth for the world economy?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Sony gets new CEO

It is happening. Sony gets a new CEO, in order to get its ship back in order. His name is Sir Howard Stringer and he was instrumental in Sony's takeover battle for movie company MGM last year. He comes on board after Sony battled sinking fortunes, that turned it from an innovator to a follower.

The main thing is that he represents a lot of firsts for the company.

- He is non-Japanese
- He is a non-gadget guy
- He is the first person with an engineering background to head the company

The Guardian writes that "Sony turned to the man who has transformed the company's fortunes in America after its core electronics business floundered. Entertainment generated the bulk of Sony 's operating profits of 27.4bn yen for the September quarter.

The US business benefited from massive cost cutting (9,000 jobs last year) and successful movies such as Spider-Man 2. While group margins were stuck at 1%, it was the only division to achieve 8% margins, close to a corporate goal of 10%."

May be it is necessary to break with traditions to change the destiny.

He is a "New York-based Brit to the top job. He will become the first non-Japanese speaker and the first without a background in engineering to head the company. Sir Howard, 62, is a self-confessed non-gadget guy.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

The day after the coup - Nepal without mobile phones

I haven't even realised that the day the king of Nepal seized power last month, he disallowed mobile phone usage in this tiny and poor country.

Nepalese need to learn to use old communication tools the hard way and for some, it is the path down the road to unemployment for a long time to come, probably.

"I have not had any business since the mobile phones were shut down," said Krishna Maharjan, who had to sell the tanker truck he once used to deliver water to homes in Katmandu. "I don't know how long this will last and I just cannot go on like this."

Maharjan needed his cell phone to take orders, since he was always driving around Katmandu, where many homes have serious water shortages. New customers would also call him — using the number he had painted on his blue tanker."

This is tough, tough, tough. Especially for a country that hardly has well-functioning fixed line and used cellular technology to leapfrog old technology.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Iran and India in bioscience and IT cooperation?

I am not sure if this is to the pleasure of the US, but longterm friends India and Iran are planning to enhance their friendship through "technology transfer in the areas of biosciences and IT as also for human resource training by way of qualified Indian technocrats and scientists joining universities and research centres."

The US is currently pressuring Iran regarding the country's assumed nuclear program.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Relocation of Singapore's Maxtor

China's shadow looms large over Singapore. Maxtor, a hard-disk drive maker announced on Friday that they move parts of their manufacturing production from Singapore to China - accompanied by a loss of 5,500 jobs in Singapore.

Hard-disk makers, such as Seagate, Western Digital or now Maxtor work on razor-thin margins. They cannot afford to live with even the smallest price increase.

This is as painful for Singapore as it is for other countries that suffered earlier. It will get even harder, when countries like India become stronger as well.

The challenge for countries is twofold. First, even raising up the value-added ladder isn't a recipe for success anymore. China is lurking at the lower end of the manufacturing chain that have been the pain for many countries already. A country that is raising upwards the value added chain will now also find that China is taking position at the higher end of the chain - as an example, see Germany's engineers that already feel the pain. Their huge markets just make any investment easier.

India is taking a similar path. Here, the software and the outsourcing industry is blasting ahead of the market - expect more with the deregulation of the telecommunications industry that will be followed by financial sector and more to come.

What to do for those smaller markets in Southeast Asia, or, for that matter, other nations across the world?

Tough choices are to be made, but closing the borders is no solution. For one, they could raise the educational level or ">knowledge power of their population, increase overall R&D in their country, but than, also add value to resources that are unique to their own country and which cannot be duplicated by either China or India. Similar actions can be taken by companies - here, they can use their own internal culture to become an unbeaten team that allows them to follow unique strategies that cannot be duplicated by Chinese or Indian countries. It is easy to write this here, of course, but there is no general recipe that guarantees success. Individual customisation is the recipe that one needs to follow.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Mobile Broadcasting to Reduce Disaster Damage

A high-tech country is always able to make a reasonable contribution to the prevention of natural or manmade disasters. May be it even is a sign of improved conditions in a country since a poor country is not able to contribute much, normally.

Korea now wants to "play an important role in disaster preparation in the Asian area with its cutting-edge technology.

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) said yesterday it had recommended Asian countries adopt terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (T-DMB) as their disaster warning system."

T-DMB is a promising cross between telecom and broadcasting, enabling people to enjoy crystal-clear video, CD-quality audio and data on the move via mobile handsets.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Sony's Walkman gets a camera

Sony, in an attempt to fight of the strong competition from the IPod, and to rescue its Walkman, now came up with the idea to equip the tool with a camera. "The new Walkman features a built-in digital camera which can be used to make custom album covers or create slideshows to accompany tunes."

Will this take off, or be something that the market is looking for? Or, better, will you walk with a walkman, and watch a slideshow related to the music you are listening to? Isn't it better to look out for the traffice, instead of staring at pictures on your Walkman?

I am not sure, but I have my doubts. I still seems that Sony is out of touch with its customers. It reconfirms that there is no clear strategy to pull ahead of the competing crowd. Sony just tries to add on something that is popular to something that was popular. Sorry, try again.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Korea to get kicked out of the market?

Korea's companies are great in making worldclass and innovative products, even so they might exaggerate from time to time.

But not all companies are in the same boat. Since Apple's IPod hit Koea, it has become a runner in the market. In order to retaliate, a company called Reigncom, that apparently produces a similar product, appeals to the Korean nationalistic emotions and urge them to buy Korean, via advertisements.

they might pull it off, since Korea is extremely nationalistic. However, wouldn't it be better to simply produce better products, and become more innovative, just like other Korean companies? So, instead of paying for worthless advertisements, put the money into R&d, right?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Sony, Sony, Sony - Why don't you just understand?

Sony was a great company. Man, they were good. Way back in the 1980s, when they still understood what it means to understand customers and how to generate business. Now? Now they chase them away and became a follower, no longer an innovator.

What happened?

Well, there is this band Beatallica that combines songs from Metallica with songs from the Beatles and published them online on their webpage.

"Sony's publishing arm, which owns the rights to the Beatles catalogue, has ordered the Milwaukee band to take down its Web site and pay unspecified damages for recording songs like "Leper Madonna" and "Got to Get You Trapped Under Ice".

Sony just doesn't understand that through this way the band promoted the Beatles, probably introduced the band to a lot of youngsters who never heard the band before. One more chance gone. Isn't it sad?

How did the Beatles sing? "Yesterday - all my troubles seem so far away". Well, surely not for Sony - no wonder they don't manage their business well anymore.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Friendster into blogging

Here goes another one of those social sites. Friendster, which last year fired a blogger (of all companies!!), is now into blogging.

Apparently, they have teamed up with Six Apart, using their underlying technology, to have their users start to blog. Why not, or, better, why use Friendster, when you have to pay for the service? Wouldn't it make more sense to do it alone and straight go to a company that specialises in blogging?

Well, while Six Apart is searching ways to expand their business in core business activities, it is not yet quite clear how companies such as Friendster plan to survive.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Talent crunch in India

Its a bit of an older story, but still very actual. Remember when I wrote that while India's outsourcing industry is racing ahead of the rest of the world, but that there is also the danger that they kick themselves out of the market due to the lack of talent and the salary increases that mostly accompany such crunches.

It is happening.

"The Indian outsourcing industry grew by a sizzling 35% last year as big multinationals and smaller U.S. and European companies handed over to Indian firms everything from software development and computer help desks to financial analysis. That growth has boosted competition for workers."

What does this mean, overall? Well, besides the usual salary increment - something that is never good alone if you intend to keep your worker - companies, such as Wipro, start offering additional benefits.

They are "helping a new hire find a home, providing compensation for lost salary to recruits who don't give enough notice when leaving their previous jobs, and even easing school admissions for their children."

Way to go!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Online music - have you been scolded recently?

The discussion about music downloads and music uploads is still ongoing, and the music industry is still reluctant to see that online sales are a viable business model per se.

They also don't understand that those terrible downloads actually don't hurt their favoured CD sales but instead find ways to annoy their potential customers.

Yahoo reports that there are some inventors in New York that believe that their invention "can thwart music pirates by secretly burying an anti-piracy warning in a track, which is disinterred if the copyright has been abused."

"Their patented idea is to incorporate a software decoder in file-sharing applications which encourage mass copying and are the bane of the music industry today. The decoder would detect the telltale phase shifts and convert them into the warning message, causing them to boom out through loudspeakers or headphones."

Legitimate users won't hear the scolding, so to speak, since the shift is so small that it doesn't disturb the music experience.

(By Asia Business Consulting)