'Mobile Talk' from an Employee in a Telco

2006-09-15T01:06:00.000+08:00

Hotlink

2006-09-15T01:00:00.000+08:00

Hotlink Sponsorships

My first Mobile World magazine for FREE

2006-07-18T00:46:00.000+08:00

This might look like an ordinary "Mobile World" magazine to you but to me, it is like a gift from heaven. I got this magazine for free as I am now the official blogger for Mobile World, the only rose among the thorns, or is it the other way around? ;) I am glad my blog is getting more exposure and it is sure worth the effort to hear people complementing me for a job well done. Now that my blog might get additional exposure, I might get more critiques instead. Anyway, I have never been happier as I feel I am achieving more and more everyday, and I am not only talking about blogging. By the end of this year, I will be able to compile a longer list of milestones & achievements and hopefully I can strike out a lot more things I want to do before I turn 30. Now, where is the publish button for my new blog? :P

Mobile Apps for World Cup 2006

2006-07-17T18:24:00.000+08:00

Mobile operators, network providers, applications providers, content providers, handset providers work together towards one goal this World Cup season. The goal: to earn as much revenue as possible from football addicts the world over. The result;: an amalgamation of football related contents and applications that squeezes the living daylight out of you from betting to playing virtual games and chatting with people of the same interests and downloading photos of your favorite football celebrities. I have listed below some of my favorites both locally and regionally.

Mobile TV: Football will never be the same event of staying home to watch footie from our plain old tv set. With increased mobility, people are dependent on their mobile phone to watch the latest news, goal alerts and if they hold a 3G handset or strong GPRS connection, they can enjoy real-time streaming videos of the matches. The most feasible network was provided by Ericsson and Nortel via Mobile broadcast multiledia services (MBMS) which does not require mobile operators to secure additional spectrum. Meanwhile, Nokia and Qualcomm is backing mobile broadcasting standard DVB-H and Qualcomm has its proprietary broadcast technology, MediaFlo. Both solutions require rollout of separate networ which will be costlier for operators.

Football contents: I have to support AKN Mtech as my friends are working there and due to their devoted support to Maxis during the World Cup Finale in Bukit Bintang by powering Maxis/Hotlink’s World Cup contents from its varied wap downloads to sms contests. Meanwhile Football Fantasy games are provided by World Cup official sponsor, Yahoo who ahs been getting tremendous hits into their World Cup hosted website even before the event started. For more on Football Virtual Games and Football Social Networks/Communities, pls stay tuned....

Hotlink Germany World Cup Finale in Bukit Bintang

2006-07-13T17:54:00.000+08:00

It was a football celebration like never before. Never had I seen a celebration celebrated with such pompous and grandeur. Never had I seen so many people from all races and age gather in one location with one goal (pun intended). Never had I seen so many people from various profession from students to professionals to politicians in one hot location.

I commend Hotlink for a job well done.

Among the things they did right: 1. Spent a considerable amount of budget on such a massive scale on the right event. Hey, it only happens once every 4 years. Which event can be more eclusive? As the saying goes, if you want to create an impact, make sure it is unforgettable.

2. Tie in with a political agenda to get the Prime Minister to launch the event. Always look for a win-win situation.

3. Organized the right activities for the right target market. A huge Hotlink balloon rolling over the crowds, face-painting, fire performance, etc are all activities that will draw in the young crowds especially during World Cup when people tend to be a bit more adventurous.

4. Maintain satisfaction of high ARPU customers, aka the VIPs by inviting them to convene in special booths with food catered the whole night and a big screen specially for their viewing. There was a separate tent for the ministers as well, ah bu then!

5. Make full use of the massive and thirsty crowd by selling pre-paid SIM packs and various Hotlink products. Put up blogs in websites to draw in website traffic.

6. Tie in with various vendors to cross-sell chat services, wap downloads (eg. Zidane’s wallpaper) and friend-finder service, in case you lose your loved one among the crowds.

7. Great promotional strategies in which the event was televised lived on RTM with MCs and announcers urging the public to make their way to Bukit Bintang long before the event started. There were roadshows all over the place from Kuantan to Johor Bahru with the finale ending in Kuala Lumpur. Wap push was sent to encourage wap downloads and to inform customers to collect freebies from the various roadshows.

8. Last but not least, all this is useless if the ROI is negative. With such a massive budget allocated for this one event alone, did Hotlink profit from any of it? Yup, at an exorbitant amount at that. The amount will remain confidential but I am indeed proud of my previous company for launching such a successful event.

Rather than spending the money to endorse some famous celebrities like Rooney and Owen, guess you know who I am talking about, who locals cannot relate to, it would be better to sponsor local celebrities to grace a high-class event like this. Kudos to Maxis/Hotlink once again. The World Cup for a successful event for World Cup goes to them now. :)

FREE International Video Calls! Yipee!

2006-07-07T17:18:00.000+08:00

The best promotion to increase the use of video calls. FREE. The most loved 4-letter word in the whole world. If I do get free video calls, guess what I can do? Unlimited international video calls man! Wait, of coz the receiving party will still have to pay for roaming calls but if their calls are rebated, I would not mind calling every single friend in Malaysia who owns a 3G handset and 3G SIM. The more reason my friends should run out and buy a 3G handset now! :)

Yep, indeed the usage of video calls in Singapore is extremely low, almost zero despite the huge amount of people who owns high-tech 3G handsets with models not seen before in Malaysia at crazy discounted prices. However, owning a high-tech 3G mobile phone here does not translate to high usage of video calls as Singaporeans practically gets the latest handset due to the good promotions tied to their bill plans. Eg, Nokia 7370, Nokia’s feminine handset model is retailing at SGD0 with SGD100 trade-in on a 21 months contract. The best part is the contract does not have to be tied to the phone!

Thus, in an effort to boost video calls usage on M1’s impeccable 3G network, they have launched this promotion where M1 subscribers can video call their Malaysian friends and relatives for free! (Notice my excitement due to the use of exclamation mark?) It does make sense as people separated by distance will be more keen to use visual contacts with their loved ones and amazingly they are a huge amount of Malaysians working in Singapore. Would this promotion be successful? I doubt it due to the high roaming cost borne by Malaysians. Perhaps the Malaysia telcos should reciprocate by lowering their roaming call rates during this promotion period. I will be able to tell you the success rate and the quality of 3G video calls in Singapore once this promotion launches on 15 July 2006. Yipee!

For Richer or For Poorer in Taxation

2006-07-07T01:02:00.000+08:00

Being in Singapore inadvertently exposes me to their structured tax system. Would you prefer to be a poor man who pays minimal tax or a rich man that pays exorbitant tax? Read on to understand why you should choose the latter: WHO PAYS THE TAX? Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this. The first four men -- the poorest -- would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18; the tenth man -- the richest -- would pay $59. That's what our gents decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement - until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But, what about the other six - the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?" The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being "paid" to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. The first through fifth man paid nothing; the sixth pitched in $2; the seventh paid $5; the eighth paid $9; the ninth paid $12; leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short! And that is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

Reporting from CommunicAsia 2006

2006-06-26T23:58:00.000+08:00

Stepping into CommunicAsia 2006 in Singapore’s Expo feels like stepping into a moment in the future of communications. You feel as though you have been brought to the future via a time machine with showcases from the latest handsets to the most powerful network cables. The booth that I was most impressed with is the NTT Docomo’s booth that showcased a myriad of latest handsets and has a big screen to showcase their latest technology from mobile location to mobile ticketing and mobile surveillance using 4 storylines that merge into 1 beautiful ending. Even watching the movie itself was endearing as they use elements of humanity that will tug your heartstrings. I also tried out their wearable handset: a handset that you can wear on your finger and the voice transmits through your finger when you insert your finger into your eardrums. You can tap your fingers to dial a number on your phone. Cool gadget but why would you want to wear such a bulky handset on your finger while poking your finger into your earholes. Perhaps they should think about the usability issue.

Other vendors like Samsung, Nokia, SonyEricsson. LG and Motorola failed to impress me. Most use beautiful leggy models to stand beside their latest gadgets to explain their product. I was so afraid to get too technical in case they give me the blur look. LG promoted their Chocolate handset and SonyEricsson have no focus, pratically promoting everything in their portfolio. The most interesting would be Motorola which focused on the young and vibrant segment via their tie-up with MTV. They have a MTV booth with vibrant looking stickers that can ONLY be stick on their full range of Motorola RAZR and young teenage promoters explaining the latest music gadget from Motorola. Good way of pushing sales for this model huh?

Many new ideas and new products compete for a piece of the telecommunications industry. My heaven. Click here to view my photos. :)

The World According to Thomas Friedman Is Flat!

2006-06-26T10:35:00.000+08:00

The world’s playing field has been leveled. Never has this been more true than now that I am working in Singapore, thinking that I, as a Malaysian will be among the minorities when to my surprise, I am placed besides colleagues from my own country, China, India and Phillipines. To my amazement, these people have been here for more than 5 years, living, eating and breathing Singapore air along with their families who have migrated here. Maybe that is why Singaporeans are looking at me with contempt due to the fact that I have taken their job role which they could have easily done with a shorter learning curve.

In the book, The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, when he quoted Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, and Vivek Paul, a top executive at Wipro that "Indians and Chinese were going to compete for work like never before, and Americans weren't ready.", it is a scary fact that US is now not only fighting a war with Iraq, they are fighting a war with people all over the world who are hungry for their jobs with a higher pay and the promise of a better future. Who would the employers choose to employ, a complacent New Yorker at USD10/hr or a diligent Indian at USD2/hr who could produce the same quality of job? Is this even a question anymore? It is a rat race in the most global sense, the world indeed is flat! Another evidence is my new assignment as a blogger for Mobile World in which I am placed alongside journalists from all over the world. Nope, not foreigners but Malaysian journalists who are currently residing in countries like UK, US and Hong Kong. We will be communicating with each other as frequently as we will be in the office, the only difference is that our conversations will be done via IM and virtual office setups. In this new world of technology, there is no necessity for a physical office anymore. With a click of a button, your whole office can be set up on the network that allows the flexibility of having workers from all over the world and working at times of days when they are most productive. So, will US and UK be afraid now that they are fighting a war of employment with people from parts of the world they never knew existed? They better be. As I am on the way there too ;)

Just an excerpt from his book, the world is flattened by these 10 forces: 1. The advent of PCs, Apples and Windows software 2. The emergence of Netscape as a web browser 3. Work flow software or Services oriented architecture, eg. AJAX & Windows Vista 4. Open-sourcing, eg. Wikipedia, blogging, podcasting 5. Outsourcing, eg. employing workers from India 6. Offshoring, eg. moving factories to China 7. Supply chaining, eg. Wal-Mart replacing inventory with information 8. Insourcing, eg. UPS doing third party managed logistics or Ericsson delivering managed services 9. In-forming, eg. Google supplied information, knowledge and entertainment 10. Amplifying technologies, eg. increased computer speed, file sharing and wireless devices

Going to be a Blogger for Mobile World

2006-06-20T00:58:00.000+08:00

Yipee! I can't contain my happiness. My blog is going to be featured in Mobile World Malaysia. I will be their official writer, more like blogger for their online version of the magazine. I am truly grateful to the editor of Mobile World for giving me the opportunity to get this added exposure and opportunity to showcase my talent. I have utmost admiration for him for knowing so much about the industry and for taking the risk of publishing a magazine that has such a niche but potentiall big market. It is indeed heartening to be complemented and paid for something I have so much passion for. Now, I know how it feels like to be an entertainer when they say I feel blessed to be paid for doing what I love. Since I can't sing for nuts, I use my other talent or at least passion for now: writing.

I will position or brand myself as the blogger with a heart. While the other bloggers of Mobile World write hard facts about telco issues, handsets and gadgets, I will write heart facts of the same issues (pun intended). My added advantage is instead of blogging just about the Malaysian market which I am still keeping in touch with despite being one island away, I can compare it with the Singapore market in which Malaysians can definitely learn a lot from. Oh yah, and another advantage is I am the only blogger in the mag who could wear a skirt and make-up every now and then. Yep, I will have to change the title of my blog so as not to get fired by my boss once my blog gets additional exposure. Hmmmm.....what should I call it now? Any suggestions? Feedbacks welcomed.

Bill Gates Quitting Technology, Entering Medical Industry

2006-06-16T19:48:00.000+08:00

Named one of Time magazine Persons of the year for 2006 for his charitable endeavour in the medical industry and the richest man in the world in Forbes magazine with assets worth $45b, Bill Gates has definitely achieved more than a man could achieve. In his more than 30 years of founding Microsoft from a mere garage in Redmont, to an operating system and software empire, he had collected more than billions by monopolizing the computer market and in return used the money to save humanity through Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which now has $29.1 billion in assets.

Aspiring to a doctor since young, his career path or should we say entreprenuership path has led him to the technology area instead of the medical industry. Instead of feeling demotivated, he maintained his insatiable drive to climb up the technology ladder and is now able to use his success to save human from various uncurable medical diseases. Thus, it is understandable when he decide to change his priorities to spend more time with his charity work and less time with Microsoft. When you have arrived at a stage like him where you could have anything you want, you would want to give back to the society. And that is why I commend his effort to focus more attention while allowing him to do what he had aspired to be in the medical line.

With his departure from Microsoft, everyone is speculating a tremendous change from the core values of the company to their technolgy strategy. I could not agree more but I forsee that noone will be able to simulate his larger than life persona in creating waves of change. All I am hoping for the company is that instead of being a 'copycat', it willmove to be an innovative company instead with the technical direction and visions from the new chief technical officer, Ray Ozzie who (thank God) is a staunch supporter of Services Oriented Architecture (SOE) or more popularly known in Microsoft as Software as a Service (SaaS).

Regardless, none will be able to emulate the drive, passion and autocratic management that Bill Gates has so successfully imbued on Microsoft. He is the embodiment of Microsoft, just like Tiger Woods is to golf. With his departure, Microsoft has lost the single strong personality that could turn the ship when needed, like when they recognized the threat of Netscape. It will make them slower in responding to competitive threats and in this fast-paced industry, it is all about the speed in change and innovation. All the best Microsoft & Bill Gates. However, have this feeling that this will not be the last we see of him. We'll see :)

CommunicAsia 2006 & their Business Matching Programme

2006-06-15T11:19:00.000+08:00

Registered and got the invite to attend CommunicAsia 2006 in Singapore Expo and even to do some networking ala their business matching programme with the various vendors exhibiting there. So many booths and so little time. The good part is they have filtered against only those who are relevant to my area of interest. The bad part is for every one area, there are so many exhibitors. This seems to be a good and proactive initiative from them allowing visitors to find out more on the various vendors who will be there before attending and evaluating which fits their needs. Thus, I will just do what I can and visit as many relevant booths as I can and keep you guys updated.

Will also meet up with some old frens from the industry who are either going there as exhibitor or as visitors. TV Smith and the editor of Mobile World will be there and was hoping to be able to catch them. A lot are surprised that I have transferred to Singapore but if I did not, I will not even stand a chance to visit CommunicAsia 2006 this coming 19 – 23 June 2006. Can’t wait to see what is on display and analyse the trends from there. Mail me if you want to network with me there too.

CommunicAsia 2006 Summit Agenda

2006-06-09T12:02:00.000+08:00

With increasing mobile saturation and maturity, will growth come from luring customers away from other networks or will it come from protecting your own subscriber base and increasing ARPU from your value added services?
With voice prices falling and the threat of VOIP just around the corner, operators might have to satisfy themselves with ARPU levels where they are today. As such, should operators pay more attention to controlling and reducing their costs or to investing in new technologies & services?
For operators in developing markets, what are the keys to unlocking the next billion subscribers? Is it all about cheaper phones and networks to lower the cost of ownership or about the provision of life enhancing services that customers are willing to pay a premium for?

All these and more will be in CommunicAsia 2006 Summit in Raffles City Convention Center, which I hope to attend in the week of 20 – 22 June 2006. The event is moderated by McKinsey & Company in which I had the pleasure of working with them in Malaysia. It was a great knowledge booster collaborating with them and working under a head who was from the same company. Intelligent people with very open mindsets, out-of-the-box thinking. The only disadvantage is that things can get pretty chaotic when they have plans with different variances for different segments, resulting in the need to justify the results and ineffective business plans.

Currently, I am honored to work with a different consultant agency, Accenture who tracks our campaigns and suggest improvement methods. In Singapore, it is all about churn retention, not new acquisitions, unlike Malaysia.

Singapore has already hit 101% handset ownership & with number portability already in place, customers have no qualms changing from one operator to another. The changing point is determined by price points and the latest offers, eg. phone deals with certain promo plans. So, operators are facing huge deal of stress dealing with increased subscriber churning and thus the various campaigns that I am churning now. It is fun observing the creativity of the Marketing team in generating the various campaigns and the variances used for business intelligence analysis.

Mobile Advertising via Avatar

2006-06-08T00:37:00.000+08:00

Imagine being told where you can get the beautiful lingerie your avatar wears or which travel agency can bring you to the place where your avatar is standing on. Your avatar is a representation of yourself. It is definitely more acccurate than having users fill in forms telling companies of their likes and dislikes. Mobile IM brings with it a new promise. A new advertising model has emerged. If the act of IM providers searching through your IM conversations to give you suggestion to things you can buy intrudes your privacy, promoting products based on your avatars that you want the whole world to see anyway.

A male avatar who wears jersey and is holding a football can be pushed information on World Cup events, locations to buy his favourite team’s jerseys and even MMS and video contents of his fav football player. Yahoo could bank on their strength in web IM by providing a new advertising space as new source of revenue. Even telco providers are joining in the fray of Mobile IM. Which spells more money for them.

Other forms of personalization includes virtual characters created using the website Second Life or online multiplayer games as well as personal avatars in MySpace. In Second Life, the possibilities are endless with property developers promoting their properties based on the buildings or houses each character buys and many more. Ads will be prevalent with every little information companies can glean from us users.

Uncle Bus Got Famous through YouTube.com

2006-06-06T18:00:00.000+08:00

It was a case of 15-sec fame, a trip on a bus in Hong Kong came into spotlight with the use of new technology. A man holding a SonyEricsson W800I shot a clip of a middle-aged man arguing with another younger passengers who told him to soften his voice when talking on the phone. The mad man named Roger Chan, 50 asked the younger man to get down the bus and when he declined, the older man kept screaming expletives and asked for the man to apologize. The whole conversation was caught on video and posted on YouTube.com, the ever popular video broadcast website that has made many regular Joe’s famous on cyberspace. The video clip was so famous it spun spoof videos like a wayang kulit version filmed with Indonesian puppets and spoof songs in whih the soundtrack of bus uncle was remixed with Sammi Cheng's party tune and many other websites.

Roger Chan was not aware of his popularity until he was approached by reporters who tracked him down in his residence in Yuen Loong. He was asked to appear on medias just because of an action which was not necessarily out of the ordinary. Had it not been his actions recorded using the latest mobile phone and highlighted on the heavy traffic website, he would not have gained his short-lived fame. Would he stand a chance to contest for his …. Now? Even the person who took the clip was offered HK$3000 for the clip. He was smart to two copies of the clip. So, hold on tight to your mobile phone. You might just capture an award winning show or taken an MMS that could give you a windfall. With this new found fame, perhaps Roger Chan could not wi his contest as Chief Executive in Hong Kong? Nah.

Google Going Green

2006-06-01T14:40:00.000+08:00

I laud the approach taken by Google in going Green to promote the usage of their Google Earth. Irony is Green was never any color on their logo. Now that a big name is working closely to promote places in US, number of visitors will definitely shoot up.

Besides, unlike the approach taken by Microsoft where the company wants to get into any and every Internet venture that makes money, ala Instant Messaging, Search Engine and even ASP, Google remain focused on what it does best and continues to innovate. It would not get into the browser business as predicted as it knows that it would not have been a worthwhile battle with the other competitors who are already doing a good job. I am very disappointed with IE7 what with their lack of innovativeness with all features introduced being a copycat of the other browsers which should have been mandatory features in the old IE browsers.

Even Apple was more innovative by collaborating with Nike to manufacture a body mass index or heart-beat reading iPod. At least this would be something useful for fitness freaks.

Comparison of Mobile Plans between Malaysia & Singapore

2006-05-31T15:21:00.000+08:00

Now that I have been in Singapore for 3 weeks, below are a few differences in terms of usage plans between Singpore and Malaysia.

Free calls Singapore: Free 500 min calls upon signing up post-paid plans Malaysia: Free calls upon signing up post-paid plans and using more than 123 mins

Incoming Calls Singapore: Pre-paid is charged local incoming calls Malaysia: Pre-paid gets free local incoming calls ** Sidenote: Just found out that Malaysia got the idea to charge incoming calls for roaming (MTC) from Singapore’s practice of charging of incoming local calls. Thanks so much kiasu land.

Free handsets Singapore: Free/subsidized handsets when you sign up a 2-year contract. Malaysia: Subsidized 3G handsets when you sign-up a 2-year contract.

Both Singapore: Free IDD and roaming services as VAS Malaysia: Free IDD service. Roaming needs to pay.

In conclusion, there is not too large a difference between this kiasu country and Malaysia. Another conclusion, Malaysia’s kiasu meter is rising. Be warned!

The Future of Mobile IM

2006-05-27T01:25:00.000+08:00

Rarely have telcos around the world been so in the dark over the future and direction of a certain product or service. This is happening to Mobile IM in which no telco could predict the take-up of the service. A lot of them are prudent about hosting IM internally with the high cost of network and support. Would people actually pay for the convenience of instant messaging anyone on the go? Haven’t the IM providers already put their foot into the mobile arena, so why should telco compete with them? What should the business model be when one can IM for free over the Internet with ubiquitous Internet and Wi-Fi connection? So what does that leave telcos? Regardless, telcos are still taking the plunge and will be providing IM with their own branding. So will we see Maxis or Singtel fighting with Yahoo and Google for market share now? In the cellular territory, telcos might gain higher revenue as they can afford to offer cheaper/bundled IM rates over free GPRS connection while IM providers will have to depend on GRPS revenues which could fork up to a higher price to pay if customers were to choose to stay connected. So what is one to do? Do I see partnerships in the line? Perhaps telcos can work together with IM providers to provide the best of both worlds to consumers. The features and user friendliness of IM on mobile with the affordable cost only provided by telcos. One advantage of using IM could be for roamers in which they are still charged the flat IM rate even if they are using roaming GPRS. This saves them on the high roaming calls and sms. We can hope to see more travelers using this especially those that do not have access to PC or laptop during this period. Good or bad, telcos are still forging ahead to implement IM, so why not choose the best models for consumers? Will IM replace SMS one day when the cost and usability factor are not issues? Well, this has yet to be seen.

Mobile Search Engine has Finally Arrived!

2006-05-19T00:52:00.000+08:00

I have always wondered why can't searching for an item be done on wap via a search engine, just like what we can do on the Internet? Now people in China Mobile can do it using Google. Perhaps other telcos too but it was not publicized or formalized in the scale that China Mobile did. Collaboration between a network provider and an Internet Search Engine will lead to increase in wap traffic, conveniencing those who are always on the move but do not have laptop or wireless access. This definitely bring mobile data up a notch; with an increase in revenue for China Mobile. Smart for Google to tap into the huge market in China as well by providing a Chinese based search results. Stay tuned for the news on what will be offered and the business model. Now it's a wise idea for companies to have wap presence as well.

Calling In from Singapore

2006-05-17T20:40:00.000+08:00

For the information of those who follow my blog and have guessed or knew the telco I was working for, yup, WAS being the operative word here, I am now in a different telco. Nope, not a competitor but a telco in a different country who is supposed to be competitor but treated in a different context. I am now in Singapore and this time prizes will be given for those who can guess which telco I am working for. I came here as I wanted a different exposure, plus the job scope is what I wanted. I migrated myself here not realizing I will be starting all over again in a different country. Imagine sacrificing the benefits and work opportunities in Maxis for being alone and starting a new job scope here. Anyway, life goes on. I came here with a bigger view of my future prospects. Hopefully, my long-term view still stands.

First and foremost, the biggest difference btw Sg and Malaysians is that there is a higher number of Singaporeans holding a high-end handset due to the lower price of getting those handsets here. Second, the market here is so saturated that it will be tough to get new customer acquisition unless telcos start selling lines to toddlers. Thus, the focus is always on customer retention and churn prevention which is what I will be doing.

Third, I have to bloody pay for my incoming calls! Can you imagine that! The call costs are not expensive, even as little as SD0.25/min but imagine having to pay double of what you are used to in Malaysia. That actually explains why Singaporeans opt to use sms more even to strangers/acquaintances….I received sms from my agents even to discuss place & time to meet while in Malaysia, I would receive their calls due to the formal nature of our transactions. Reason being that they get FREE sms up to 9000/month here with certain offers.

That is all for now. I will be reporting from Singapore, giving news about the telecommunications market here and comparing it with Malaysia. Keep following my blog ya.

Motorola's Vision of The Future

2006-05-13T04:20:00.000+08:00

I attended a talk by Motorola on 3 May 2006, Wed in the prestigious Westin Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. The event was very well thought-out with the event hall beautifully decorated with pomp and galour. Lively upbeat music blasted everytime a new speaker goes on stage, representing a change in style and image of the mobile brand people are starting to yawn at. Videos on usage of their new technology and tv ads were displayed prior to the talks which was extremely useful to wake some up from their grogginess and to enhance the audience understanding on how the technologies can be used. I was fascinated by the first video presentation giving information on the current mobile market in the whole of Asia allowing all to know the potential the telecommunication industry has especially in countries like China and India. Even the dinner on 4 May 06, Thurs night was fantastic with performances by our popular Sheila Majid and Shafinaz. The door gift was a Motorola bluetoth worth RM149 to be used with the latest talk in town: Motorola RAZR or SLVR and there were even lucky draws with those phones given out as prizes. Throughtout the event, there is only one buzzword: Seamless Mobility. Motorola promoted its concept of seamless connectivity regradless of whther you are at home, office, in the car or out on the golf course. You will never lose touch with anyone via their Unlicensed Mobile Access(UMA). The phone will be intelligent enough to switch between the GSM and Wi-Fi network depending on where the user is located for both voice and data calls. Watch how it happens. With the advantage being the ability to save cost on wireline network, I find the concept rather intelligent but foreign. Would it be a challenge to smoothen the transition between the Wi-Fi and GSM network? That has yet to be experimented by the mass due to the nature of the solution that requires a compatible device from Motorola and the right access points. Later, other networks were promoted including WiMax, EV-DO and IMS. Impressive as I was in all the future predictions of these technologies, i remain sceptical as to which of these would be of the customers' choice or of benefits to the customers to be able to pay for the services or devices. Well, as all hype goes, let's ride with the wave.

Mobile Voice vs Data

2006-05-08T21:16:00.000+08:00

Having dabbled in both portfolios of voice and data, I found various differences between the two. To be frank, I find more challenge and difficulties dealing with mobile data due to the rawness of their products and services. All are launched on a trial and error basis but with more challenge comes a steeper learning curve and more fun in the process. So hereby I summarise the differences between the two:

Voice

1. Saturated; mostly require changes to billing system or rate plans

2. Still a high revenue earner as voice will always be the main revenue generator.

3. Safe and sound method in dealing with innovation

4. Requires plenty of discounts and creative ways to charge calls at attractive rates, eg IDD and roaming calls. Higher take-up as customers are always hungry to save costs.

Data

1. Innovation required; so many possibilities, so little experiement.

2. Still a low revenue earner except for peer to peer sms. Customers are not receptive to change or the latest technology.

3. Trial and error method of implementation. A lot of products are launched even with bugs as everyone wants to be the first in the market.

4. Require customer to spend extra money for the sake of entertainment or convinience. This explains the slow take-up.

That's is all for now. I enjoyed my time working on both portfolios. Now it is time for both to merge and I am up to it as I will be dealing with campaigns. This calls for bundling, personalization and customer behavior management. Plenty more to learn baby!

The Challenge of Mobile Enterprise

2006-04-25T00:51:00.000+08:00

Enthrusted into the frenzy of managing projects for the Enterprise Marketing team, I had the challenge or should I say privilege to evaluate feasibility and manage projects related to mobile products for enterprises. While most carriers focus on earning revenue from consumers, they cannot deny that the big bucks could be earned from large enterprises who are spending more and more time being mobile while still needing to be constantly connected. Thus the emergence of devices like BlackBerry from RIM, smart phones and PDA with its push email applications, solutions like IP PBX and Centrex applications and networks like SIP, UMA, IMS and VOIP that have yet to take up in a large scale due to the challenge of determining the right business model.

Here you can read about the challenge of big name vendors in providing the right solutions to enterprises. Next, we know of devices that have been designed specifically for enterprises like smart phones and Blackberry. Even Nokia admitted to their failure in launching the right products that specifically target Enterprises, resulting in their loss in market share.

Which role should carriers take in providing enterprise solutions? As an end user to vendors and provider oftechnology, carriers should not concentrate on building the right horizontal platform for integration of verticalapplications like push email, IM, etc. With the right platform, it is a matter of time before vendors start concentrating on the needs of enterprises and providing cost-efficient solutions that will increase the productivity of all mobile workers.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

2006-04-19T03:50:00.000+08:00

Might be the most profound speech ever, spoken by the innovative CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs on 12 June 2005. Important quotes: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." - Steve Jobs "Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." - Steve Jobs Next, Donald Trump reflects the same opinion in his blog. According to him, the only thing that stops you from doing what you love is FEAR. A useful quotation I heard, "Do not be afraid to live. Run into your fear." - Invisible Circus

How to Brand Yourself

2006-04-19T02:59:00.000+08:00

When you think of McDonalds, what springs to mind? Smiling babies? Kids running around? Yummy hamburgers and fries? Do I hear yah? Brand is the image you elicit that is largely subconscious, nonverbal, and emotional. It is enormously powerful because most buying decisions are subconsciously and emotionally driven. With McDonalds, Ray Croc had built a brand that would be emminent in the minds of people of all ages. The same goes to Google, Apple and Coke with their consistent brand image. "Your brand is what you mean to the people who know you, and if you are strong enough, even to those who do not know you," convincingly spoken by Donald Trump. So why is branding so important? For one, it creates visibility. Two, it creates identification and forges a bond with those who knows you. A good brand gives you the added advantage when you are being compared or evaluated. I would choose to buy something of a brand that I have heard of if the price of 2 different brand items are the same. So how you want to brand yourself is how you want others to see you. I usually re-brand myself when I experience a change of environment or at every beginning of the year. When I first entered college, I branded myself as the most talkative and flirtatious girl, being deprived of socializing with men throughout school. Then, I became the it girl, the so-called "most happening" girl to hang out with. You will never want to know how much trouble I got myself into. At this stage of my life, it helps to rebrand myself as a dedicated and results-oriented employee with incredible passion for telecommunications to enhance my professional life. In order to create your self-brand effectively, you have to first understand your own strengths, innate talents and unique gifts. To identify your strength, try the test here. Branding yourself helps you build a unique career identity to differentiate yourself from others who want your job or your promotion. There are seven elements in branding yourself:

Brand Equity -- your notable strengths
Brand Advantage -- your core competency
Brand Passion -- your utmost interests, associated with the question, “What was I born to do?”
Brand Values -- what you care most about
Brand Essence -- your personality traits that make you distinctively you
Brand Image -- your presentation and appearance to the outside world
Brand Reputation -- how others see you and what they say about you

The best of brands gives the best to their customers and friends. What you mean to them is how you help or add value to them and their needs. Being the very best you can be, builds your brand then.

CEO says How you treat a waiter can predict a lot about You

2006-04-16T14:24:00.000+08:00

I remember the day when I accidentally knocked over a glass of red wine and it fell in slow motion over a gorgeous white gown of a super important looking lady sitting at the VIP table of the ballroom I am serving. As I gasped in horror watching the wine trickled down her dress, I tried to put the glass back in its upright position but instead of making things better, more wine continued to pour down her dress. The helpless waiter, me scrambled to get a cloth to wipe the stain off her expensive looking dress which could have costed me my whole years salary. Instead of lashing out at me with expletives unheard of in my entire working life, she lifted me up and smiled, "It's ok. It's a good thing that I have not showered today." And those kind words left the most lasting impression on me. It is only later that I found out that the lady was the CEO of a top logistics company in Asia. And that is how I got my life lesson: You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the waiter. The above lesson is about the only thing all CEOs can agree on according to a survey result. How others treat the CEO says nothing, they say. But how others treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul. Always be wary of those who have a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with. Swanson, CEO of Raytheon says, "Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles." I've always had this internal detection mechanism and intense feeling of distaste towards those shoe shinners and two faced creatures. I do admit that you do need some of those in the political world of corporate cultures but I despise interacting, even collaborating with them on projects. However, due to the win-win situation we all have to practice to get things done, people learn. You can see how their attitude changes when they are dealing with people at a lower ranking. Try this test, bring them to a restaurant and ask a waiter to accidentally pour some water on them or even bring them the wrong food on the menu. People who pass this test would pass the test of management. One CEO of a company used to always bring an employee along with him to exquisite restaurants, having the employee relate his orders to the waiter even though the waiter is only standing next to him. He insist on not speaking directly to the waiter. Inadvertently, we found that the employer is an extremely demanding boss who have no respect and appreciation for the things his staff do. How much respect can you earn being like that? I am pretty sure the CEO of my company will never be caught in the situation above :) How about yours?

Mobile 2.0: AJAX - browser based

2006-04-14T00:19:00.000+08:00

Hot on the heels of Web 2.0, we now present you Mobile 2.0 or simply called Mobile AJAX. Recently, I have been using applications that are browser-based simply because I do not have the luxury of carrying a laptop around and would need to synchronize the things I do in the office and at home, or even when I am at a cybercafe or in a hotspot somewhere. Having informations stored on the Internet allows the flexibility to check the items anywhere. I use protopage as my starting page to store important links, notes and even to upload photos. I use blink to bookmark interesting websites that I want to return to no matter which PC I use. I just found out that there is a company that enables bookmarks to be emailed to a convenient mailbox. Even blogger is my online journal, accessible and updateable everywhere I go. While mobiles might not need such an extensive browser appplication as of now, moving forward, it is definitely the way to go. It is a matter of which types of applications should remain a rich client and which should be converted to browser-based. Good examples for browser based apps on mobile are apps that fetch and render contents to users like searches, weather, sports information and email, eg Google Maps and Yahoo Go! Mobile. Examples of local/rich clients are Stock Feeds and Multi-Player Games. Not all Web 2.0 apps can be converted to Mobile 2.0. Developers are now developing more and more web-based applications, this being the open garden concept where source codes will be available freely for your modification. This encourages faster development of new and innovative applications. Even Microsoft which made tremendous amount of money from their desktop OS is going the web way, incorporating their Live.com website into their new OS, Vista, allowing users to read their personalised stories, track your friend's Halo results and check your company's intranet from any pc. A lot other applications including Word, Excel, Project Management, Email and Calendar are already online via Writely, JotSpot, 37Signals, Zimbra and 30Boxes. And more to come including the newly launched Google's Calendar. Can't wait to experiment them all. Sucker! :P

Mobile Communities

2006-04-13T21:00:00.000+08:00

No man is an island....this rings true to most of us. I heard this phrase in a talk I attended: "Among the words below, which is the most important: Who, What, Where, Why, How?" A lot ofpeople would have answered How or Why but when we mentioned this phrase, we know where the speaker is leading us to: "In this day, it is not about the know-how, it is about the know-who."

Noone could doubt the need to feel a sense of belonging which leads us to talk about the importance of connections and networking. To iterate how important networking is, refer to these blogs/book: "Never Eat Alone", Mobile Community Design and how communities dominates brands. This explains the popularity of networking and social sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, OpenBC and Yahoo Groups. Opportunities do not come to those who wait,it goes to those who seek and are always seekable. I even notice how so many of us insert our Skype username besides the regular IM username. The easier one is contactable, the better. Even search engines like Yahoo is starting to base their searches on keywords from social sites, communities, groups and blogsthat link from the searchers' profile similar to digg.com & delicious.

How does this translate to the mobile arena? Definitely of utmost importance what with us being mobile and traveling most of the time. We know of news that Yahoo with its complete range of Internet services like Yahoo Groups, Mail, Search Engine are all transending into the mobile world with Yahoo Go Mobile. Those with Yahoo profiles can automatically log in via a mobile and resume their activities on mobile.

However, this community lifestyle concept have to be treaded carefully with the right business model in the mobile arena.Not everyone uses their phone like the pc. The success of IM on PC might not translate on mobile. One company called VCel is providing mobile communities with features like location or presence based information in which the location information can be obtained from mobile cell networks, voice recognition commenting (useful for those times when you are always on the movebut still need to store critical information) and sms based commenting or blogging. Meanwhile, a Swedish company called Kenetworks as highlighted by Mike Butcher is trying to transfer their internet community called Playahead into mobile, allowing private chates, groupchats, picture uploading from phone and single login from Internet and mobile by downloading a software into the phone.

Just remember you are never alone. :)

MyNuMo: Your Chance to be a Superstar

2006-04-08T21:15:00.000+08:00

Fancy having your photos bought by others to be taken as wallpapers? Fancy recording your own voice, converting them into polyphonic ringtones and having people buying them? Fancy getting royalties for your own created themes and ringtones?

MyNuMo is the product for you. Being the eBay for the mobile world, it provides the platform to generate your own contents and the marketplace to promote it. With no necessity to pay exorbitant license fees from well-known recording companies, the revenue share pie could look more interesting to the creators as well as the cellcos. Take a look here. Question remains how flooded will this marketplace turn out to be with songs even worse than those presented on American Idol being sold for exorbitant prices. The challenge could be in controlling the flood of contents and the price to set for each contents which would be inevitable.

IMHO, a business model to sell these contents will be sms voting for user created contents where talents are shown via mobile video ala American Idol on Mobile. Also, would like to see contests on user modified contents, imagine a guy winning a prize for spoofing Madonna's "Hung Up" music video- wouldn't that be fun to watch while helping to boost the Madonna's Cd sales.

This concept is not new with UK's 3 rewarding creators of mobile videos everytime their videos are viewed using the service called SeeMeTV. For every 3 customer that watches a clip on See Me TV, the performer gets paid 1p. With a potential audience of 3.2 million, who can each view the clip as many times as they like, the money to be made can quickly mount up. The cash is accumulated and paid out once it has reached £10 – there’s no cap on what a 3 customer can earn from SeeMeTV. With this effort, the directors of the mobile media company has earned over £100,000 with 1 -3 million downloads per month. Sounds to me like a mobile version of AdSense who rewards via clicks on websites. Well, anything that helps people make money will surely sell.

3 has also launched WePay - a pay-as you-go tariff, that also rewards customers with a cash credit for calls and texts they receive - 5p per minute for calls and 2p per text received. This will definitely boost their calls and sms revenue. Time to test how popular you are, or at least to call yourself incessently.

PayPal Cashing In on the Mobile World

2006-04-08T19:26:00.000+08:00

What is new about mobile payment or m-commerce/m-wallet, you may ask? Whatever name you give it, this concept has already been implemented by various companies in various countries, eg. FOMA in Japan and Redtone in Malaysia.

However, PayPal might have a slight advantage compared to the FEMAs or Redtones of the world, it being an online payment engine transiting to the mobile payment world. With strong branding, an already established business relationships with other brands and more than 100 million of PayPal registered users, PayPal could have an edge over the rest. MTV, NBC and NBA (National Basketball Association) has announced that they will be using PayPal's Text to Buy service to sell their merchandices. Payments can be made by sending text messages with the codes of the products or by calling a customer service system and using voice commands to transmit funds. How much of a fraction of the revenue would be taken by PayPal would remain a question to me for now.

PayPal's move to offer a mobile payment service holds out the prospect of reaching vast markets in the developing world where phones, rather than computers, are the main way to connect to the Internet. This proves that m-commerce is being accepted by a larger community.

However, the challenge was not in getting the technology out but in getting the right application that will be of value to users. This technology would be useful for those who do not want the hassle of getting a credit card or who wants to pay for products or website purchases on the go. Besides that, it has always been an issue of security and getting merchants to agree on this new channel of payment.

I, for one am still not convinced of using my mobile to make payments compared to credit card or via online. Perhaps one day I will be ready when I could just text my parking lot number to a short code and walk straight to the restaurant when I am in a hurry or even to extend my parking payments while still stuck in the wedding dinner. Saves me a lot of troble compared to going back to the parking meter. The key is 'mobility' and 'convenience' as the mobile could really replace your wallet one day.

Tags:paypal mobile payment mobile commerce

The Business of Mobile Video

2006-04-06T20:58:00.000+08:00

From text to audio, and now to video, one could not stop the pace of growth of anything in the Internet to the mobile. Contests like Cellflix Festival (aka cellphone for Netflix) had allowed video enthusiasts to use their creativity to create short video clips shot using mobile handsets. The contest was won by Mike Potter who created a video about the love story of his grandparents entitled "Cheat".

In it, his grandfather plays a game with his grandmother while reading the Sunday newspaper. He reads a headline and rewards her with a kiss if she guesses correctly whether it's true or false. "I've got to tell you something. Sometimes I cheat," the grandfather says in a solo shot, a boyish grin growing across his face. The question is what type of video content sells, the method of distribution and the related business model. Some suggestions include previews of movies or music videos, clips of celebrity sightings or events like Oscars and clips from tv shows or concerts. What about clips of today's news pushed to you daily just in case you are not able to watch tv or read the newspaper? Would you pay $2 per clip or $15 per month for daily clips? Sure, if the picture and audio quality is good on a small screen handset with capabilities for memory space to be compressed. Next, can other companies bank on mobile video as another source of advertising channel? MSNBC.com is already exploring this possibility by having network providers charging a fee for pushing videos to mobile handsets and slotting ads prior to the video. However, having ads would interfere with the customers' experience. Another challenge is determining the business models with network providers. MSNBC is only a content provider and telcos would want to consider giving free service if the customers pay for ad-free mobile video subscriptions.

Other challenges include the network bandwidth required to support pushing a large file content as well as the availability of handset that support large storage of videos. So, what would attract you to part with your money to receive videos pushed to you daily? Porn? ;)

The Business of Mobile Podcasting

2006-04-05T21:40:00.000+08:00

Would you be compeled to download a short podcast of a music clip from Madonna before it's launched, business advise from Donald Trump that you can save on your mobile or clips from a reality tv before it is even aired? What about contests via podcasts in which you have to download the clues to a Treasure Hunt distributed via podcasts? Evolution from mobile blogging to podcasting is unavoidable. Latest news being one startup named Pod2Mobile offering the ability to post podcasts with a 20-sec advertising at the start of the podcast. Another startup, Mobilcast streams podcasts to mobile phones. Because there is no download, labels do not have to worry about distribution of unprotected files. PodSafe meanwhile aggregates libraries of tracks that participating labels have cleared for widespread use in podcasts. With the proliferation of people paying for downloads of podcasts, just like what they did for audios via iPod, people are seeing ways to bank on this evolution. For eg, podcast of "The Office" generated 250K downloads per week at $2 a pod. The concern seem to be in convincing major record labels to license their music via podcast due to the digital rights management protection. Besides, some artists remain unconvinced of this new medium of distribution. I do not see these as showstoppers. In the future, it is only a matter of time before all record labels wants to give a preview of what they are offering to boost record sales. And what better medium of distribution than word-of-mouth, or in this case, word-of-podcasts. Wanna know what I am talking about, go visit this site.

Tags:podcast mobile podcast

SecondLife: Your Chance in Recreating Your Life

2006-04-01T22:03:00.000+08:00

Fancy having 5 girlfriends at one go with all salivating over your $1bln assets? Fancy driving a Porsche with a beautiful girlfriend who looks like Jennifer Lopez in tow? Fancy going to the best restaurants for the best steaks, meeting your celebrity friends and signing autographs from admirers? A glamorous life like this may seem far fetched in real life but never in a virtual life. And that is what SecondLife helps to do, fulfilling the dreams of millions of people who could not live the life of the hundreds of rich and famous people on Earth. And for their work, they have been recognised by Amazon.com's founder, Jeff Bezos and other investors who have invested in the company. Just like how MySpace has attracted the attention of media maven, Rupert Murdoch, the appeal these online communities have are they give their users reasons to stick around. It could be a recognition (alter-ego) thing or an economic factor to the point of users paying money to maintain their "land". Revenue from advertising as well as from their ardent users remain the biggest pull factors for investors. At the recent PC Forum conference in San Diego, Omidyar said Second Life fits with his group's mission to give people the tools to foster individual self-empowerment. "What really fascinated me was that it was fully created by people inside" Second Life, he says, especially communities such as people with Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism. "Where people spend time, there's value created," he adds. "Inevitably, it will lead to interesting things." It is a known fact that interactivity breeds addiction. Look at the millions of people who throngs cyber-cafe to play their favourite Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). Look at the millions who download IMs like Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and ICQ (I-what?) to keep in touch with their online friends or to make new ones. The quest for more interaction and recognition is never ending. Look at the millions who have registered their profile in MySpace, etc just to stand a chance to find real love, or is it real fucks? Now, look at the more than 165,000 people who have registered to use SecondLife to recreate their life in a virtual environment. It is with this fact that I would recommend these being the killer apps on mobile phones. When you are away from your pc and still want to maintain interaction with your fellow SecondLifers or update your blog/photos or profile or connect with your friends via IM, that is when your mobile phone can replace the use of pc. Only a matter of time. :)

How to be Good-to-Great

2006-03-25T14:06:00.000+08:00

Among ways to be the right person for any organization (nope, not the RIGHT organization, as if you have the right attitude or values, you can be right for ANY organization)

1. Share core values of organization - these core values can't be given halfway through life, find people with the core values already inside them or have not been ignited. If it is there, it can always be draw open either from motivation or a traumatic/life-changing experience
2. Does not need to be managed, or tightly managed - you can guide, teach and lead but you do not need to spend a lot of time compensating them ir right their wrong.
3. Exceptional quality for others to follow - he/she can be sitting in the seat that others want
4. Know the difference btw having a job vs holding a responsibility - be two steps ahead in your reesponsibility will give you the distinction. If you see a hole, you feel a need to fill the hole to make it better.
5. Ask yourselves these questions: Imagine your company is a bus and your position is the seat in the bus....
a) Do you have a bus problem or a seat problem?
b) Do I have the right person in the right seat or do I have the right person in the wrong seat?

Now that you are the right/good person, how do you become great? Ask yourself more questions: 1. What can you be best in the world at? 2. What drives your economic engine? 3. What are you deeply passionate about?

If you make a lot of money doing things at which you could never be the best, you’ll only build a successful company, not a great one. If you become the best at something, you’ll never remain on top if you don't have intrinsic passion for what you are doing. Finally, you can be passionate all you want, but if you can’t be the best at it or it doesn’t make economic sense, then you might have a lot of fun, but you won’t produce great results.

Play 'Mission Impossible 3' on Mobile First

2006-03-21T21:09:00.000+08:00

Fancy a game of "Mission: Impossible 3" even before the launch of the movie? If yes, play it on your mobile first. In an effort to increase revenue from mobile games, mobile game giant Gameloft unleashes "Mission: Impossible 3" across 150 carriers in May, coinciding with the worldwide rollout of the Tom Cruise thriller. They have beaten game consoles like Atari and computer game makers to it.

As I have predicted in my previous entry (Item 3), mobile gaming will be big. Maybe next will be TV followed by video. So far, what have the developments be?

Yesterday, 20 Mar 2006, news of a startup called AirPlay Network Inc. said it will introduce a lineup of cell phone games tied to live television broadcasts. While watching TV, subscribers could use their cell phones to compete against others in "real time" by predicting plays in sports, choosing winners on reality TV shows or picking answers on game shows. An NFL-related AirPlay game, for instance, would ask cell phone quarterbacks to predict the offense's next moves — a pass or a run — as the real game unfolds live on television.

This effort will transform the mundane activity of watching television to an interactive multiplayer activity. Just as I predicted that Java games that stream seamlessly onto the tv sets with scores of players being updated real-time for all to view, this innovation is not far from existence. With Internet connected cellphones, they can download games from TV or Internet and choose their players and games from the TV set, creating a social network synched with television. Internet is not the only media for games anymore.

Tags:games mobile mobile TV

Digi Loses 3G License in Malaysia

2006-03-16T20:41:00.000+08:00

That is how unpredictable Malaysia can be. How could a telco with more than 3M subscribers loses out to 2 smaller telcos with no significant contribution to the telecommunications industry in Malaysia? Yep, Digi did indeed lose out to TimeDotCom and MiTV.

Reasons not being stated properly but one would be fast to judge that it could only be political. But don't jump your guns just yet. Having TimeDotCom get the license would only push Timedotcom to merge with Jaring to build another broadband giant. Can they do it despite talks that have lasted for years? Well, how would it be if this indeed happen? It would definitely benefit us in terms of allowing seamless broadband access on Internet and mobile, from IP to 3G on GSM. Thus, you will only be paying a fraction of the amount you are paying now to use 3G but a higher amount to use broadband which is fair considering you can switch to 3G when you only have access to mobile. How far can Malaysia go in this remains to be seen?

MiTV got the deal mainly because this would allow a bigger push into the Mobile TV arena which could benefit Malaysians. MiTV already have the contents, they just need the bandwidth to provide this service. How they are to do it with limited knowledge in the telecommunications sector remain a doubt.

Well, to have Digi share the bandwidth with these other 2 telcos as an MVNO would definitely be a laughing stock though. Is it time for Telenor to exit? Would they have got the deal if they did? If Malaysia is to ever progress and keep up with competition, situations like this clearly should not happen. Despite the rational reasons given, awarding the license to Digi could have taught Malaysians a lesson in fast and proper execution. Not to say the other 2 telcos who already have the license are not doing it well but competition from Digi could have pushed Malaysian to think harder, work smarter, execute faster.

Latest on Mobile Entertainment

2006-02-25T03:39:00.000+08:00

1. The Blending of Internet and TV

Amazon.com announced it was creating a weekly original series with TV personality Bill Maher, who would offer a 30-minute live program streaming from the Amazon homepage once a week satrting June 2006 titled Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher.

2. The blending of Mobile and Movies

Nokia would be discussing production of a Nokia-funded mobile movie together with the producer of Mr and Mrs Smith. What's next? Brokeback Mountain?

3. The blending of mobile contents into memory cards

I would call them mobile DVDs or mp3s whereby movies, music and games are burnt into handset devices memory cards. Buying a memory card would be like buying a DVD and using it would be like inserting a DVD into your DVD player.

News from 2006 3GSM Conference in Barcelona

2006-02-25T02:07:00.000+08:00

Well, unfortunately for me, I did not have the opportunity to attend the event. But the Head of my department did and he escalated his knowledge to his "tails". Good to have my expat supervisor who is not afraid to impart knowledge and question your knowledge. Must be their open-mindedness that has allowed Westerners to go far and progress faster. Now, back to Barcelona, a few focus issues are: 1. IMS - one attractive application is the joint whiteboard, that got lots of attention. It means that you call a friend and then can choose to start drawing something on your screen which in realtime appears on the other persons screen. Or you just click on a photo to send it over while talking at the same time. 2. Mobile Email - Especially push email. This service is already available but how do you innovate it? One company came up with a solution that allows large emails to be compressed prior to them being pushed to the mobile. They also provide software that changes the resolution of images to fit the resolution of mobile. That is what I call usability. 3. Mobile TV - A survey by Siemens revealed that mobile tv was one area of major interest to many mobile users. For me, having tv-on-demand and push video would add value to being able to watch tv on mobile besides having bigger screen sizes to cater to a better watching experience. What's next? Watching dvd or vcd on mobile? Nothing suprises me anymore. 4. Convergence - The main theme of the event is definitely convergence. The convergence of IP, mobile, TV, video and broadband has been the talk of the town for years but how and when it happens remain a question. Many others I could tell if only I attended the event. Well, the turnout was good considering it was the first time this event is held in Barcelona after holding it in Cannes for the past 4 years. I'm keeping my fingers crossed to be there one day. :)

Walled Garden vs Open Market

2006-02-22T21:15:00.000+08:00

Just like how the Internet has evolved into an open market with its open source applications and web based services, the mobile arena will face the same fate. So far only Japan has embraced the concept of opening the market of mobile applications, integrating the works of device manufacturers, application/software vendors and content providers with telecommunications provider to hasten the process of information transfer and business requirements analysis.

In other countries, there is still a big value chain between the mobile operators, content providers and handset manufacturers. Talks are ongoing on how contents can be seamlessly integrated onto the various mobile platforms and if the charging model should be pay-per-view, subscription or advertsing model. With the advent of Internet TV, evolving into IPTV and mobile TV, it would be imperative for all to work on an open architecture to allow media contents to be easily provided across all content carriers and handset devices. People all over the world would be waiting to watch American Idol on the mobile once available, but it should not be constrained to certain providers and handset devices only. The walled garden concepts have been a hindrance to the creation of high-tech applications, eg a standard search mechanism on mobile. If ever one is to provide a search engine on mobile, you would still need to go to Google or Yahoo individually. At least things are looking up for IM, with companies like JustYak coming up with a messenger that incorporates IMs from the various providers, Yahoo, Google, MSN, etc. Lastly, M-Commerce has not taken flight despite the various talks on the mechanisms and business models. Could carriers in various countries using various currencies work together to solve this problem via an open standard? However, I doubt telcos will follow the standards of i-Felica from NTTDocomo which has been a great success in Japan alone. However, there is still hope. NTT Docomo has succeded in working with Starhub and other providers like O2 UK, O2 Ireland, Cellcom, and MTS to open its i-mode mobile internet access in the respective countries. Once i-mode become a dominant mobile internet bandwidth, could CDMA overtake GSM then? Hmmmm....

Yahoo vs Google on Mobile and Online

2006-02-07T00:16:00.000+08:00

Comparison btw Yahoo & Google on Mobile Google 1. Conveniently launched from the browser 2. Fast access as Google has taken effort to minimize latency 3. Allows personalization, thus enables faster access to relevant links 4. Available on all XHTML enabled phones

Yahoo

Yahoo! Go Mobile requires download
Information is a click (and wait) away
Photos taken with mobile are automatically posted in Yahoo! Photos, Address book on phone is automatically added in Yahoo! Contacts
Might require POP configuration for Yahoo! Mail

The war between the 2 search engine giants is intensifying. With Google’s stock plummeting from an all-time high in May 2005, and Yahoo gaining more recognition in terms of being listed as the No.1 BigCo and the best company to work in, the war is not showing any signs of slowing down. Yahoo has been listed as No. 1 in the Top Big Web company, beating Google from 2004’s No.1 spot with acquisitions of great technology companies like Flickr, del.ici.ous and konfabulator. They also released Yahoo 360 (a social networking platform), My Web 2.0 (a relatively unsuccessful imitation of del.icio.us) and a Podcasting service. Among Yahoo’s latest innovation include creating their own personalized shopping wishlist using Yahoo! Shoposphere, something similar to Amazon’s book list. Nothing too much to shout about I would think compared to their social searching. However, it would be a step forward in the world of e-commerce via a central site besides Amazon. Yahoo’s business model is by revenue sharing with their online publishers giving them more incentive to promote their product on Yahoo! Shopping. Besides, when users start promoting their Pick List generating more traffic to the same site, ratings for Yahoo will skyrocket while pushing deeper, less known items. Another personalization on search includes Yahoo’s Mindset, an Ajax search interface which allows users to change search results based on whether they are more interested in “research” or “shopping”. Google meanwhile has stepped up a notch in offering Wi-Fi, who along with Skype is investing $21.7 million in a network telecommunications company called Fon pioneered by Martin Varsavsky. The service permits subscribers to modify their own routers so that users of Wi-Fi wireless technology can connect to the Internet at many physical locations, in contrast to the limited range of access that is often available now. This will create a “global network of shared Wi-Fi connection”. What would be Google’s motive in this besides creating ubiquitious access to Internet with people accessing Google as their default search engine. What services or innovation can they sell if they were to really acquire this company? Plenty, among them their own ISP, VOIP, Google Earth, etc. We shall see.

More comparisons between Yahoo and Google here; Yahoo is "intelligent design"; Google is "blind evolution." - From the mouth of Esther Dyson. Well, things will definitely change in the near future.

Top 100 Companies to Work For in US

2006-01-26T21:00:00.000+08:00

Nope, GE did not make the list. Neither did Accenture. Google did not make the list but Yahoo came in at No. 44. Microsoft beat Apple again to garner the No.42 position this year but would things change come next year after the shares of Apple sky-rocketed last year? Besides, my friend who is working in Apple for 7 long years is now a US millionaire. How great is that?!!! To actually getting your first million before hitting the age of 30 by working under someone. Well, hope to see this happening in Malaysia, else noone would work under someone anymore.

Anyway, the exhaustive list comprise of an amalgamation of companies from various industries, from retail to legal, finance to investment companies, management consultants to technology companies. The general trend is there is more money to be earned in the investment, management consultants and technology area compared to the rest. The companies listed reeked of benefits from stock options to free tuition fees to study.

With reasons ranging from opportunities to improve their employees by sponsoring their tuition fees, generous benefits and stock options, extra amenities for the employees to meetings with CEOs of the company, below are some reasons that brought the companies into this list:

Management Consultant

11. Boston Consulting Group Knowledge really is power. Arrive at this management consultant with a B.A. degree, and the firm will send you to a top institution for an MBA, pick up the tuition bill, and double your salary if you agree to stay on.

67. Ernst & Young The "people first" culture at this Big Four accounting firm emphasizes diversity. Today minorities make up 24% of its workforce, up from 16% in 1996. The firm's nondiscrimination policy now includes gender identity.

71. PriceWaterhouseCoopers The accounting firm is piloting a program designed to reduce work hours. It also invented a new position for career employees who are not on a partner track, thereby getting rid of the old "up or out" culture.

72. BoozAllenHamilton School is never out at this management consultancy, where an in-house university offers hundreds of courses. A partnership with Johns Hopkins has helped 100 employees earn an MBA degree.

Technology 23. Qualcomm All new employees last year were given stock. Another bonus: The wireless company covers the cost of onsite Princeton Review GMAT and GRE prep classes for employees angling to get into grad school.

25. Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers stays in touch with the staff. He meets with groups of new hires to welcome them soon after they start, and at monthly breakfast meetings workers are encouraged to ask him tough questions.

27. Network Appliance Time to tapas. This data-storage firm whisked 327 salespeople and their guests to Barcelona to celebrate meeting their targets. President Tom Mendoza makes 15 to 20 calls a week to thank employees for their contributions

30. SAS Institute This software developer offers fantastic benefits: 100% of health-insurance premiums, child care that costs just $300 a month, three weeks of vacation after one year, unlimited sick leave, and an onsite medical facility.

42. Microsoft The software king offers what may be the most generous health-insurance plan in America. The premium is zero, with no deductible. And it's the first U.S. corporation to pay for therapy for dependents who are autistic. Common Job: Software Design Engineer, Annual Pay: USD105,000

43. Intuit These brainiacs know how to party. The inventors of Quicken, TurboTax, and other financial tools are legendary for their Friday afternoon socials, summer cookouts, and beach parties at the end of tax season.

44. Yahoo The dot-com spirit lives at the Internet portal, which makes its debut on our list. Onsite amenities include massage, haircuts, dentistry, car wash, oil change, foosball, bocce, free lattes, and stock options for all. Common Job: Senior Technical, Annual Pay: USD117, 245

83. Texas Instrument This high-tech pioneer supports diversity through 30 employee-networking groups. Among them: "lesbian and gay employee network," "Christian Values Initiative," and "Muslim Initiative," as well as other affinity groups.

97. Intel Intel is known for its tough, confrontational culture in which employees are encouraged to speak up. CEO Paul Otellini has his own blog. "How cool is that?" says one employee. Workers get an eight-week paid sabbatical every seven years.

Retail 29. Starbucks New president and CEO Jim Donald keeps in touch with the "partners," as employees are called, by randomly calling a dozen district managers and several stores each day. After a year, part-timers qualify for $500 in tuition reimbursement.

96. IKEA (U.S.) Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! The Swedish retailer expanded its U.S. payroll by 2,500 last year, and is adding three to five stores a year in the U.S. Eighty percent of employees agree that "people are given a lot of responsibility here."

100. Nike

Responding to criticism from activists, this sports giant now has 90 full-time employees monitoring overseas factory conditions. Perks in the U.S. include a 50% discount on Nike gear and a campus with a pool, climbing walls, and trails.

This brings to mind, which company in Malaysia would make the list? My company, Maxis comes to mind with its good management, extensive stock options, yearly benefits and performance bonuses. Other companies which I have heard include Shell with great learning and self-improvement facilities and good salary packages, GE with its strong work culture that encourages continuous learning to mould their employees into an all-rounder, Ericsson with its own gym and travel benefits, EDS with its generous salary and many more. Feel free to tell me if you are proud of your own company too.

Google Shares Drop but Branding Spikes

2006-01-24T15:00:00.000+08:00

As Paris Hilton says, I see myself as a brand first, a businesswomen second. Wise thoughts from a blond celebrity. :P.

Maybe not to be whispered in the same breath, but technology stock Google has made a great branding for itself overtaking Apple's first place last year. Did Google’s share price affect their brand. BIG NO. Google was even ranked the most popular search engine in China overtaking Baidu.com and Sino.com. Way to go Google!

There is thus no correlation between the stock price and its brand as its share price has fallen 8.5% on 20 Jan 2006. With its sharp rise it went public in August 2004 and the disappointing performance of other tech stocks like Yahoo and Apple earlier, this news do not come as a surprise to anyone. Brokerage even downgrade the stock from "hold" to "Sell" - the phenomenon that has come to embody the rapid growth and speculative possibilities of tech stocks was sinking. Google shares which traded as high as $470 last week closed at $399.46 on Nasdaq- trading below $400 for the first time since it burst through that plateau in mid-November. This brings us to view the online advertising world differently starting from this year onwards. While the proliferation of pay-per-clicks on websites and blogs have given Google a revenue amassing billions, the same could not be said for this year. Companies are paying more for keyword searches and pay per content compared to pay-per-click. How would Yahoo’s latest venture into social bookmarking or search engine based on your friends’ search criteria fare? I have a positive outlook on this as human beings trust their friends more than some strangers or journalists writing about the latest news no matter how true it is. It would be more entertaining as well as something that we can respond and relate to easily. Imagine how interesting it would be to find our friend’s photo when we search for images of supermodel or b****. How successful this idea will turn out to be, we will just wait and see. How else will the business models for search engine evolve?

Trends of Telecommunications for 2006

2006-01-24T14:35:00.000+08:00

My mobile technology trend analysis for 2006 is based on technology innovations and predictions that have been talked about all through 2005 and even years before. Here is the list:

1. Tv, video, PC and mobile converges

London Research firm Informa Telecoms & Media estimates that by 2010, the market for mobile entertainment that includes TV, games and music will reach $42 billion. It is predicted that by 2012, some 256 million mobile-TV handsets will be shipped. In early 2005, Fox TV launched a special, trimmed-down version of the hot drama 24 over Vodafone's cellular grid. Even ESPN (with 97 million sports viewers) and Extreme Group are starting their own mobile-phone services to distribute "extreme-sports" video. Another tech provider worth noting is MobiTV that received an Emmy awards from Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for technical achievement.

2. 3G will not fly, replaced by HSDPA or EV-DO

High-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) will help 3G by improving the download speeds by reducing the latency of data connections and increasing the headline download bandwidth to 14.4Mbps. HSDPA uses an additional transport channel to deal with bursty traffic through multiplexing. About 36 operators owrldwide has plans to deploy HSDPA including Vodafone, Cingular, NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile and T-Mobile. With lack of availablilty of compatible handsets, consumers will start by using multimode PC cards allowing users to switch between GPRS, UMTS and UMTS-HSDPA. While HSDPA improves download speed, High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) is required to improve upload speeds for sending email attachements on the move. However, HSUPA will start to arrive in the next 2-3 years as operators compete to get download speeds up with HSDPA being the revenue generator.

Just like HSDPA, Evolution Data Only (EV-DO) enables fast, convenient attachment downloads. With further price reduction last year and with more mobility, EV-DO is looking at displacing paid WiFi. The order of preference will become: 1) laptop on free WiFi, 2) laptop on EV-DO, 3) paid WiFi.

3. Games will be the next big thing

While music has taken the limelight in year 2005 with ringtones of Crazy Frog by Jamdat beating popular music by U2 and BonJovi in the music charts, music downloads will only get addictive up to the levels of personalization. While people finds downloading ringback tones, ringtones and now even background music an extension of their personality, music is just not interactive enough to garner addiction that parts people from their money unwittingly.

How many times have you seen boys and even girls playing multi-player games, RPG and whatever nots in the cybercafe well into the wee hours of the mornings? Yes, that is how addictive multi-player games on mobile phones is gonna get. The ability of playing wherever and whenever you are will be an advantage over those who need to step into a cybercafe or home. Once the price of handset and games go down and the development of more attractive games for cellular starts happening, playing games on cellular will not be a deterence anymore.

4. Content providers and network providers will manage services of telcos

With deals like Ericsson being the assigned managed services provider of UK's 3, more deals like these will emerge as cellular providers concentrate on business processses that will grow their profits and revenue. Being the subject-matter of marketing contents for data and voice, content providers have a great potential to work side-by-side or even be the strategy consultants of telcos in this area, freeing telcos time to concentrate on promoting and selling.

5. China will be the next telecommunications leader

With subscriber penetration reaching 90%, golden times of Korea and Japan will come to a halt. The prominence of China in the telecommunication lead emerges with talks of companies like Redtone, an MVNO from Malaysia collaborating with companies from China to tap into their enormous subscriber base. This added with more and more Chinese people buying a controlling interest in a wireless company.

6. MVNOs will turn into CVNOs with a wholesale concept

The success of MVNOs based on retail selling will not sustain in the near future, forcing MVNOs to think about wholesale and implementation of new technology. ESPN Mobile plans to launch its MVNO in early 2006 using the Sprint Nextel CDMA 1*RTT network. A new business model based on Mobile Voice over Internet Protocol will emerge. With implementation of IMS, the architecture for 3G core networks that allows delivery of IP services in a consistent way to the user device, regardless of the access technology, there is no doubt that MVNOs will bank on this ever evolving technology to move ahead.

First offers may be as simple as "number convergence" with a single number for multiple devices. The first CVNOs (Converged Virtual Network Operators) will likely focus on combining VoIP over WiFi with CDMA or GSM cellular. The CVNO will look to the consumer like a marriage of Vonage and Virgin Mobile, combining characteristics of a BYOB (Bring Your Own Broadband) Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider and an MVNO. These new operators will attack the convergence space by offering VoIP, mobile voice and mobile data, combining services in new ways that will surprise the industry. In the future, these operators may also add broadband in the form of WiFi hotspots and WiMAX when it becomes widely available. With a strong and loyal customer base, they can leverage this existing network to intoduce the latest and newest technology with a more competitive price.

Samsung and China Mobile tops market value

2006-01-23T20:10:00.000+08:00

I am proud to announce that Samsung Electronics Co, a Korean electronics manufacturer has topped US$100bil in market value on 4 Jan 2006. Its share have risen as much as 4,5% pushing its value to US$102bil. Second in size to Australia's Vodafone Group Plc, it is among the non-US technology stocks that has overtaken the values of Finland's Nokia Oyj, Motorola Inc and Japan's Sony Corp. I have been proud of Samsung's ability to stay above water despite vigorous competition from other electronics and handset manufacturer. With it's focus on being the brand for clear graphics quality and great display screen in TV sets, handphones and PC, Samsung has garnered consistent market share.

General Electric is the world's most valuable company at US$374bil. Newbury, England-based Vodafone is valued at US$137bil.

China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd, the world's largest mobile phone operator by users is the second largest Asian tech stock at US$97bil. Only time will tell when mobile operators will start to dominate the market replacing the likes of Microsoft, Google and General Electrics. With the emergence of all things mobile including IP and broadband, it won't be too far in the future.

Employee Empowerment in the Knowledge Economy

2006-01-19T16:45:00.000+08:00

"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." – Elber Hubbard

With the departure of a prominent figure in my organisation (name is omitted), I am left to ponder how effective a hierarchical organization where layers after layers of people is layered on top of you works. One main reason cited by the article in TheEdge was due to the hiring of a new expatriate in the company overseeing his roles and responsibilities. How true this reason is, I leave it to your jurisdiction.

In the new knowledge economy, Jack Welch and eliminating bureaucracy. A highly matrixed organization like a dot-com would have worked better if an organization was to practice this where all employees are given the authority to voice their opinions and make decisions. This even encourage creative thinking that leads to strategic innovative minds.

Delegation vs Empowerment

Delegation is an old idea used in the traditional management model. The idea was to make sure that responsibility and authority were equal for every job. When delegation was implemented correctly, people had the authority that they needed to execute their responsibilities. Limitations of this approach: assigning authority does not mean that someone has the ability, motivation, and understanding necessary to perform.

Empowerment is a core concept of the new management model. In the new-generation adaptive organization, delegation is replaced by empowerment, and responsibility by ownership. Authority and responsibilities are formal aspects or organizing. They are based upon organizational properties and not individual capabilities. Empowerment and ownership are social aspects of organizing, They are based on efficacy and initiative, and not just on roles and requirements. They belong to people.

The more empowered you are, the more you are willing to contribute to your organization. Imagine you in a cubicle working day in and day out, executing the decisions of others and another whereby you are entrusted new responsibilities and stretched beyond what you thought you could achieve, which would allow you to be more productive? The 2nd option will harness your talents to the optimum, allowing you to engage in broad-based thinking, visioning, and nurturing. As a result, you will be more enthusiastic, active and motivated to contribute to yours as well as the company's success. Human should be an asset, not a liability. Wouldn't every company wants to be a GE?

The Changing Faces of Large Organizations

2006-01-05T21:13:00.000+08:00

Having worked in a large local organization for the past 4 years, I have grown to loathe and love the corporate structure at the same time. Ocassionally I find myself forgetting to breathe due to excessive workload or having my ass wooped for not being prudent in keeping the right people in the loop or for not having a sense of urgency. Two things were very critically mentioned in my organization: urgency and change. Anyone who displays those traits is bound to have a rosy future in my company. Or does he/she? With politics playing a part, anything could happen.

Organizations are getting bigger and the good news is SIZE DOES MATTER! We would have thought that the more workers a company employs, the more difficult it is for the company to earn higher profits per employee. According to a research by McKinsey, of the 25 corporations (among the top 150) that employ 200,000 or more people, only 4—Citigroup, GE, IBM, and Toyota Motor—earn as much as $20,000 or more per employee. In contrast, the weighted average for the entire list of 150 is $60,000. Bigger does mean better if the right strategy and change management is used. So what strategies are we talking about?

These changes involve simplifying vertical structures, abandoning failed matrix, ad hoc overlays, and creating internal knowledge and talent marketplaces as well as formal social networks. Only then can big companies unleash the productivity of today's all-important professional workers. As workers in the new economy, we should strive to increase our value to the company. If we could quantify our own value, wouldn't we be motivated to work harder and better? If we are rewarded according to our price value, wouldn't we be working our ass off all the time? People are selfish and by introducing price tags to employees, it might just add the competitiveness needed to bring a company forward. So are you worth $20,000 to your company? Go on, be an aseet. :)

Workers can be divided into 2 types: tacit workers and transactional workers. The rise of tacit workers who make decisions based on valuable judgements and experience in developed countries is thanks to the replacement of transactional workers with automative and routine systems. Increasing the productivity of tacit workers would allow companies to free up more employees to strategize and implement high-value activities. This is prove enough in my company that employs more Managerial positions than Executives, having more thinking & strategizing done compared to doing & executing.

Last but not least, I will introduce you to 2 types of thinking: convergent thinking (focus on clear problems and provides well-known solutions quickly) and divergent thinking (focus on broadening context of decision making by getting questions right before resorting to convergent-thinking processes). With the fast changing pace of the market, only organizations that encourage divergent thinking will succeed, with their focus on enhancing creativity and reducing control (control what you must, not what you can; control when you must, not when you can) while minimizing risks. With divergent thinking, we ensure that the proper questions are addressed early enough to allow them to be handled in an astute manner. So, be creative, think out of the box, your company will thank you for it.

How Search Engine Improves Advertisements

2006-01-05T00:28:00.000+08:00

Advertising has gone through tremendous evolution from years ago from conventional methods of word-of-mouth to new media like newspaper, magazines and now the Internet and are we looking at mobile in the future? I will not be suprised. Question is when and what would the business model be?

Rarely have we heard of successful exposure via Internet advertising in Malaysia. With the lack of Internet usage in this country compared to that of Korea and other Asia Pacific countries, it is not suprising success rates of advertising is still recorded higher for newspaper and television. However, this situation will change with higher adoption of Internet for work and pleasure and research indicating people spend more time in front of the PC than television today. With revenue above US$381.2M in profit, television like CBS is now looking at Google's advertising model by inserting related links and suggestions on websites when a viewer browse their website. MTV is already doing that by cross-selling ringtones everytime the songs is played on air. My suggestion is that while watching movies, we can even include the brand and venue of the items used by the actors and actresses as a way of promoting those items. Imagine watching "Desperate Housewives" and the brand of the lingerie that Teri Hatcher is wearing appears at the bottom of the screen with information of where to get it. Wouldn't this advertising be more effective than plain advertisements during the 3-mins break? Association especially with celebrities play a strong part in consumerism. Yahoo's business model called sponsored search whereby advertisers pay to have their ads appear when users search for certain keywords had to be removed. Yahoo has been fighting closely with Google in the Internet advertising world as it comes up with a model of having advertisers bid on keywords to figure out where their ads should be placed. Honda, for example used Yahoo Search Marketing to run an integrated media campaign when it launched the Ridgeline truck in January. In addition to TV spots, print ads and direct mail, the ad agency bought a bunch of keywords that would pull up Honda's Ridgeline at the top of search results. Even though people do not purchased cars online, using search helped Honda increase the number of visits to its site. How about advertisements on mobile? With limitations of smal screeen size and slow browsing of wapsites, it will be some time before we can see McDonalds promo on Chicken Little appearing when you download Chicken Little wallpaper. Step by step, as search engine starts taking a more critical roles in the cellular market, advertisements might start appearing too.

Google's Search Engine in Mobile Devices

2006-01-02T10:03:00.000+08:00

As I opened the Nokia N90 web browser, I was surprised to find a browser uncommon among many PC users: Opera. It was a revelation then to learn that Opera was indeed the default browser for many smart phones or sophisticated wireless devices that have enough memory to store the browser called Opera Mini. So how could Google miss out on this great opportunity to venture into the mobile world by inserting their search feature as the default search engine for Opera Mini users. Offered free of charged, one just have to click on '9' on their handsets to launch the Google search feature to start searching. On Opera Mini, you'll find an integrated Google search field on the start-up screen. With the availability of Opera browsers on mobile devices and the ever luminous search capabilities of Google, one could admit this as a win-win situation for both companies, especially Opera whose dominance in the PC browser has been taken over by either IE or Mozilla Firefox. With this 1-year collaboration, one could not say the same when it comes to mobile devices. Unless IE or Firefox comes up with better browsers for mobile devices (I do admit that Opera is still very slow in their loading time) and then we will see competition heating up with Yahoo and Google to grab the next big mobile browser. Seems like Google is not convinced with Opera being able to live up to the mobile browsers expectations with only a 1-year collaboration. Well, I am not putting my bet on IE and Google though. :)

2005 Technology Newsmakers

2006-01-01T17:25:00.000+08:00

As we close the curtain to year 2005 and welcome the year 2006 with new hopes and trepidation, I present you a list of notable news in the technology front both in the local and international industry. Drum rolls please:

Local 1. Maxis launches 3G in Feb 2005 with voice call rates as low as 2G voice calls (a real steal if you ask me, not with the handsets though) 2. Price war, price war and more price war. Since the lowering of pre-paid SIM pack to Rm10 during 2004’s Raya & Deepavali celebrations, there has never been a bigger war than this. To date, the lowest is offered by Celcom with Rm8.50 for their pre-paid SIM pack with ? airtime. 3. Government awarding 3 more 3G licenses to local MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) which would provide a fairer competition against the 2 biggest telco in Malaysia. 4. Listing of various content providers in the Mesdaq market, eg. MobileMode. 5. Digi launches post-paid plans with no monthly access fee that would definitely increase their number of post-paid subscribers in competition against the other telcos who already have a fair share of the market 6. Redtone launches Mobile Money to get a headstart in the local mobile commerce market. International News on mobile technology all over the world are too diverse to mention here, so here is a list of more general technology news: 1. Apple launches iPod, the greatest thing for music technology since toast bread, I meant mp3. 2. Ebay acquiring Skype for $4.1B 3. Yahoo merging/buying Alibaba.com as a more strategic move to enter the huge China search engine market 4. Google acquiring 5% of AOL shares to get a share of the video and IM market Surprisingly, news of Microsoft was not prominent enough to be noted here even though one would remember their spate with Google over a Chinese employee in Microsoft. I am one to embrace change especially when it involves the downfall of a monopoly. My predictions for next year would be more coverage on the ever more aggressive Firefox beating Microsoft in the browser market and even more mergers and acquisitions among search engines. Who says change in bad? ;)

Great Advice from Great Leaders

2005-12-30T21:07:00.000+08:00

To wrap up the year, I am presenting you with a comprehensive list of great advise from great business leaders. Concentrate and learn: Leadership 1. To be a good leader, you've got to concentrate on bringing out the best in your people. - Richard Branson 2. Believe in Something Bigger Than Yourself. You have to believe in doing good for those you serve, knowing that it will allow them to do extraordinary things. Another important lesson I learned from my father, who was the first great leader I observed. He taught me that you have to keep your perspective and have a sense of humility. As he used to say, "Tell me what you brag about, and I'll tell you what you lack." - Carlos M. Gutierez, US secretary of commerce & former chairman & CEO, Kellogg 3. Leadership qualities. The things that make a good leader are being open-minded, having a willingness to really ask for and accept advice, showing a sense of humility, and putting the right people in the right seats." - Hank Paulson, Goldman Sachs 4. Surround Yourself With People Smarter than You. You need the guidance to guide others. Few business decisions are black and white. That's why you surround yourself with smart people and listen to different points of view. - Chris Albrecth, CEO of HBO & George Steinbernner, owner of New York Yankess 5. Never Bow to Precedent. Rebel. Critique. As the pace of change accelerates, the value of precedent will continue to wane. Today the most important thing is to regard everything you believe as nothing more than a set of hypotheses, forever open to being disproved. A healthy disrespect for precedent is the ultimate advantage in a world where the future is less and less an extrapolation of the past. By the way, being a contrarian is usually not as risky as the custodians of convention typically make out. - Gary Hamel, business consultant & author of Harvard Business Review 6. Conventional Wisdom Is Always Wrong. Find incorrect underlying assumptions and opportunities will come to you. - Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm. 7. I have built business on conventional wisdom and going the other way. - Geraldine Laybourne, chairman and CEO, Oxygen Media 8. It is never bad to fail. "A leader has to get across the idea of "failing fast." Don't be afraid to try things, but if something doesn't work, move on. What people sometimes try to do is prove they were right in the first place." - Bill Zollars, Yellowroad 9. Decision-making abilities are imperative. "I read a great book years ago about the Supreme Court that said the court's challenge was "to remember the future and imagine the past." That's a great phrase, because it says so much. You imagine the past in order to make it relevant to the future that you are creating. The future doesn't just happen— it's shaped by decisions." - Paul Tagliabue, NFL

Action 10. He Who Says It, Does It. One of the assets I look for in a team or a leader is a bias for action and a willingness to say "We can do it," coupled with a solid strategy. The way I interpret it, execution and commitment are absolutely essential to any strategy or initiative in an era too full of plans, processes, and procrastination. - Simon Cooper, President & COO of Ritz Carlton. 11. Business Is Not About Ideas, It's About Initiatives. I like people who can "point and shoot" when it comes to getting done what needs to happen. Business is not about ideas; it's about initiatives and strategies. - SERGIO ZYMAN, marketing expert 12. Don't Trust, Just Verify. Whether it is expert advice, what you read in the paper, or what your mother told you, if it is important, take the time to figure out for yourself whether it is really true. - STEPHEN D. LEVITT, coauthor, Freakonomics 13. Learn to Trust Your Gut. A career is a collection of experiences to get your gut ready. It's the accumulation of knowledge from successes and failures that helps you to see what's possible and build something great. - Paul Pressler, CEO and president, Gap 14. Be the Person Who Steps Up. - George Shaheen, CEO, Siebel Systems. 15. Get Out from Behind Your Desk - Jim Goonight, CEO of SAS Innovation 16. Be a Problem-Solver. Innovation is only worthwhile if it is focused on solving real-world problems. - HECTOR RUIZ, , CEO, AMD . 17. The Next Big Thing Is Whatever Makes the Last Big Thing Usable - Blake Ross, co-creator, Firefox. 18. Quit Taking, Start Giving. You have to fill a void, give people something that's meaningful and useful. -RUSSEL SIMMONS, co-founder, Def Jam Records; founder, Rush Communications 19. One should not stop daydreaming. "When I examine myself and my methods of thoughts, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent of asborbing positive knowledge." - Albert Einstein 20. There are two main uses for creativity, first use is to do what you are doing in a 'better' way; doing it faster, at less cost, with less waste, with higher quality or in a simpler way. All these directions of improvement may rely on new ideas. Second use is to do better things; creating new products and services or aadding new values to existing products & services. - Dr de Bono, originator of the tie lateral thinking concept 21. Vision begins with an idea that is well-focused, that can be described clearly and simply - Inc.com Ways to be successful 22. Hard Work opens Doors. Work hard, have high standards, and stick to your values, because somebody's always watching. -IVAN SEIDENBERG, chairman and CEO, Verizon 23. Choose Your Mistakes Carefully. - Craig Newman, owner of Craiglist. 24. Those Who Don't Know Their Own History Are Doomed to Repeat It. there is no substitute for experience-based knowledge, and documenting it ensures that we'll always remember it. - RAM SHRIRAM, angel investor and Google board member 25. What Gets Measured Gets Managed. Whether you're a network engineer responsible for making sure calls are completed or a marketing manager responsible for a new product, you need to know how to measure your success. -STAN SIGMAN, CEO, Cingular Wireless 26. Every Detail Counts. "Oprah was on everyday. And the show is so well-managed. I paid attention to the technicalities so that I can apply it to my own show." 27. Integrity and Clarity of Thoghts. "Look for integrity. I think this is a bedrock requirement. Beyond that, it's clarity of thought. How a person attacks a problem or an opportunity is often more important than the conclusion he comes to, because it tells you something about how this individual is going to face other situations." - Stanley O'Neal, Merrill Lynch I observed one common trait among a lot of great leaders all over the world: humility. As I completed this blog, I spoke to a colleague whose father is the driver of Datuk Jamaluddin, the CEO of Maxis Communications Bhd. He spoke of how Datuk treats everyone from the tealady to the general managers of Maxis the same way. He spoke of how Datuk offered him a job as an office boy in Maxis and how he rised uo as an engineer now with the help of some study bond from the company. He spoke of how Datuk calls him to wish him "Happy Deepavali." As he spoke, I could see the twinkle in his eye guaranteeing his loyalty to the company for a long time to come. That is what I call a great leader :)

If You can create your own Blog, Can you Create your own Search Engine?

2005-12-28T21:22:00.000+08:00

Speaking about acquisitions of Seach Engine from audio, video to messaging services in my previous blog, another acquisition by an e-commerce website called Amazon would have raised eyebrows among many. Why would Amazon acquire Alexa (a search engine) besides for searching through their own database of books and other products to sell?

In the latest article in Business 2.0, Amazon is starting to creep into the search engine stratosphere by introducing a service that allows their members to create their own search engine and gain additional revenue from the huge online advertising pie. In the future, you will have various search engines like health, video, music and games search engine created using Alexa's web index and hosted on Amazon. Instead of the millions of dollars it would usually cost, Amazon will charge just $1 per gigabyte of storage used or $1 for every 50 gigabytes of data processed. And if you have created a better search algorithm than Google's PageRank (fat chance :P), you can apply it to Alexa's index.

Thus, the smart Bezon must have thought of this when he was fearing how Google and Yahoo would have taken a big share of their e-commerce pie when people uses SE as a starting point to purchase items instead of Amazon.com. Even if you can find links to Amazon in Google or Yahoo, this does not stop users from going elsewhere. However, with search and shopping on the Web merging, you might hear a day when Google buys Amazon (yikes!!!).

Search Engine Strategies

2005-12-27T03:07:00.000+08:00

With news of search engine making headlines in our daily technology news, it is not suprising that I would be closing the year with more news on the same context. Here is a sum of the strategies used by search engines in the name of competition with Google and Yahoo dominating the news from one acquisition to another amounting to billions of dollars especially with the recent acquisition of AOL by Google. Search engine is crawling into whatever spaces we have left from music to video to tv to the Earth and soon to our private lifes. Here we have a look at strategies used by Yahoo: 1. Scheduling of recording of TV programs from the Net. From any Yahoo TV episode page, just click "Record to my TiVo box." Your request will be automatically sent to your home the next time your TiVo box connects. Yahoo might be planning to provide search engine for TV programs with this initiative. 2. Acquisition of music services like Launch, Mediacode and MusicMatch. Providing subscription based music services called Yahoo Music Unlimited and including this in their IM 3. Acquisition of imaging and tagging sites like Del.icio.us and Flickr to enhance their social networking capabilities plus helping them achieve Item 5 below.

4. Personalization by allowing a user to have and share a 360 degree view of all services subscribed to in Yahoo including creating blogs 5. Innovating IM to provide free PC-to-PC calls with Voice

6. Introducing social search whereby search results are determined by human editors. 'My Web' allows you to save, share, and tag your browser bookmarks. So when you enter a search term, results saved by your friends appear first.

Meanwhile, the bigger acquisitions and launches were by Google, the only company which could not take on Microsoft:

1. Acquisition of 5% stake in AOL using USD1bil which allowed Google to increase revenue in advertising, IM and videos

2. Launching Google Earth- search engine for any locations on the entire Earth

3. Launching of Google Talk - Google's IM

4. Providing wap access to gmail

5. Competing with Microsoft in providing Google Desktop Search

All in all, I could see Google's strategy as more focused compared to Yahoo's multiple acquisitions and collaborations that would mean a huge investment for less returns. All these news make for exciting times in the Search Engine technology allowing for more room for innovations and convergence. While Google gets more visits/traffic per day, Yahoo's visitors have longer staying power with its focus on content. Let's now sit back and see how the SE battloe it out in the mobile arena.

If Content is King, shouldn't Content Owners be wearing the Crown?

2005-12-13T03:06:00.000+08:00

You hear the "Numa Numa" song in Chicken Little and want to download it to set it as your ringtone and ringback tone. You search the wap for the song you desire only to feel frustrated with the slow connection via GPRS and the layers of pages you have to go through to find the ringtone you want. The GPRS gets disconnected a few times and worse still, when you finally get to the page you desire, you could not find the content. How would you feel? (The maximum number of wap clicks before getting to the content should be three.)

The biggest issues faced by telcos and content providers today is that of distribution of contents at the right time to the right customers. Portals have been set up to no avail as customers still find it hard to purchase what they are looking for. If it is so difficult for a customer who is searching to get what they want, what about those who have not been searching? If the telco market concentrates on getting profit only from those who are proactively searching, the market pie from mobile data will be incredibly small. Thus, the introduction of new delivery and distribution channels are imperative. A few companies have come up with new ways of enticing customers to download contents. For example, PurpleAce came up with a point system that enables customers who download items to gather points and share their items with their loved ones. MTV makes downloading easy by advertising the download codes whenever a song available for download is played. Portals on the mobile today are still based on a walled garden concept; allowing the telcos to maintain ownership of the contents displayed. An evolution is called for in order to open this to the subscribers' and content providers' hands. I would love to see more of the distribution channels on the Internet morphing its way into the mobile arena like search engine for contents, ringtones and graphics as well as recommendation engines that suggests similar contents that will interest users right after a content is downloaded or a suggested list of contents delivered to customers via SMS on a daily basis. Don't be suprised if in the future, the mobile will intelligently personalise your ringtone, screensaver and ringback tone while setting alarms by synchronising with the appointments in your email or alarm you when the stocks of milk in your fridge is running low. All in the name of technology.

Ericsson's Deal with 3 UK

2005-12-11T23:56:00.000+08:00

Ericsson managing 3's network services could be one of the top international deals of the year 2005 in the Telecommunications industry. The deal is the first of its kind as we are now moving towards the integration between a network provider and a telco in UK. In times when the industry is going through outsourcing as a major option for cost-cutting and time-saving, this deal is more than outsourcing. It involves the telco managing the network and operations of a telco in totality including making decisions on how their technology infrastruture should be. This leaves the business matter and ownership of assets to the telco who have paid Ericsson a colossal amount of UK3Billion to handle their infrastructure. Would this set a new trend to the telecommunications industry? Would this deal really ensure more optimized network quality by allowing the telco to concentrate on growing the business via various cost saving methods? As much as a Telco can trust a service provider, it should not wholly depend on the provider. Working side by side on a consultancy basis would have worked better but due to circumstances not mentioned, the agreement was signed on a 7-year pact. This gave Ericssson a rise in reputation in terms of providing managed services plus more control than any other managed services vendor could obtain. All I hope now is that Ericsson would not monopolise the 3G network market as what could be seen as the top choice of all telcos wanting to provide 3G services. Bringing this one step further, besides network services provider, could content providers serve as more of a consult to telco than merely providing contents. A lot of content providers are moving towards this path especially when the content provider markets are getting increasingly saturated. While the network services providers suck more money from telcos by providing advising on their network and recommending various value added services (where did you think CampusZone and Activ5 from Hotlink came from?), it is only a matter of time before content providers follow the same path and bank on providing value addeed services like managing telco's portals and consulting on the content market trends. Until then, it is all in the consumers hands if they are willing to pay more for better quality and more infotainment delivered and personalised for them.

Nurturing Technology Business Ideas

2005-12-08T00:58:00.000+08:00

Just as the feature story of In-Tech talked about Cradle Investment Program, I have been considering attempts at starting my own business on a part-time basis to bring my business ideas to fruition. A few ideas came across my mind with fruitless attempts to be nurtured. I called CIP and TEAM to go through their business plan writing class with no successful actions. The last time I made an appointment with the TEAM team (pun intended), I was estatic to know that they even set the appointment after working hours that fit working people like I and my bf. I was then dissapointed to find out later that the appointment was meant to be in the morning (they accidentally typed pm instead of am). If I did not call them to confirm, I would have gone all the way to Cyberjaya just to find out that the appointment was 12 hours ago. They was no possibility of making an after office hours appointment and since I turned busy after that, I did not commit to going. Ideas keeps popping into my head like a ball bouncing in and out. At times, the ball bounced more vigorously than others. At this point, I have ideas to introduce a new travelling concept in Malaysia. It is good that someone has started the dinner by the river concept just like what every other countries have to boast. I know we need more to attract the tourists especially after the "squating" incident which would have detered a lot of Chinese tourists from China from coming into our country. We cannot afford to lose these tourists as the population there is so huge we will lose a big hole in our tourism pocket if we ever lose them. Check out a great business idea worth bringing into our country. Try the game as well. This is what I call a good idea. Perhaps get some inspiration from the top ideas of the year 2005. Regardless, with the initiative to nurture new and fresh ideas, I recommend giving CIP and aother venture capitalists in Malaysia a try. Definitely things would have been fast-tracked with a bit of connections just like other things in Malaysia but with some determination and innovation, things might just work out after all. All I need is some discipline, motivation, money and a business partner to bring everything in my mind to fruition. Wouldn't anyone want to be the next Google or Craiglist creator of Malaysia? ;)

Marketing a Brand: Curiosity Kills the Cat

2005-12-03T18:03:00.000+08:00

Fair enough, since I am talking about the topic of how curiosity can be used to strengthen a brand, I will talk about the latest fragrance by Britney Spears called "Curious". To promote her latest product, Britney Spears have not only used her voluptious body and sweet-sexy face to adorn the perfume, she has used the concept of a box with holes that allowed you to peek through. As how humans are curious, people would peek into the box to see ...... I let you fill in the blanks. But didn't I just aroused your curiosity? Now, wouldn't you want to see the box just to have a sneak peek at what she could have offered in that box. ;)

Imagine yourself walking down a street and you see a packet of bread with sweet aroma of kaya and garlic packed in packages, then you walked pass another store with the same bread but this time you see a man sweeping the layer of kaya and garlic onto the bread before packing them into the same package. Which package will you most likely buy? I bet that you would have walked pass the first store and only buy the bread from the second store even though they are the same bread. Why is that?

This is the same concept as buying sushi from a conveyor belt and cotton candy from a funfair. Even Italian food started the concept of open kitchen so that you can get a sneak peek of the food you ordered. Allowing you to see the process of making the food you will be eating seem to increase the appetite of the buyer. That is the reason you see queues forming in front of places with food displayed outside the store. Curiosity really does make the brand in this case.

Ericsson Mobility World - Developer Days 2005

2005-12-01T14:08:00.000+08:00

I am planning to go for the Ericsson Mobility World Developer 2005 in Ericsson, Cyberjaya this 7 Dec 2005. Anyone interested, please comment me. Good opportunity to network and gain some insights on mobile applications development and its future trends in the Malaysia market. Also recommended in the website is a good book to read on mobile application development from concept to cash.

Maxis 3G Connect - Focus Group

2005-10-07T19:54:00.000+08:00

I was at a Maxis 3 G focus group today, suprised or should I say not suprised at all to be selected as a participant, so here I thought of sharing some information with you. The 3 core products offered are 3G Data Card, popularly known as 3G Connect, EMO(Ericsson Mobile Organiser) and phone-to-modem feature. The focus group served more as an educational, informative session plus a bit of selling of our Maxis 3G products which we need to do more considering the low take-up of the 3G services and handsets in the market. The most important feature of these 3 products are the convenience of being able to be connected on the go. Sales force who moves around a lot and needs to access their email, download large attachments for presentations and browse the company's intranet would find using 3G to access the Internet useful even critical. Imagine losing a client worth millions just because you do not have the right information on your fingertips! Anyway, it was good to know that the connection speed was above 120kbps, almost beating our previously unreliable streamyx. So take your pick, broadband on the go (on laptop) or broadband on PC? Let me do a simple calculation for you: 3G Connect: RM1599 Registration fee (USIM included): RM49 - if you buy unlimited data usage Data usage: RM120/month - unlimited data usage In total, you will be paying RM1768 just to start your first connection via Maxis 3G. Imagine surfing as much as you want, even sending as many sms as you want for free (using the sms client software that comes together with the data card) using this package. Else, you can forgo the data card and use your 3G phone as a modem which comes up to the same price with 3G phones being in the range of RM1500-RM3000 per handset. The additional advantage being you will be the first person to enjoy using 3G services like video call, video mail, fantastic streaming services, home surveillance,and real-time traffic monitor plus showing off a high-tech 3G handset. In comparison, why would you use streamyx if you can use 3G with additional RM40/month. The answer is definitely the lack of 3G coverage. Speed is no more an issue. But stepping out of Jalan Tun Razak in Klang Valley or Cyberjaya or Putrajaya pose a problem for 3G users. Then it will be back to GPRS as a mere 40kbps connection speed or less. So until 3G coverage increased and the prices of handset lowered, take-up will crawl. Would you have taken up 3G Connect if the price is reduced to say RM88/month for unlimited data usage? I would love to see Malaysia practising what Koreans do, lower the price of broadband to a price so low it is ridiculous to be using normal modem anymore. So here, until the volume escalates, it would be tough to even gain a profit from 3G in the first 5 years even. Food for thought while I resume my viewing of the trailer "Exorcism of Emily Rose" on my laptop in the car connected via 3G Connect. Incredibly fast! :)

Movietones Ringing Into Your Ears

2005-10-04T01:25:00.000+08:00

"You had me at Hello!" "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" "Hello Charlie! Hello Angels!" "May the force be with you while you are speaking to this caller." Recognised these snippets from movies ranging from Jerry Macguire to Shrek 2 to Charlie's Angels to Star Wars? Well, you would be hiding in a cacoon if you do not know or perhaps you are from a different generation, ahem! Wouldn't it be fun to have these snippets be ringing from your phone everytime someone calls you? Or would it be irritating instead? What if the snippets are made into melodious ringtones that would sound so good you would not want to pick up the phone so as to hear the tone longer? It is not impossible in these days of starving mobile consumers who are getting tired of listening to the latest songs as their ringtones. Ringtones have now expanded to incorporate famous quotes from movies, some translated into songs, some direct from the movie itself. Wouldn't you like hearing Keanu saying "I Love You" everytime your boyfriend calls or the cast of Desperate Housewifes greeting you everytime your girlfriends call? This is good for the movie industry as besides song recording compannies hogging all the revenue from the mobile business, movie studios can now share part of the revenue if they come up with a famous quotes from their movies or shows. The revenue from the ringtone "FrogJam" has sky-rocketed since it shot straight to the No. 1 spot on the Music Charts. 2 years ago, who would have thought the music industry to be dominated by a short ringtone that irritates the hell out of you? With the advent of 3G phone and 3G connections, what about having video clips playing while your phone rings. Might be slightly more complicated as ringtone developers now need to connect to the GPRS or 3G network whenever your phone rings to stream the chosen video clips or videos streams. Imagine your lover calling you and all you see is Cameron Diaz surfing towards you in her skimpiest bikini shouting "Hello Charlie! I'm your angel!" from your phone screen. This definitely beats just listening to the snippets. The problem with offering these services is the cost of seeing the video streams while the phone rings will be borne by the receiver instead of the caller resulting in the receiver not wanting to subscribe to services like this. Until we can work out a more practical business model, this might not work in this country. The longer you leave the phone ringing, the more you have to pay. Definitely punishes those who leaves their phones on missed calls most of the time. So, take your pick, choose your ringtone and personalise yourself. One day, you will be branding yourself according to your mobile phones.

Shawn: Winner of The Rebel Billionaire

2005-09-28T18:07:00.000+08:00

This would be my third consequtive post about a winner of a reality show. But what the heck..make your judgement about me now. Am I: a) A sucker for winners/champions? b) A sucker for reality shows? c) A sucker for dream come true stories? d) All of the above? No brainer :P. Silly me just caught the last 10 minutes of the last episode of The Rebel Billionaire on 8TV as I was never even a fan to begin with. Hence the lack of snarky parody and thorough analysis on the winner. So pardon me if my observation lack the depth and substance it should have. The winner is the owner of a retail company selling bean bags called Lovesac. Shawn potrayed the drive, arrogance and persistence evident in a young entreprenuer who is willing to take risks to make ends meet, kind of reminded me of Chris from The Apprentice. His rise to riches is really a rags-to-riches story and his product is now ubiquitious all over America. The latest innovation from his company is Lovesac Limo where you can rent a limo to indulge in a night of comfy Lovesac, fantastic stereo sound system and high-quality karaoke set. Not bad for a company that started in a 2nd floor of a store. I would not be able to give you a run-down of his strengths and weaknesses except to say that he had the cockiness of a young guy who could either do very very well or fail very very miserably. Fortunately for him, he turned out well in this reality tv show that challenges their contestants both mentally and physically. One important lessons learnt from the show is in the context of taking risks. One episode potrayed how one guy got fired for jumping down Victoria Falls in a very flimsy box. Reason being, there is a thin line between taking risk and taking calculated risks. And the poor guy did not practise the latter. Even Shawn was lucky he did not choose to toss a coin to make a choice between taking a million dollar and another possibly better prize. A million dollar?!!!! Who would risk that!!! With some funny, unconvincing answer about the reason he chose to not toss the coin, he not only got the 1 million dollar but also a share of Richard Branson's position as the President in Virgin Worldwide. Wow!!!! Anyway, I do hope someone can enlighten me about the qualities that brought him to his victory as I am still wondering if Richard Branson did actually make the right decision. And what a smart alec in electing someone to do his job from winning his own reality show. Talk about leadership. :P

World Idol? Global SMS Voting

2005-09-25T02:47:00.000+08:00

Well, so Daniel won Malaysian idol huh. So now, we have our first J-Pop look-alike Malaysian idol. With unique talent, dyed-hair highlighted in blond streaks and a waistline that all gals would die for, this winner is different from the typical Idols winner except if you have Taiwan or Japan idol of course. With fresh boyish good looks, he is way different from the conventional winners ie, guys with big build, thus the big lungs or pretty but can-be-polished female pop singers. Noone would be suprised that he won, given the huge amount of votes he garnered from teenage girls all around Malaysia, especially when these girls have been dying to see a young, cute male win the contest after they were deprived of the ability to vote for one in Akademi Fantasia. Watching and voting for our Malaysian idol, I could not help but to wonder how it would be like if this contest based on the public's votes were to transcend the globe. Talks about World Idol had turned cold yet nothing had been done. This is not difficult to comprehend considering the tough task of consolidating votes from the different telcos/celcos all over the world and the various method of voting via the different short codes. Imagine one country consolidating votes from their own country and comparing the votes with those from other countries. That would have been terribly messy and time-consuming. Besides, would it be fair to have countries with a population of 5million and above to compete with countries as small as an island fitting less than a quater of that population? No prize for guessing which country would have garnered more votes unless the penetration of phones in that country is low. Would Malaysia be able to beat China in this voting competition? I doubt so unless people in China do not watch World Idol or do not know how to sms or use the mobile phone they purchased. Also, imagine collecting votes in different languages in one database. That would have been a ardous task to decipher, even harder than binary codes. Thus, if there were to be any World Idol, the only method of voting could be via the Internet which was already done for Miss World. Even then you could argue that some countries have a higher Internet penetration than the rest. The fact that charging the votes via sms was a big revenue generator for reality shows like this does not help either. Until we have more efficient mechanics to collect global sms votes, World Idol will be something people can only wish to see for now.

Winning Strategies of The Apprentice 3 Winner

2005-09-19T23:46:00.000+08:00

She started her own company called My House Real Estate, a company that packages the sales and marketing of 2nd hand real estate and commercial properties for the owner. Now that she had won The Apprentice 3 hosted by none-other than Donald Trump, she will be busier than ever. Her name is Kendra Todd. After 2 consecutive wins from 2 males, it was comforting to have a female winner in a competition for corporate dominance, an industry previously known to be dominated by male. And not only is the winner a female, even the contender was one, a tough street-smart gal from Ohio at that named Tana. Toast to female all over the world - Girl Power! I have been very impressed with Kendra's win as after the episode on the Porshe brochure (don't know which episode was that), she proved herself as a credible and competent player in the contest even though she did not shine at the start. I could relate to her emotions then as I used to stay up late to finish MY group's assignment as I thought I would be able to produce a better job than the rest even without any sleep...snigger ;) In today's competitive world, it's not about who's the fastest, smartest or who has the best degree, it's about who executed the best strategy. It's not all about winning, else competition will get unhealty. It's also about who co-operated the best with the team to bring out the best result. You are your biggest competitor! Above are my evaluations on the critical factors that brought her to her victory. Feel free to add if any. Meanwhile, I am waiting in trepidation for her upcoming book to absorb some motivational and inspirational points.

McRingtones: Cafe Adopting Latest Technology

2005-09-15T18:54:00.000+08:00

"Buy one McDonald's large Value Meal and download a free mp3 ringtone onto your phone and get the 2nd one at half price!" That would most likely be the chants for new promotions in cafes like McDonalds and Starbucks coffee in the near future if take-up of Wi-Fi and ringtone or mp3 downloads via iTunes escalate to profitable levels. The latest effort in the ever growing food market is to provide their starving customers with not only food but technology. They figured that people who go to cafes are those who would like to be up-to-date with the latest technology plus like to be seen as consumers of the latest tech gadgets. So where else to use them if not McDonalds and Starbucks? And the best part is you can download music for free while sipping your favorite cup of coffee. We are now talking about convergence of traditional and modern where food and technology mix. How exciting will that be. In the future, people will be checking their emails, updating their blogs, posting their photos, downloading movies and music, even watching streaming media all from the comfort of their little tables at fast-food joints and cafes. There is something about doing these activities in the public with others who shares the same interest that are enticing. Even better, McDonalds should start using touch screens as their menu which I think they had tried in one of their outlets (definitely not in Malaysia), the biggest gripe about this would be the ROI due to its cost. So how better is it to promote the latest technology if not in places frequented by the mass community? One day, posters of hamburgers and fries packaged with the latest iPod or selection of ringtones for a value price will be ubiquitious. And to entice customers to visit their outlets, MMS and wallpapers on their latest menu should be pushed to nearby customers via location-based services.

Great Event for Mobile Technology Enthusiasts

2005-09-15T15:55:00.000+08:00

I just got the invite to attend a mobile fair in Bangkok, Thailand called Mobiles ASEAN 2005. Even though this fair will focus more on Thailand's state of telecommunications, it's a great fair to attend nevertheless especially for those who would like to stay in touch with the latest in mobile technology. Everything about mobile technology from 3G to WiMax to M-Commerce will be discussed by the leaders in the industry. So tempted to go but no sponsorship :(

$4.1B for Skpe! Planning an Exit Strategy?

2005-09-13T18:00:00.000+08:00

One important point from a Business guru when starting a business is to always have an exit strategy. As long as you do not have an exit strategy, you have not completed your business plan. Is this true? Yep, could not sound more true with stories of acquisitions from various technology companies. Founded by 2 men, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis who started Kazaa, the controversial file-trading network that allows music fans to share music for free, these two men have hit the jackpot after EBay, the auction company has confirmed their interest in buying their company, Skype with an inexorbitant price of USD4.1B! What would the rationale be behind this acquisition? According to Ebay rep, buying a VOIP company would allow the buyers to make last-minutes calls to the merchants' sales rep to secure purchases which would in turn drive up their sales figure. EBay in turn will be able to collect considerable profits from every sales made. For Skype, escalating competition from GoogleTalk and Yahoo that bought Teleo had forced them to re-strategise their core offerings so that they will not be beaten by the giant search engines who have been trampling into the territories of others. With this acquisition, they are safe to say the least even though one would wonder how Skype could be trampled with an already large subscriber base of 165 million up till today, 13 Sept 2005. The next big acquisition I would say is on Yahoo's foray into the China market. Smart as they are, instead of fighting to win market share from the already strong and large subscriber base of China's search engine like Sino.com, Yahoo decided to buy Alibaba.com instead with the price of $1billion. Not too expensive a price considering the huge potential profit they can make from a giant market like China. I believe if it was another portal, it would have been a higher price tag. Anyway, let's just see what comes out of this acquisition. Stay tuned for acquisitions in India, the next big force to be reckoned with. Also, if interested, read here on nine "right" things to remember when investing in Asia. Well, well, when is Malaysia's turn? And when the time comes, do you think portals like catcha.com, buysell.com and even our beloved PPS will still be around to grab the jackpot? We can only hope. And perhaps I will start one too. Watch this space! ;)

The Shape of Bills to Come

2005-09-12T22:17:00.000+08:00

Maxis has recently launched a new (killer!) rate for obtaining a Hotlink SIM pack for a meagre price of RM10 with additional RM4 air-time and RM20 bonus air-time to be credited over a 4 months period. How low can you go? Digi meanwhile is still holding strong with the offer of RM18 per pack with RM30 additional air-time to be credited over a 2 months period. Comparing both plans, Maxis has won with an additional RM2 extra talk-time credit. How low more can the price war go? It has reached a point where one day the telco would pay the customers to take their SIM pack. Would the telcos stoop so low? I doubt it. Nevertheless, they might start introducing various rate plans in the wake of the stiff competition. Looking at other countries who have already introducing bundled plans, I believe the next steps would be to introduce plans that offer handsets for free or for RM1 with commitment to stay with the same telco for 2 or more years. This has been done by telcos in Australia wayyy back. So, how would you like getting a 3G handset for RM10 and paying RM100 per month with unlimited use of SMS and GPRS. Well, the offer might not be that great but one day we will get there. Take my words for it. Another way of bundling call rates is the pay-as-you-use method whereby users get to choose the rates they like according to their preference as and when they want it. Going to Australia this month? Choose a plan that gives you cheaper Roaming charges but higher local call charges or SMS charges. Your girlfriend's birthday this month? Change to a rate plan that gives you increadibly cheap call rates to her only and downloads of special Birthday ringtones and wallpapers only for the month. The best part is subscribers can even purchase it via the Internet like what was done by T-Mobile. Next time, buying airtime will be just as easy as buying flight tickets.

iPhone = iPod + Mobile Phone

2005-09-12T19:36:00.000+08:00

I should have known this would be the next revolution for Apple's iPod. If people were craving for a mobile mp3 player, they would definitely like to have their mp3 player being combined into their mobile phone as well. This is the latest revolution from Apple called "iPhones" which I think would definitely boost mobile phones sales for Motorola who have been selected to collaborate with Apple to create these phones. Let's keep our fingers crossed for a design that is not too bulky. Now that most mobile phones come together with camera, PDA and even computer, combining them with an mp3 player would make perfect sense. Besides being able to hear music on the move without carrying an mp3 player, they are able to download mp3 and re-use them for their phone's ringtones and even caller ringtones (ringback tones in other countries). With the ample storage spacein iPod, a mobile phone user can store as much downloaded videos and music in the iPod to be viewed and used on their mobile phone. The only gripe I am having is that in order to do this, Apple would have to be an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) which would increase competition among the already competitive market. I would rather see more SMEs taking up this space. However, since Apple has the equipment, it is just a matter of diversifying their technology to go into the telecommunications industry. So what's next? A remote control to control the equipments in your home, a pett feeding system, your IC and your wallet, all integrated into the mobile phone. It's only a matter of time.

My First Attempt at M-Blogging

2005-08-30T18:14:00.000+08:00

After successive wait for my password to m-blog, I finally got my password. With reduced enthusiasm, I managed to login and post a photo. Take a look. I registered as an experiment to use M-Blog since the mobile is just another channel of blogging, provided by Maxis and to see how up-to-date we are in terms of the evolution of Internet technology into mobile.

I was pretty impressed with the functions, what with the ability to view the most commented blog, most recent post, sending of comments via SMS, viewing number of visits and photos limited to certain KBs. However, the thing that impressed me the most was the number of comments I received from m-blog compared to I-blog (this humble Internet blog). On days when I am lucky I could get 2 comments but most days there are none on this blog. On my m-blog however, the moment the clock struck 8pm, which was the time most people get off from work or school and would have finished their dinner, my phone beeped with multiple smses of people who commented on my m-blog. This proves that in an area where channels of communication and information are so saturated like the Internet, the mobile provides a place where you can easily be viewed and connect with a small community of m-bloggers. Who would not like recognition, especially if people commented on how cute I look, haha, perasan.

I feel that mobile blogging will be the way of the future as it provides easy accessibility as most people are not able to log their laptops or look for a PC everytime they want to post their messages and especially photos. Mobile blogging allows you to easily post the photos which you have taken using your camera phone on your blog instead of having to transfer the photo onto your pc to be posted on internet blog later. Finally, the pro of mobile blogging is that you can ask your friends to view your mobile blog via wap or website instead of MMSing the photo to your friend which would cost you a bomb! Imagine sending to 10 of your friends: you would need to pay RM0.25 per MMS which would cost you RM2.50, and higher if your friends are not on the same telco. The plus point here are the charge s are quite cheap esp if done through the web.

Mobile blogging will be a cool thing in the future and can be used as a photo album which you can view on web and wap anytime you like. It acts as a personal storage for the photos taken using your phone. If only the wap can take larger photo sizes and from the PC, perhaps that would be in the next phase. Have yet to try Blogger's mobile blogging. That would be my next venture.

AirAsia: The Harbinger of Mobile Technology

2005-08-28T22:02:00.000+08:00

With a dynamic and visionary CEO like Tony Fernandes, it is only a matter of time before he leads the company to use mobile technology to increase sales of his flight tickets. Sales of flights tickets for AirAsia via the Internet have increase to 56% and this is in times when Malaysian are still conscious about giving away their credit card information online, I included.

By adopting mobile technology, he is breaking new barriers just like how Maybank is doing with their Maybenk2e.net on 3G. The rationale of introducing mobile booking so early is that there is a higher penetration rate for cellphones compared to the Internet, esp in countries like Cambodia. This will allow them to penetrate more countries. Even Malaysian Airlines with a higher number of high revenue users who would have better handset models to support mobile booking via GPRS have yet to adopt this technology.

Guerilla marketing was used to promote this new method of booking flight tickets: multiple press ads and affiliations with Nokia and RHB would increase the adoption rates which I believe would be very low at the beginning. With RHB, every purchase of Hush Puppies and other merchants will gain you points on RHB credit card that can be exchanged with AirAsia tickets. That could be a pull factor if only there are more merchants affiliated.

My question is besides credit card, when will other methods of payment be available? Wouldn't it be easier if I was to book using my mobile phone, I would pay through my phone bills? Well, I for one know that this would be something that might not happen even in the near future due to the complexities of having telcos take accountability of the cash transactions. I would discuss this through the topic of M-Commerce in my coming blog entries. Stay tuned. :)

NextNation: The Pride of the Nation?

2005-08-27T14:41:00.000+08:00

In times when mobile application developers are just emerging into the market with less than satisfactory profits, it is inspirational to hear of a mobile application company who made it big with net profits of RM12.5mil based on developing mobile applications. NextNation is fast becoming a name to be recognised in the mobile technology world with products like SMSJet, Sohomobile and mCommerceSuit that uses mobile applications as a tool to enhance business processes, improve speed-to-market and increase information transparency. In the fast-moving and mobile world of today, we are not able to depend on the PC alone to access critical data. This brought to the rise in mobile devices with various features that support what a PC could do and more. From its start as a company providing e-commerce solutions, they grow to beat their competitions by diversifying into systems integration and data management and now to creating mobile applications. And NextNation has created MINDCEP, a platform that allows wireless carriers, developers, owners, providers, aggregators and resellers of contents and applications to provide value-added multimedia content to mobile network subscribers. For eg, clients who uses their accounting software can send SMS alerts to notify their resellers if there is a shortage in cash flow. In times of rising competition, it is only companies that have differentiated and value-added products that will be able to survive. Today, they have 400 buyers and 500 resellers and expansion include a lot of countries in the Asia Pacific. Not bad for the humble beginnings of 3 persons that started their operations in a garage, just like Amazon.com. They are listing in MESDAQ today with IPO price starting at RM0.53 but offered at RM0.78. A bit pricey if you ask me in days like these. Perhaps if they are not so greedy and lowered their price, they might get more buyers, esp for a company that has not been so well-known in the technology market. However, let's just wait and see if they will be a force to be reckoned with.

Mobile Apps Developer featured on The Star

2005-08-26T12:30:00.000+08:00

Truly they are our "Unsung Heroes" but I am glad they are featured today on The Star's In-Tech. Three companies are featured, one of which I have worked with before along with 2 others who worked under the Maxis Development Program(MDP). They have received grant from the government to develop their application only because the MDC sees profitable business models from the usage of the applications. One application called Go!Mail allows you to check email via the wap through 3G, GPRS and EDGE on a normal GPRS-enabled handset developed by MNC Wireless under the MNC Consulting umbrella, Xirien developed a home surveillance system that allows you to remotely control your home and the last, Murasu Communications developed an application that translates English to Tamil and Singhala. The business model is usually on monthly subscription basis which could be just right for those who see potential in the benefits of having the applications.

Kudos to The Star for featuring these breed of developers who have been shunned from the limelight due to the low number of penetration of users at this point of time. However, with the potential of 3G and with increasing number of technology-savvy mobile users in today's time, more and more of them will emerge. You would have been able to see more of these contents providers if you have attended CommunicAsia 2005, the premeire annual gatherings and showcase for telcos, content providers and mobile applications developers.

Do not worry, more to come in my blog. Now, if only tech blogs, inlcuding mine can be featured in The Star as well. ;)

VOIP via Phone's Web Browser

2005-08-25T00:17:00.000+08:00

In beta stage, the technology is here provided by Jajah Mobile. Imagine opening a browser to check you mails and instead of emailing the receiver, you just trigger a VOIP call straight from the browser. Furthermore, a venture capital in US called Eldorado is offering USD2 million to develop a VOIP based call-system that funnel incoming or outgoing call data to the Web to be extended as a CRM (data mining) system. Imagine calling Domino's Pizza and instead of being greeted with the regular "Hello, Mr.X. What would you like to order today?", you get an automated voice saying "You ordered a Meatball Mania pizza just last week. Would you like to order the same or would you like to try our promotion for the month which is ending today?". More personalised messages and greetings. Is it a danger if your mistress picks up the phone then? ;)

Personalise your Mobile Experience

2005-08-24T23:49:00.000+08:00

We know you can download your favourite wallpaper/screensaver, ringtone and now even caller ringtone to set you apart from everyone else who used to use the "Nokia" wallpaper and the "toot toot" sound of your phone ringing. Who even have those anymore?!

How easy was it to find contents you like for downloads? Not hard but for those who are hesitant to browse through wap or website to get to the right content, there is shortcuts. Maxis is introducing contents grouped in categories. Simple click on your favourite category and you get straight to the types of contents you like: Games, Music, Movie, Sports, News and Money. More to come in the future including Women, Malay, Chinese and Indian contents.

Where do we go from here? Personalised contents when surfing wapsite, personalised wappage based on historical data and suggestion for related downloads. The possibilities are endless. What does this mean? More "targeted" spams ;)

Google Google Everywhere

2005-08-23T23:57:00.000+08:00

Since I am on the topic of IM, I am incorporating the latest from the world of the Internet: Goggle IM. Also latest evolutions of this ultimate search engine included here: GoogleNet. These might serve as future reference of applications on mobile phones.

Free Avatar on Mobile Phone

2005-08-23T23:17:00.000+08:00

"Hi! I am so excited today cos I will be going on a date in 10 minutes!" screams the little guy dancing on the center of my mobile screen. I realised that I now have 10 minutes to go before the doorbell rings. I slap on my sexist lipstick and combed my hair for the hundredth time before my date stands behind my door.

"Time's up! Let's go rock and roll!". Hearing that I picked up my handbag and ran down the stairs just in time to hear the door bell ring. I kissed my avatar. "Good luck!" he wished me back. I turned him to silent mode so that he watches from my mobile screen without disrupting the rest of my date.

Sounds fun? This is a service from Maxis I had to promote. Called Avatar-Yomego, the application is already available for download for free! Pay only for sending messages using the avatars which you could create in 3D form. Used as your companion/best friend/girlfriend or as your personal assistant, avatars are fun and instead of just having alarms and reminders, seeing a graphical icon dancing on your mobile screen adds to your mobile experience.

You can use avatars as a representation of your emotions, eg. when you do not want to speak to your partner after an arguument, just let your avatar do the talking and he/she will understand. Select an avatar that looks like you and use it to personalise your wallpaper or screensaver, change the clothes and mood whenever you want. The days of having avatars displayed whenever someone calls you are not far if everyone downloads the avatar application and use avatars as a representation of themselves, just like how you use IM. Just make sure your avatar is clothed :P

Apprentice Episode 14: Power of Marketing

2005-08-23T01:37:00.000+08:00

Net Worth's (consisting of Tana and Alex) price point was higher and their T-shirts looked better, at least in my opinion. I would have guessed that they won and the increasing tension between Kendra and Craig (Magna) did not help eiher. Well, I was not dissapointed knowing Magna won as I had liked Kendra since the Pontiac episode as her determination reminded me of mine...hehe (perasan ;)

At the end of the day, the sucess of any organizations boil down to the dynamics of the company and the people in it. It did not matter if the people are in disagreement (could be healthy only at a certain level) as long as they get their actions done and add value to the company. In this episode, both groups put in the same amount of effort in all areas except for Marketing. The only plus point of Magna's effort was they marketed their product to the right target market, the artsy market.

What happens when your company do not even have a target market or marketing plans? Customers will not be certain of what you are trying to sell them and you need extra efforts put into sales, as what happened to Net Worth. Pulling people into the shop is just not good enough compared to pushing the right market the right ads. This is the power of push advertising vs pull advertiising. And trust me, flyers don't work anymore. Get rid of those and save some trees, people!

Finally, great decision by Donald Trump to fire Alex as Alex had always been saved due to the worse decisions and inconsistencies of his other teammates rather than his own skills and talents. Did you realise that Donald was picking on Alex when he asked protuding question like how many times have you lost? When he knew that Alex did not remember, Mr Trump realised Alex could have lied about him not being assigned the Marketing person. Correct me if I am wrong.

The Perils of Mobile Application Developers Today

2005-08-23T01:08:00.000+08:00

I went to the KL Writer's Circle in 1-Utama last Saturday and instead of meeting someone with passion for writing, I met someone with a passion for technology. Mobile technology to be precise as his company called Z-Naps develops mobile directory for merchants who wants to list their businesses on the sites in mobile phones.

I am aware of the condition of mobile application developers of today as he related his company's business model. Since more than 70% of the use of mobile phone is still concentrated on voice, the demand to use data applications on the mobile phone has yet to take off. Resulting in content developers not gaining much profit from providing mobile applications to companies and telcos. The situation is not helped with telcos eating up all GPRS traffic which is where the bulk of the revenue is from while the CP will share only a protion of the SMS or wap contents delivered.

This situation should change if Malaysia is to encourage more content developers to come up with their own technology and applications. How is Malaysia to progress if all companies are avoiding developing something that will not give them a high ROI? The cost of development of mobile applications lies in its R&D, resources and sales and marketing. If Malaysia wants to nurture more of these efforts, the business model between a telco and content developers ought to change esp in terms of offering them a cut of GPRS traffic. Would love to see more interesting applications including 3G multi-player games take off.

I laud Maxis efforts to create a development community by providing them with a test bed to test and launch their products. Some of them get free marketing via Maxis homepage.

By the way, contact me if anyone is interested in developing some female related mobile applications like calorie counter and personality test. Other ideas will be accepted. My company urgently needs some now.

Mobile TV and Mobile Advertisement

2005-08-20T22:15:00.000+08:00

"I'm loving it!" the melody of McDonalds commercial insinuates into your ears from all over the place. But where is the tv, you might ask. None! It is only then that you realised that ads have evolved from tv sets or cinema screens to the smaller screens of the mobile phone. Since we carry our mobile phones everywhere we go, we will never miss one episode of our favorite tv show or watch the latest commercials or music videos.

If you can surf on your mobile, wouldn't it be greater if you can watch tv and commercials on your mobile as well? Well, that is not far from reality as companies like Idetic collaborating with MobiTV has been pushing their mobile video services to Europe.

Take up of mobile tv will comrpise mostly of tv "snackers" as most people would only view tv or ads on their phones only when they do not have access to tv or have nothing better to do. Besides, prime time of mobile tv is during the low time of tv shows as most would rather watch their favorites shows on the big screens of tv if they are home. One day, do not be suprised that business models of cable tv would transfer to mobile phones with subscription based services populating the mobile market. Pick your favorite tv genre and pay per month. If sports is your area of interest, choose only channels with sports and the ads would then be more targeted to your interest as well.

Digi had done a great job promoting their streaming video servies over EDGE. If done correctly, 3G would provide a smoother experience for mobile tv and streaming video.

The challenge now is this: How are we to place advertisements as subscribers would be pissed off to know that the small screen they have to watch their favourite shows are interrupted with commercials which they could watch on tv. Thus, the approach of showing ads on mobile would have to be different. Ads can be shown in complementary with location based services. Eg, the ad of a restaurant could be shown only when subscriber is detected to be in the vicinity. Another option is to show the ads only when the phone screen is idle via broadcasting as provided by Celltick. This way, the ads will not be obstrusive and customers can click only when they are interested to find out more about the products or services advertised.

Recording Notes on Mobile Phone

2005-08-20T19:00:00.000+08:00

You came from a very important meeting and need to note the minutes as fast as possible so that action can be taken. You realized you do not have your palm pilot and you are driving anyway, so you take out your mobile and record the minutes into your phone. Automatically, the minutes get sent to your colleagues or posted on a website. By the time you got back to office, you realised your colleagues have checked their emails and have acted on the items immediately.

This innovation is called Mobile Scribe: Mobile dictation to email. You set up an account and dial into a phone number, dictate a message up to 4 minutes long, and it will be transcribed and either emailed to you and up to 4 additional contacts or posted on secure website for you to download

See how time-saving and productive this is.

Surfing Internet on Mobile Phone

2005-08-20T01:10:00.000+08:00

I caught my boyfriend surfing porn on the mobile while I was trying to log on to check my emails via my Blackberry.

"Hey! Aren't you afraid that your mobile will be infected with virus from surfing those?" I jested.

"Nah, I have installed an anti-virus software on my phone. And if my phone was to be infected, my friends who recommended me to this site would have been infected first."

Visualise yourself downloading mp3 anywhere and anytime, imagine yourself watching a music video via Real Player and imagine yourself getting the latest news from msn.com or viewing your friend's photos through their online photo album. I am doing this through the Internet, what is there to imagine. Now imagine yourself doing all these through your mobile phone.

The advantage of doing all these from the mobile phone is that you can do it anywhere, anytime without carrying your heavy notebook or looking for an Internet cafe. The price of browsing via wap is rather high no doubt but the day when the price will plummet will come. Mobile phone will be so ubiquitious that anything that can be done on the Internet will be done over the mobile phone too. What does that say about mobile technology? That the next thing to evolve are applications that allow you to do whatever you can do on the Internet on the mobile. Convergence is next but the first worry would be on how to seamlessly browse through wapsites on the mobile without having developers develop 2 sets of web and wapsites. A company called Infogin came up with a good solution. Check it out!

The complexities of doing that would be in the technical limitations in the mobile phone browser, the diversity of phone hardware, the small screen size and the difficulty in pressing the small and limited buttons on the handset.

However, one day all these would be solved with the emergence of compact keyboard that are appearing on the latest Nokia handsets and Blackberry devices. Besides that phone browsers would have to be standardised to automatically convert websites to wapsites. Seamless connectivity is what we are talking about.

Mobile IM: Presence-based Services

2005-08-18T23:58:00.000+08:00

How would you like to be able to inform your friends and potential callers that you are at a meeting and will only be able to accept calls after 4pm without sending sms to all of them or rejecting their call just because you were in the middle of a presentation? How would you like to tell all your callers that you are in a good mood today and will receive any calls for drinks or dinner without you initiating the call?

I forsee an important mobile application to be presence-based service that allows your callers who have your name in their SIM address book or phonebook to be able to view your current availability status. Just like how you are able to view the status of your friends in your list of IM, this status or presence based services will evolve into mobile as well. The question now is who will be able to provide this service?

It would be so convenient to have your callers seeing the status message indicating that you are sleeping, in a meeting or showering and to wait till your status message changes before they call you. This eliminates the questions us callers always have on our mind: Where is she? What is she doing? Why is she not picking up my phone? It would also be so convenient to have the status messages configurable so that you can display the message you want to certain friends in your SIM card. To be able to do this, the presence application would have to be burned onto the SIM so that it detects the numbers in the phonebook.

Besides status, one could set their location to be displayed alongside their name in their friends' phonebook so that their friends know where to look for them or to allow their friends to call them when they are nearby. One would never need to even use sms to find the location of his/her friend only if the permission is granted. This feature should be turned on and off as the user likes as it might be an invasion of privacy to some.

This is the future of mobile. You can create presence everywhere you go and is not dependent on IM anymore.

TV and SMS working hand in hand

2005-08-17T20:38:00.000+08:00

With the proliferation of new and a variety of programs over paid cable tv networks, revenue of free-to-air tv networks has been dwindling of late. This has led to them resorting to use SMS to boost revenue. By allowing their viewers to vote via SMS, tv channels are improving interaction with their viewers that increases stickiness of viewers to the program. Tv channels also record higher sales of merchandise related to the tv programs when viewers can vote their favorites via SMS. Perhaps it gives them the feeling that their votes matter and would make a difference.

Not all tv programs with SMS votes garner the same level of attention though. The content development plays a critical role to attract viewership in the first place.

I remember how my team was working overtime to ensure that the server accepting SMS for Akademi Fantasia 1 votes were 100% up and the billing system was charging the SMS correctly. One server was not sufficient to contain the total sms of more than one million in the final night of the competition. As a result, the server was overloaded and guess what the organiser did for the second AF? Definitely they bought a new server to contain the increase in the flood of SMS. The program has never lost its shine despite the lower number of SMS recorded and revenue from the SMS sky-rocketed!

Other sms related tv programs include SMS Chat that is displayed over tv programs like when music videos are shown on tv. A great and cheap dedication service.

I would like to see more of tv programs that allow viewers to send SMS on requests on how a program would progress from one episode to the next. Imagine you being the producer of the show along with a million over viewers. This would be the next evolution of SMS-TV relationship. Malaysia had a program like this about a love story of a young teenage girl falling in love with 2 guys and viewers are allowed to vote on how the want the story to porgress every week. Wonder what happened to it.

Since we are at the topic of tv, I am also impressed with the latest development of search engine in which the next items that can be Goggled or Yahooed would be tv programs. Imagine you being able to search for tv programs related to your keywords of choice and to record it over TiVo. When that day comes, you will be sitting in front of the tv- surfing both websites and TV channels with a pop-corn on your lap. How interesting!

The Impacts of Pre-paid Registration

2005-08-17T13:34:00.000+08:00

It's a good move no doubt but what would happen if all users are forced to register their pre-paid numbers?

Pros Reduce fradulent usage of prepaid numbers, eg for criminal activities As an example, bomb detonators in Thailand are unable to just purchase prepaid numbers to send sms as signals anymore.

Customised and personalized services Telcos are able to personalise services and send more spams to prepaid users since they now have a records of the user details likle date of birth and address.

Reduce unncessary take-up of good pre-paid numbers Customers who have been dying to use some good prepaid numbers just need to pay a certain amount of money for me to help them book the numbers ;)

Cons On-slaught of freed-up pre-paid numbes Knowing how exorbitantly cheap it is to get prepaid numbers, many customers buy prepaid packs like buying clothes. Losing a prepaid number is not an issue until the registration kicks in. A lot of numbers will be freed-up and customers can now get some good numbers they have been dying to get.

Inability to register temporary numbers (for tourists and travelers) Wouldn't it be a hassle for travelers to register a number if they will only be using the number for a couple of days they are in Malaysia. Imagine them registering one in Malaysia, followed by Singapore, followed by Thailand and whatever country they are visiting next. A special travelers' pack with pre-registered details could deem fruitful.

Trouble for companies to buy in bulk Whose IC number will be used to register prepaid numbers in bulk for company use? Who will be responsible when the employee churns or leaves the company?

Good or bad, this will not be a simple activity. A lot of issues regarding synchronization between dealers, distributors and telcos will have to be settled. A large exercise to clean up unregistered numbers will have to be done. And what about inactive prepaid numbers that are used only when customers travel to Malaysia? This bringing me to question the legibility of Keng Yaik's statement "Just Do It!" without any details on the mechanics and unrealistic timeline. I doubt there will be no impact on margin as mentioned by Digi as there will be a lot of churners who have boldly used prepaid numbers for inethical activities, numebrs used bu migrants and inactive numbers. Anyway, let's just see what happens. At the meantime, I am still supporting this move with a more realistic timeline.

Change Management - Main Agenda of my Division Meeting

2005-08-17T01:23:00.000+08:00

It was a meeting that was not to be missed. Called by the Head of my department, the venerable boss of mine never failed to garner tremendous respect from me. I have learnt a lot from him both in terms of professional work and human relationships.

Upcoming targets were spoken and the main agenda of the day was none other than change management. Why is change management important? Change is inevitable. In times of intense competition and unpredictable market demands, only organisations that embrace change will survive. The message is clear: "Get Changed, or Get Out!". If you are not changing along with the company, you are just not good enough for the company. A strong message I should say but a good one at that.

I do not doubt the necessity to change. The management in my company have evolved from risk management to change management and now that we have addressed our risks, we need to change to minimise risk and maximize profits. I feel challenged but more than happy to take up the challenge.

The telecommunications industry is a dynamic one where consumers are not only using the mobile phone for communication. Personal gratification and real-time information play important roles to address market needs. Concentration will be on data services with sustainable revenue from voice. Thus, what would be your fancy? Take your pick from some of my ideas: 1. Calorie calculator 2. Blind dates using location based services 3. Push video with recordings of sports news and current affairs 4. Stocks updates on the go 5. Real-time photo uploader etc...the world of mobile is our oyster :)

Developing Mobile Applications to Make Money

2005-08-12T13:06:00.000+08:00

For many years now, people talk about the killer application that would bring the world of mobile technology to a new level. So what is the killer app? From my previous experience, if you talk about the killer app, you are just killing yourself. Why? Cos up till today, there is no such thing.

How is one to be getting any profit from an application that works on GRPS when the fee of using GPRS in itself is so inexorbitant? The scenario of telecommunications in Malaysia is that telcos actually eat into a lot of the providers' profit by not offering them any revenue from GPRS and a lesser cut of the SMS or MMS transactions revenue. This resulting in Content providers passing the buck to customers by charging a higher fee on SMS and MMS replies. I am sure a lot of you are not suprised with charges as high as RM1 for every SMS received or sent.

So what is it that you might consider the killer app? A lot of telcos are concentrating on infotainment related applications. Just like how browsers turned the Internet into an ever evolving channel of information, I am predicting something of that sort. One particular one I am interested in is an application that converts websites into wapsites to be viewable on the mini screens of handsets. It is called Infogin. Imagine if we are to view all websites that we are used to view on our mobile phone so that we will not lose track of our emails and gather all informtion needed whenever we are, wouldn't that be great. In that case, we do not even need a .mobi domain names anymore, which would be a hassle for the developers to be developing separate sites for .com, .net and in the future .mobi. This reduces redundant work.

Just like how the Internet permeates into our life, so will Internet on mobile phone. A few applications I am predicting to be useful are: 1. Anti-virus software on phones 2. P2P downloading of ringtones and images 3. Mobile blogging 4. Mobile photo uploading

Btw, I know of an entrepreneur who will be giving a talk on 'Developing Mobile Applications to Make Money'. Check out their blog here. Buzz me if you are interested. Hang on tight for a booming mobile industry.

My Brief Introduction

2005-08-12T12:28:00.000+08:00

Hi, I am an employee in a leading telecommunications company in Malaysia (no prize for guessing which one, even though I have to admit that our competitors are right behind our back and might even have a higher growth figure; no prize for guessing that telco either). Anyway, to cut a long story short, I am proud to be here even though I have some qualms but in terms of comfort level, I am pretty satisfied.

I started this blog to explore the ever dynamic and booming world of mobile technology. While seeing how the Internet has boomed, I am predicting the new channel of growth to come from the mobile. Everything that is needed on the PC will be needed on the phone. WAP, 3G and eventually convergence. Anyway, this blog serve as a way for you to communicate with me in case you want to know more about the mobile world or would want to promote some of your services and applications that I would love to hear, explore and promote to my company as much as I can. Well, wat do I get out of this you would ask...I help you, you help me. That is just the way the world is.

Furthermore, this is an avenue for me to dispel more of my ideas on my passion - Mobile Technology. Feel free to leave a note and comment.