Cempaka Information (Business) Technology

ERP's Paralysis Problem and the Repercussions for Businesses Everywhere

2009-12-16T02:14:00.004+07:00

Another ERP survey, another indictment of ERP's failings to the business. But this one is costly.

There's a growing movement underway to rid the business world of the acronym ERP.

For real.

In fact, executives at SAP—the ones who practically invented the concept and related terminology—are among those leading the charge. (See The Future of ERP for more.)

The reason? ERP is an outdated, almost meaningless piece of IT jargon that crudely attempts to encompass all that enterprise systems have become and will be for today's and tomorrow's large, midsize and even small companies, but falls woefully short: No one does just ERP anymore.

Another reason to deep-six ERP is to ensure that there is no future association between next-generation business applications and the long-standing failings of monolithic ERP software deployments. And, of course, to put as much distance between next-gen software and ERP survey results, such as the findings from a December 2009 study conducted by IDC and sponsored by ERP vendor Agresso.

The survey, based on the ERP experience of 214 business executives across a wide variety of midsize and larger industries, found that today's ERP systems "are not providing businesses with the architectural agility necessary to support businesses adequately in today's high-change, global environment."

That's not too shocking. But what is notable about the results (and what makes them different than your garden-variety ERP study that shows sky-high TCO, or application performance problems, or unfavorable implementation odds), is that this survey actually quantifies ERP system-related failings directly to business disruption—expensive, unpleasant and career-killing business disruption.

"Survey respondents said that the inability to easily modify their ERP system deployments is disrupting their businesses by delaying product launches, slowing decision making and delaying acquisitions and other activities that ultimately cost them between $10 million and $500 million in lost opportunities," according to the survey report. (That's a substantial gulf in "lost opportunities," but we'll chalk that up to the size differences in companies surveyed.)

That related impact is costly: 21 percent of respondents reported declines in stock price; 14 percent suffered revenue losses tied to delayed product launches; and 17 percent encountered declines in customer satisfaction.

A couple of verbatim responses from respondents should make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up: "Capital expenditure priorities are shifted into IT from other high-payback projects" just to perform necessary ERP changes, noted one respondent. Said another: "Change to ERP paralyzes the entire organization in moving forward in other areas that can bring more value."

I don't have an MBA, but I'm pretty sure that paralyze is not a word you want associated with your department right now—or ever.

Today's business environment is, of course, changing much faster than most businesses can keep up with, and any type of technology that impedes the ability to adapt and be flexible is most unwelcome. Which leads to another interesting data point from the survey: ERP systems are constantly being modified, updated and, well, changed. Just 3 percent of respondents had not made changes to their ERP systems, and nearly half (43 percent) are continuously making changes as needed.

As the sun finally sets on the first decade in the new millennium, it's high time we say good night to ERP. A new day will be starting soon, and the blemished legacy and failings of ERP's nearly four-decade-long reign will be a distant memory.

Ships tracked with smart software

2009-12-15T19:50:00.000+07:00

BBC News

The global shipping trade generates a lot of data

Ships could be in and out of European ports much quicker thanks to smart software that monitors their movements.

Developed for Dutch firm Royal Dirkzwager, the monitoring system tracks ships almost in real time.

It will be used to tell ships to speed up or slow down to ensure there is a berth for them to unload.

As use of the system increases, it hopes to cut costs, reduce fuel consumption and allow ports to unload and service ships much faster.

Ship spotters

Founded in 1872, Royal Dirkzwager began by only monitoring ships that pass in and out of Rotterdam in Holland. Information about ship movements is valuable to governments, cargo handling companies and maintenance firms.

Paul Wieland, Dirkzwager's manager of logistics and ICT, said it used to employ people equipped with binoculars to spot which vessels were in port, which were waiting to unload and which had just appeared over the horizon.

The advent of automatic identification systems (AIS) made that job easier, he said, but still limited Dirkzwager's ability to monitor movements.

"We used to have visibility of shore-to-sea of about 20 miles away from the receiving station," said Mr Wieland. "But it was very short visibility of a geographically limited part of the world."

As ships move to adopt space-based identification systems the view that Royal Dirkzwager has of shipping has opened up enormously.

Ship spotters are keen to know when cruise liners dock

"By interconnecting networks and using space-based IS we can suddenly see the whole world," said Mr Wieland. "That's an incredible increase in the amount of data we can theoretically track and process with our systems."

It has meant a shift from 200 position reports every second to more than 1,000.

"We're going to monitoring every few seconds rather than once a day," Mr Wieland told BBC News. "We were simply not able to handle that amount of data."

To help it cope Royal Dirkzwager has just turned the key on a monitoring system that automatically analyses a stream of data to pick out related events. It is based on the work of former academic Giles Nelson who developed the Apama software.

Dr Nelson originally developed Apama for financial institutions who had a need to swiftly route information to key traders no matter where they were.

Mr Wieland said Royal Dirkzwager's monitoring system would help Rotterdam and other European ports handle ships far faster.

Rotterdam handles more than 30,000 ships per year, he said, and any delay can be very costly.

"We're monitoring the journey of a ship to make sure it is going to a port that has available berth space to accommodate that ship," said Mr Wieland.

"By following a ship we know when it's passed through the Suez Canal and we can see it's going to arrive one day early and that berth will not be free until the next day," he said. "If it's too early you can, for example, slow it down instead of burning fuel and arriving too early and taking up anchor space outside the harbour."

"Logistic processes in ports have speeded up." said Mr Wieland. "The stay becomes shorter and shorter so information about the arrival of a ship is absolutely critical."

It is not just businesses and governments that are keen to track ship movements, said Mr Wieland. Royal Dirkzwager was also using it to drive an SMS alert service for ship spotters who want to know when a particular cruise liner is in port.

Google To Lay Undersea Telecom Pipes To Asia (GOOG)

2009-12-15T18:08:00.002+07:00

Silicon Aley Insider, Alaska Miller|Dec. 14, 2009, 4:40 PM

Google and a consortium of five telecommunication firms have joined together in a $400 million project to connect southeast Asia with the fastest undersea fiber-optic pipe in the world. The project is called Southeast Asia Japan Cable.

This investment is the second major undersea telecom project undertaken by Google.

Previously, Google joined another international consortium to build a trans-Pacific bandwidth pipe code-named Unity.

That project cost $300 million and took two years to connect a 6,200 mile pipe from Los Angeles to Chikura, Japan. Unity is now in the testing phase and will be officially online in early 2010. It's capable of delivering 960 gigabits a second from each of its 5 fiber optic lines.

The SJC will initially connect Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Phillipines, and Japan to provide 17 terabits per second of bandwidth, upgradeable to 23 Tbps. When finished the SJC will provide the fastest connection in the world.

Google's investment are not typical. Most content providers simply lease bandwidth access. Google's involvement stems from its belief that major growth in Internet use in Asia in the coming years warrants direct investments. Google will not divulge how much money it has paid in both projects.

Today over 738 million Internet users originate from Asia. China has 338 million users. With those numbers it makes sense for Google to heavily invest into the telecommunications projects.

Related Article:

Google improving the South-East Asian Internet with 17Tbps link

2009: The Year of Twitter and Facebook

2009-12-13T20:09:00.005+07:00

The Jakarta Globe

The social networking site Twitter asking "what are you doing?" in Japanese on a mobile phone in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Twitter, fueled by smartphones and online bursts of 140 characters, soared to lofty heights over the past year while Facebook eclipsed MySpace to become the world's leading social network.

"Those are the big winners," said Jason Keath, a North Carolina-based social media consultant and founder of SocialFresh.com, an organizer of social media conferences. "Facebook more or less tripled their size this year."

"Twitter grew immensely," added Keath. "I think they were somewhere around maybe two to four million users at the beginning of the year. Now they're near 40 million."

With 350 million members, "if Facebook was a country it would be the fourth most populous nation," said Scott Stanzel, a former deputy press secretary to president George W. Bush who has also worked for software giant Microsoft.

"Going back one year ago I don't think people would have thought Twitter would have had the influence it's had," added Stanzel, who now runs Stanzel Communications, a Seattle-based public relations consulting firm that offers social media planning among its services.

"It was gaining popularity but it has really exploded this year and it's done so in a way that's become incredibly pervasive," he said.

Twitter has reportedly spurned takeover offers worth hundreds of millions of dollars from Google and Facebook and its influence as a communications and news-breaking tool has been validated in a number of ways over the past year.

In June, the State Department asked Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance on the service because it was being used by protestors angered by the results of Iran's disputed presidential election.

More recently, Google and Microsoft began integrating Twitter messages into their respective search engines, a new feature described as real-time search.

Rampant adoption of smartphones has much to do with Twitter's growth, according to Jack Levin, co-founder and chief executive of ImageShack, an online media hosting company which runs yfrog.com, a service for sharing images and video on Twitter.

"The explosion of smartphones in the United States and many other countries has led to the success and ease of communication between people and Twitter is certainly in the middle of that," Levin said.

"People obviously want to communicate and Twitter is really a communications platform," he said of the service which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less and provide links to the Web.

"It's a hybrid between instant messenger and email," Levin said.

Levin's yfrog.com is one of the thousands of applications created for Twitter by outside software developers credited with fueling the popularity of the microblogging service.

Facebook, which started the trend of opening up to outside creators of fun mini-programs, was also quick to realize the appeal of being able to connect from anywhere at any time.

"The thing they've done and MySpace didn't do is they've really expanded the scope of their network past the initial site," Keath said.

"Facebook Connect is a big piece of that, where you can take your Facebook account and log in from other places."

Facebook and Twitter are popular because essentially they "provide real value to people in their personal and work lives," according to Stanzel.

"You can keep up with hundreds if not thousands just by having a Facebook account or by being active on Twitter," he said.

Stanzel also credited social media tools with "redefining the way in which companies or politicians relate to their consumers or constituents."

"Companies or politicians who have taken to Facebook or Twitter or YouTube are building more of a permanent relationship with their constituents or with their customers because they're engaged in a conversation," he said.

Keath predicted Twitter's growth is "going to slow," saying it is inconceivable the San Francisco-based firm could match this year's meteoric surge in user numbers.

Twitter needs to be wary of spammers "putting out garbage, bad information, trying to direct message everyone in the entire service, porn links and things like that," Keath added. "That would cause people to restrict their networks a little more."

Stanzel warned that if Twitter "starts becoming overrun with advertising or becomes too complicated they might see their growth slow down or even reverse."

Keath suspects Twitter, which has yet to unveil a plan for making money, will seek over the next year to become "more of a marketing tool."

"I think there will be a lot of emphasis on providing more value to businesses and commerce in general," he said.

As for Facebook, Keath said it "looks highly likely that they're going to launch a payment portal, a payment tool.

"There's debate over whether there would be high adoption of giving Facebook your credit card information," he said. "But if they do that they're not only going to have your social network but your commerce too.

"And then they've pretty much locked in most of your activity online."

AFP

Google Releases Experimental Phone to Employees

2009-12-13T04:31:00.012+07:00

PC World, By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service

Google has handed out a new mobile phone running its Android software to some employees, stirring another wave of speculation that the oft-rumored Google Phone is real.

In a blog post on Saturday morning, Google said the phones are being distributed so that workers can experiment with new mobile features. It did not say the device will be a Google-branded phone.

But in a Twitter message earlier, a Google employee who said she has the phone referred to it as a "Google phone," fuelling the latest speculation.

Since even before Google unveiled Android, onlookers wondered if the search giant would release its own phone. Instead, it released an open source operating system that other hardware vendors can use to make phones.

In the Google blog post, Mario Queiroz, a vice president of product management, said the company gave the phone to employees as a way to test new technologies.

"We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe," he wrote. "This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it."

He said he could not share specific details about the product.

The post appeared to be a response to a Twitter message posted by a Google employee Friday evening, who said she had the phone. The post, first reported by TechCrunch, sparked the new round of speculation.

"ZOMG we had fireworks and we all got the new Google phone. It's beautiful," wrote Leslie Hawthorn, a program manager on Google's open source team.

While the term "Google phone" has been used to describe a device built and branded by Google, many also use the term to refer to any phone running Android. So it was unclear if Hawthorne was talking about a device that will be branded and sold by Google.

A podcast producer for CNET said Friday he had seen one of the phones, adding to the speculation. The hardware is made by HTC and running Android 2.1, the next generation of the software, Jason Howell wrote in a Twitter message. The phones were given to employees unlocked and the one he saw was running on AT&T's network, he said. Because it is unlocked, workers could also choose to use T-Mobile.

"It was thin. Dare I say as if not a bit thinner than iPhone," he wrote. The phone used an on-screen keyboard instead of a hardware keyboard. He said Google was expected to reveal more details in the next few days.

TheUnlockr

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Google Apps Adds Discussion Forums

2009-12-09T15:14:00.003+07:00

The Google Apps hosted communication and collaboration suite, which packs e-mail, calendar, office productivity applications and a wiki-based Web site builder, among other applications, is gaining a new component: discussion forums with mailing lists.

CIO.com, By Juan Carlos Perez

WED, DECEMBER 09, 2009 — IDG News Service — The Google Apps hosted communication and collaboration suite, which packs e-mail, calendar, office productivity applications and a wiki-based Web site builder, among other applications, is gaining a new component: discussion forums with mailing lists.

As has been the case with its other components, Apps is fetching this latest application from Google's roster of consumer services -- in this case the Google Groups service -- and giving it the necessary tweaks to make it suitable for a workplace setting, like IT administration controls.

"We're adding a key piece of functionality that really bolsters our enterprise messaging functions," said Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager. "This is also a great example of the concept of consumerization of enterprise and of giving power to the users to do things they've typically had to rely on IT to do for them."

The Groups application, which will go live on Wednesday, allows for the creation of mailing lists for group members, but also lets users embed other Apps components into the forums, including calendars, word-processing documents, presentations, videos and spreadsheets. Content posted to the forums is indexed in full text and searchable.

Groups is available in the Education and Premier editions of Apps, but not in the Standard edition. Apps administrators need to activate Groups for their domain, at which point end-users can create forums in an ad-hoc fashion without IT intervention. The IT department can establish policies and access rights for groups. Group owners also can manage certain settings for their forums and lists.

Google, the undisputed leader in the consumer search-engine market, is intent on becoming a major player in enterprise software, and Google Apps is arguably its best-known product for workplaces, an up-and-coming rival to established communication and collaboration suites from the likes of Microsoft and IBM's Lotus.

Part of Apps' buzz comes from its cloud computing architecture, which Google maintains is a better option than conventional software that customers need to install and maintain on their own servers. While CIOs and IT managers are warming up to hosted software like Apps, concerns over relying on vendors to maintain the software and store the data haven't fully dissipated.

Launched about three years ago, Apps has traditionally appealed to small organizations, especially via its free Standard edition. However, since the introduction of the enterprise-geared Premier edition, Google has set its sights on medium-size and large organizations. Premier, which costs US$50 per user per year, includes IT management and e-mail security capabilities, as well as support and a service-level guarantee.

One Laptop for One Teacher, One Step Ahead in Indonesia?

2009-12-08T04:33:00.001+07:00

Kompas, MONDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2009 | 12:11 PM

KGI will endeavor for an affordable laptop for every teacher (installed with teaching programs) and to give computer trainings to teachers

SURABAYA, KOMPAS.com — East Java has been chosen for the "One Laptop for One Teacher" piloting program. If successful the program will be applied to all teachers in Indonesia.

Intel Indonesia Manager Budi Wahyu Jati stated, Sunday, Surabaya, that Intel is cooperating with several parties to execute the program. East Java has been chosen for piloting because the idea originally came from the teachers and education office from East Java.

"In Indonesia, Intel is cooperating with Tera data Indonesia, the distributor of Axioo, to provide laptops to every teacher. If we're successful here, then the program will be applied nationally."

In East java the project's name has been shortened (in Indonesian) to 'Sagusala'. The Indonesian Teachers' Club (KGI) that came up with the program endeavors to provide an affordable laptop for each teacher.

"But quality must be maintained," said Budi. Tera Data Indonusa CEO Singgih Halim stated that his company will cooperate with a bank to provide computer credits.

The credit will be given collectively. "The bank will provide cheap credit if there are many buyers. We will follow the bank's scheme."

For optimal usage, the computers will be equipped with some programs. The teachers can utilize them for teaching purposes.

KGI head Satria Dharma stated that so far there are a number of teaching programs that are ready to be installed into the teachers' computers. The teacher can choose the appropriate program according to needs. KGI wil also do routine trainings so that the teachers can use the laptops optimally.

Solar Storm Could Zap Power Grid in 2013: NASA

2009-12-07T20:23:00.015+07:00

Data center managers will need to keep an eye on the solar weather, because a geomagnetic storm (now predicted for May 2013) could knock out electric power.

(Solar and Heliospheric Observatory - website)

CIO.com, by Mitch Betts

MON, DECEMBER 07, 2009 — Computerworld — Alarmist news reports earlier this year warned that solar storms coming in 2012 will cripple electric power, GPS equipment and communications systems for months, creating an electronic apocalypse not dreamt of since the days of pre-Y2k hysteria. Those reports then spread throughout a blogosphere already saturated with hype about the Hollywood disaster flick 2012 .

The truth is more complicated.

Solar storms bombard the Earth's magnetic field with bursts of radiation, which can in turn disrupt the power grid and satellites. In fact, "the great geomagnetic storm of March 1989" zapped northeastern Canada's Hydro-Quebec power grid, leaving millions of people without electricity for up to nine hours, according to a National Academy of Sciences report.

In a worst-case scenario, a solar storm could cause $1 trillion to $2 trillion in damage to the world's high-tech infrastructure, the 2008 report said.

But the severity of the next solar storm is unclear, as is the timing.

Several years ago, NASA predicted that the peak in the next cycle of solar weather would occur in 2012 -- a date that coincidentally aligned with other forecasts of doom. The space agency's more recent prediction (made May 29) said the peak for sunspot activity will be in May 2013 -- though additional revisions are expected.

So data center managers need to keep an eye on space weather, just as they keep an eye on terrestrial weather. Check out the National Weather Service's Space Weather Prediction Center at www.swpc.noaa.gov.

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California and Google launch tool to visualize the effects of climate change

2009-12-06T22:01:00.006+07:00

Examiner.com, December 5, 5:19 PM Climate Change Examiner Tony Hake

This image from the Google Earth tour released by California and Google portrays some of the dangers manmade climate change are thought to bring to the state. You can watch the complete video below. (State of California)

The state of California and Google have been considered at the forefront of the fight against manmade climate change and the two have come together to help the state’s residents visualize the effects of global warming. The new interactive tool, dubbed CalAdapt and part of the Google Earth software, portrays a dismal future for the Sunshine State unless steps are taken to stem man’s effect on the earth.

Narrated by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the tour begins by zooming in and out of the state and highlighting the steps it has taken on its own. Investments in renewable energy, its commitment to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels and the state’s green building program are all featured.

Graphic representation of the effects of manmade climate change are meant to drive home the dangers California faces. From a less reliable water supply to more frequent and more intense wildfires and rising sea levels, the state faces a number of risks according to the video.

The unveiling ceremony was held on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The significance of the location was not lost on Schwarzenegger who said, “Within a century, Treasure Island, this place where we are right now, could be totally under water.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt was on hand as well to plug his company’s contribution. Schmidt said, “It allows Californians to see what's happening to our wonderful and beautiful state." Google has pushed a number of green initiatives and consulted with Al Gore on some issues.

The Google Earth tour and its corresponding website are part of the state’s Climate Adaptation Strategy, a 200 page document that outlines impacts and makes recommendations to help the state adapt. The governor also created a 23 person board comprised of leaders from the public and private sectors that will advise the state on how to adapt to climate change.

You can watch the tour below or, if you have Google Earth (free), you can download the file that allows you to play it in the software from the CalAdapt website.

54 Percent of CIOs ban Social Media At Work

2009-12-05T23:47:00.007+07:00

Small Business Trends, by Lisa Barone, October 13, 2009

An interesting new study shows that social media still can’t get no respect in the workplace. According to a study by Robert Half Technologies, 54 percent of CIOs prohibit any social media use in the office. That’s a serious number.

Robert Half Technology, a leading provider of information technology (IT) professionals on a project and full-time basis, conducted phone surveys of more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States who employ at least 100 employees. CIOs were asked one question:

Which of the following most closely describes your company’s policy on visiting social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work?

Their responses:

Prohibited completely: 54%
Permitted for business purposes only: 19%
Permitted for limited personal use: 16%
Permitted for any type of personal use: 10%
Don’t know/no answer: 1%

I have to admit, in the age of Zappos, Comcast and Dell, I was a bit surprised to learn that more than half of CIOs have banned social media inhouse. Executive Director of Robert Half Technology Dave Willmer noted that the reason for the ban may be due to social media’s tendency to “divert employees’ attention” away from pressing work priorities in favor of communicating with friends. He’s right. It probably does to some degree. But it can also be an incredible customer retention and sales tool. And frankly, the folks misusing social media are probably the same ones checking email all day. Ifthat’s the reason you’re shying away from social media, you’re not competing in today’s world.

Something that also caught my eye was the division between using social media for business use vs using it for personal use. Because they’re pretty much the same thing. The goal behind social media is to make your business personal. And if you don’t understand that, you’re going about it the wrong way.

This sentiment was also noted in a post by Heidi Miller where she shows how social media isn’t about the companies. It’s about the people behind them. Comcast isn’t on Twitter. Frank Eliason is. All the Dell representatives you meet have actual names and faces. We get the tidbits of their lives right along with the company agenda. That’s what people fall in love with. It’s the people behind these companies that make them interesting and make customers engaged and want to do business with them. By trying to separate business from personal, you lose a lot of that sentiment. You take the heart out of it.

I think in the next few years, we’re going to see social media being more and more accepted into the workplace. Truth is, there’s no greater customer relations tool out there.

The survey also offered some tips for protecting your professional reputation while on social media, including:

Know what’s allowed
Use caution
Keep it professional
Stay positive
Polish your image
Monitor yourself

I think it’s about talking to employees, instilling responsibility in their words and tweets, educating them on how to use social media correctly, but then also giving them room to be human. No one is positive all the time. No one is that polished. I don’t think employers should be leashing every single one of their employees into the world of social media, but there is a solid place for it and simply banning it from the workplace is not the way to go about it. Educate; don’t lag behind.

Google to limit free news access

2009-12-02T14:48:00.003+07:00

BBC News,

Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced.

The concession follows claims from some media companies that the search engine is profiting from online news pages.

Users will be routed to payment or registration pages

Under the First Click Free programme, publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.

Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages.

'Gaining' revenue

"Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free," Google senior business product manager Josh Cohen said in a blog post.

"Now, we've updated the programme so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing."

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch had earlier accused firms such as Google of profiting from journalism by generating advertising revenue by linking readers to newspaper articles.

Some readers have discovered they can avoid paying subscription fees to newspaper websites by calling up their pages via Google.

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said the concession was relatively minor but Mr Murdoch might see it as vindication of his decision to take on Google.

Google users may start seeing registration pages appear when they click for a sixth time on any given day at websites of publishers using the program, according to Mr Cohen.

25 Million Chinese Phones Will “Die” Tomorrow

2009-12-01T23:11:00.005+07:00

mobilemarketingwatch.com, by michael on Nov 30, 2009

India will effectively “kill” some twenty-five million Chinese cell phones beginning tomorrow, December 1st.

India’s Department of Telecommunications has given the order to operators to “block cellphones” without a valid IMEI number. The move leaves millions of Chinese using mobile phones without IMEI number with only two options: buy a new phone with a valid IMEI number or get the number implanted in your current phone using available software through the Cellular Operators Association of India.

India’s Ministry of Communications remains concerned that, if not handled appropriately and swiftly, these anonymous phones could fall into the hands of unsavory characters and potentially be used for terrorism.

If it seems that this news of this program has come out of nowhere, you’re not alone. Chances are, millions of subscribers in China may similarly be unaware of the service interruption they may experience beginning overnight. The customer service component of this switch is enough to make one’s head explode.

But ready or not, the change is coming.

Related Article:

India blocks 25 million mobile phones

Tories attack leaked five-year IT plan as 'unambitious'

2009-12-01T19:45:00.004+07:00

BBC News,

Labour and the Tories both believe computing costs can be slashed

A leaked document setting out the government's IT strategy for the next five years is "complacent" and lacks ambition, the Conservatives say.

The paper details plans to save billions through greater use of social media and innovations such as an online "apps store" for civil servants.

It also predicts that by 2020 new software will allow computers to do tasks currently carried out by humans.

The government said it did not comment on leaked documents.

The Conservatives, who obtained the document, have set up a website, makeitbetter.org.uk, where it is published in full, with a facility for people to comment on it.

The document, entitled Government ICT Strategy: New World, New Challenges, sets out how the government plans to harness computer technology to save cash and improve public services up to 2015.

'Cloud infrastructure'

It includes plans for an online government applications store - to enable civil servants to share and re-use computer programmes.

At the moment, there are more than 10,000 unique applications - computer programmes designed to carry out specific tasks - being used by public sector organisations, the report says.

The new applications store will be launched early next year. The report says it will save an estimated £500m a year by 2020.

But the bulk of the planned savings - £1.6bn - will come from the development of a government "cloud infrastructure" - a way of pooling computer systems which is meant to cut costs and energy consumption.

The government plans to launch a prototype of what it calls the "G cloud" early next year, with a standard model to be introduced by the end of 2010.

The document also outlines plans to develop 10 to 12 strategic data centres, which it says will bring together "existing public data centres into highly secure and resilient facilities", which it claims will save £300m a year and cut power consumption by 75%.

'Systemic failures'

It also proposes a common desktop strategy, which will involve 80% of government PCs using a shared utility service by 2015.

Looking further ahead, the report predicts the use of semantic technologies, which potentially allow computers to handle tasks that currently require human intervention.

It also highlights the development of human/computer interaction in hospitals - removing the need to use a keyboard or pointing device.

Government sources told the Financial Times the leaked document was an "early draft" which had not been signed off by ministers.

Ministers are expected to publish details of their IT strategy ahead of next week's pre-Budget report.

The Cabinet Office said it did not comment on leaked documents, but a spokesman said: "As part of our commitment to making government more efficient and effective we're looking at ways of reducing our ICT spend without affecting the excellent digital services we now offer.

"We will shortly be publishing a new public sector ICT strategy that, as called for by the Operational Efficiency Programme, will deliver savings of more than £3bn a year."

The Conservatives say the government plans lack ambition, compared with their own plans to break up large IT projects into smaller components and encourage more use of "open source" software, ending the government's reliance on a handful of suppliers.

On the makeitbetter site, the party claims the government has spent £100bn on IT since 1997, but it quotes a recent study which says 70% of recent projects have failed.

It says the report fails in its aim of showing how the government can get to grips with the "systemic failures in public sector IT procurement over the past decade," such as the "calamitous" NHS database.

It adds: "Not only is it possible to develop a more ambitious, cost-effective and transformative vision for government IT, but we believe that it's also possible to pursue a completely different approach to making policy.

"Rather than the traditional closed approach to policy making that this report typifies, we want to throw open the process and allow people to contribute their ideas on how policy should be designed.

"In the post-bureaucratic age, we believe that crowdsourcing and collaborative design can help us to make better policies - and we think this approach should begin now."

Neighbours' fury as BT chairman is only person in village to get high-speed broadband

2009-11-30T19:12:00.005+07:00

MailOnline, By SCOTT WARREN, 30th November 2009

Blackspot: Hambledon residents cannot access fast broadband internet

BT chairman Sir Michael Rake has outraged neighbours in the small Oxfordshire village where he lives, after it emerged he had been picked to take part in a trial of high-speed broadband internet.

Despite having lived in Hambledon, near Henley-on-Thames, for just a year, Sir Michael was the sole resident of the internet 'not spot' - where access to fast broadband is not commercially feasible - to be chosen for the nationwide trial testing the ability of 10 telephone exchanges to deliver a high speed broadband signal.

Resident Gary Ashworth, the executive chairman of Abacus Recruitment, has been forced to wait five years for fast broadband access, and was quoted £68,000 by BT when he asked what the charge would be for connecting his house to the network.

'I think it stinks of corruption,' he said.

'The chairman of BT is given preferential treatment.

'I run a business and we probably have 1,000 BT lines. Clearly there is preferential treatment if you happen to be the chairman. I think it is a disgrace.'

A BT spokesman said Sir Michael was chosen to test the ability of the network to access BT's corporate network, with a view to other large companies being able to have staff access secure networks remotely.

'Large companies often conduct trials among staff in the early stages so the lessons learnt remain in-house,' the spokesman said. 'The current trial includes staff from throughout BT, as well as customers.'

Tory Wycombe MP Paul Goodman said: 'Unless all BT staff members are entitled to participate in the trial on exactly the same terms, I think some of my constituents will find this very strange.'

Rural areas like Hambledon have been described by the Prince of Wales as 'broadband deserts', with 2.75million people stuck with slow broadband and another 166,000 unable to access the internet at all.

The Government has promised to have the entire nation connected to fast (greater than two megabits per second) broadband by 2012, with a 'broadband tax' of 50p per month on phone bills to fund the upgrade, which would run until 2017.

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Indonesian Minister Draws Twitter Anger for Disaster Remarks

2009-11-30T02:50:00.010+07:00

The Jakarta Globe

Indonesians are among some of the most avid users of online social media like Twitter and Facebook. (Photo: Yudhi Sukma Wijaya, JG)

A government minister drew sharp criticism from earthquake victims Saturday and alienated some of his Twitter followers by blaming natural disasters in Indonesia on immorality.

Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring linked disasters to declining public morals when he addressed a prayer meeting in the city of Padang to mark Idhul Adha on Friday.

"Television broadcasts that destroy morals are plentiful in this country and therefore disasters will continue to occur," Antara quoted Sembiring as saying.

He also referred to Indonesian-made hard-core sex DVDs available in street markets as an example of growing public decadence and called for tougher laws against pornography.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that make the nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity. A giant quake off the country on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people, half of them in Aceh.

A magnitude 7.6 temblor on Sept. 30 killed more than 1,000 on western Sumatra.

News of what Sembiring, a former leader of the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party, said provoked criticism Saturday from disaster victims.

Kikie Marzuki, a Muslim Aceh resident who lost 10 relatives in the tsunami, said victims were not to blame.

"I prefer to believe that natural disasters occur because of the destructive force of nature that cannot be avoided by humans," he said.

Sembiring's remarks also brought swift rebuke from some of his followers on the social interaction network Twitter.

One tweeter, who identified himself as Ari Margiono, told Sembiring his words inferred that residents of Aceh and Padang were more decadent than other Indonesians.

"Disasters provide a momentum for repentance," he told the Jakarta Globe earlier.

Not everyone disagreed with him, and his speech in Padang won the backing of the Indonesian Ullema Council.

"Based on the religious view, a disaster could be seen as a punishment for people's sins, and could also as a reminder to us of our mistakes," prominent council member Ma'ruf Amin said.

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Social media 'could transform public services'

2009-11-27T20:32:00.002+07:00

BBC News, by Mark Ward , Technology correspondent, BBC News

Capturing experiences can change the way some services are run

Social media could transform the NHS and other public services in the same way that file-sharing changed the music industry, a conference has heard.

Growing use of tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, offered an opportunity to reinvent services, delegates heard.

The MyPublicServices event debated ways to harness these conversations, many of which are critical, to make services better and more inclusive.

If this was not done, many services would be undermined, speakers said.

"It's happened to the music and travel industries and it's going to happen to public services," said Dr Paul Hodgkin, founder of the Patient Opinion site that organised the MyPublicServices conference.

Said Dr Hodgkin: "The question is how do we cope with it in a useful and productive way and not spend decades beating each other up?"

Capturing stories

Dr Hodgkin created Patient Opinion to capture stories about what happened to people when they got medical treatment. The site takes their criticism or praise and routes it to people in a local health authority who need to know and can, if need be, use that information to improve services.

He said that conversations about people's experiences with public services were going on all over the web and needed to be taken into account.

Dr James Munro, the director of Patient Opinion, said the web and the rising influence of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and other discussion sites was likely to force big changes in the running of programmes.

"Public services seem only to be there to give you what you need," he said. "A patient is all about being passive."

"This is about turning things upside down so the thing that looks like a deficit, your experience, becomes the gift you have to give to other people."

The conference heard from many people who had been moved by their frustration with current practices to set up a website or a service that can do something about it.

Denise Stephens created Enabled by Design in 2003 after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

Ms Stephens said she grew increasingly frustrated with unattractive assistive technology that made her home resemble a hospital. She started Enabled By Design to share information about better designed, cheaper and more attractive alternatives.

"A lot of assistive technology is ugly and does not do the job very well," said Ms Stephens.

Talking about their experiences at MyPublicServices were projects to ensure that those in nursing homes are looked after with dignity, to help make welfare to work programmes less adversarial and a place to report experiences with police investigations.

Tom Loosemore, head of 4iP, Channel 4's Innovation fund, said he suspected that active citizens and frustrated users could become a big catalyst for change in public services.

"The design of public services around the needs of the public not the needs of the state enabled by the internet, that's the big change," he said.

"I'm not sure that the government can re-engineer itself from the inside out," he said. "It's going to take the demands of people to force it into shape."

He counselled attendees to "shout loud and force change" on local and central government.

He told conference goers: "You are the future of public services not .gov.uk."

Nearly half the money spent at US retail on desktop PCs goes to Apple

2009-11-27T01:33:00.006+07:00

Beta News, by Joe Wilcox | November 25, 2009, 2:24 PM

In October, Mac US retail desktop computer revenue share was 47.71, percent up from 33.44 percent a year earlier, according to NPD. It's a stunning number, given just how many Windows PC companies combined command so much more market share, while competing for the same revenue share.

NPD measures in-store and online sales to compile the numbers. Contrary to blogs or news sites that will link to this post, NPD did not issue a report with this data. I asked for it. That's what reporters do -- ask questions.

The larger questions: Can Apple sustain such high desktop dollar share? Does Apple benefit long-term from the trend? "No" is likely answer to both questions.

Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis, attributes some of Apple's October gains to the release of fast, new iMacs during the same month that Windows PC sales declined ahead of Windows 7's October 22nd launch. "You only really had 10 days to catch up some 20 days of lost [Windows PC] sales," Baker said.

Additionally there is the recession, which force hit following the late-September 2008 stock market crash. "You're comparing the [iMac] launch month this year to the month last year when people stopped going into stores to buy things," Baker said. "To some extent it's a little bit apples and oranges."

He emphasized: "While those are great numbers, that's probably not sustainable." Perhaps, but even a decline to 40 percent revenue share would put Apple head and torso above every single competitor selling Windows PCs. It's worth noting that Mac desktop revenue share had already risen to 44.91 percent in April 2009, although Baker attributed some of that "pop" to the "residual effects" of new iMac upgrades a month earlier.

One factor helping Apple is average selling price. The Mac maker has largely chosen not to compete with Windows PC manufacturers below $1,000. While price wars continue at the low end among Windows PC manufacturers, Apple's entry-level iMac starts at $1,199. True, Apple offers the Mac mini for $599 or $799, but the ASP is considerably higher than comparably priced Windows PCs. Low-cost Windows PCs typically come with monitor, keyboard and mouse, which are all extra-cost items for Mac mini unless the buyer uses existing gear.

In October, the Mac desktop ASP was $1,338, down from $1,390 in April and $1,581 in October 2008, according to NPD. By comparison, Windows desktop PC ASP was $491, or nearly $900 less than the Mac desktop. Generally, Apple also captures more revenue share on much smaller sales. For example, according to Apple SEC filings, worldwide, the company shipped 3.05 million Macs -- only 787,000 of them desktops -- in third calendar quarter. By comparison, HP shipped 16.1 million PCs and Acer 12.5 million, according to Gartner.

Where Apple's sales are stronger, in notebooks, it's revenue share is by no means as high -- yet still an enviable percentage for any single computer manufacturer. Mac notebook US retail revenue share was 33.66 percent in October, up from 30.07 percent in April but down from 38.13 percent in October 2008. In the year-ago month, Apple released its first unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros, which lifted revenue share. The change in revenue share from October to April to October bookends the new Mac laptop launches and corroborates Baker's assertion that Apple revenue share will recede in coming months.

"Apple gets a huge bump out of new products that no one else gets," he said. "Those [share increases] haven't tended to be sustainable in the long term."

Maybe, but one third of sales going to one company is an amazing feat -- and it's where the market is growing fastest: Portable computers. The Mac laptop ASP also is much higher than Windows notebooks: respectively, $1,410 to $519 in October, according to NPD. Apple sells fewer units, but commands higher margins on every one than Windows PC manufacturers.

The question ahead: What about Windows 7 and the holidays? On Monday, Gartner predicted that Windows 7 wouldn't lift PC sales in 2009. That's a question to answer in January when the sales figures are final. But based on Apple's ability to defy the recession's downward pull on computer sales and just how consistently busy are the company's retail stores, I'll predict that Mac overall US retail revenue share will stay well above one-third and more than 40 percent for desktops. Surely any Windows PC competitor would want make so much on so few computers sold, comparatively.

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Indonesian Muslims Surf Internet for a Sacrifice

2009-11-25T22:51:00.001+07:00

The Jakarta Globe, Lisa Siregar and Tasa Nugraza Barley

Muslims commemorate the Idul Adha holiday by sacrificing goats and sharing the meat to feed the needy. (JG Photo)

Muslims no longer have to purchase sacrificial goats and cattle for Idul Adha in person, but can arrange for them to be delivered to their home or slaughtered in their name via the Internet.

In the days prior to Idul Adha, most Muslim families of sufficient means purchase livestock at their neighborhood mosque or at tethering stalls on the side of the road.

On the holiday itself, the majority of them bring the animals to halal slaughterhouses for butchers to sacrifice, but some others, who know how to kill animals humanely following the Koran’s edicts, take matters into their own hands.

The main purpose of the slaughter is to feed the needy, who receive portions of meat. However, it is not always easy to find a healthy animal, a halal butcher and bona fide poor people.

Aiming to simplify the process, a number of Indonesian-based halal livestock sellers have begun operating online.

Risdiyanto, 32, a physics teacher living in Central Java, established www.sapiqu.com about six weeks ago, just in time for Idul Adha.

He said his family had always been in the halal cattle industry, but he worked as a teacher and simply didn’t have time to run a cattle market.

“With Internet technology you don’t have to spend a lot of money building an office or store,” Risdiyanto said.

He posts pictures of his cows on his Web site’s gallery. Prices range from Rp 7.7 million to Rp 18.3 million ($815 to $1,940). Orders are made over the phone and the transaction can be completed either by cash or bank transfer.

Risdiyanto requires a down payment of Rp 2 million and says he can deliver to any address in Bandung or Jakarta. After the initial payment has been made, the cow is transported from the family’s stockyard in Purbalingga, Central Java, to the delivery address.

Risdiyanto said it hadn’t been easy building trust among customers, most of whom had so far been friends or friends of friends. First, it’s not easy to convince people to transfer their money to someone they don’t know, he said. Second, most people prefer to see the cows in the flesh, and are generally fussy.

“For Idul Adha, most people are concerned about the appearance of the cows,” Risdiyanto said.

“Most people want plump, white cows, while it’s hard to sell black ones.”

He said people also liked to show their animals off around their neighborhoods, signifying the extent of their charity.

Mulyadi Ilham, a customer of sapiqu.com, said he learned of the service from a friend. “I just wanted to try. It’s a very easy method of buying a cow for Idul Adha,” Mulyadi said.

Rumah Zakat Indonesia (The Indonesia House of Alms) also offers Idul Adha services at rumahzakat.org.

Founded by Abu Syauqi, a cleric living in Bandung, in 1998, Rumah Zakat cans beef and goat and sells it online with the aim of distributing the meat to those in need in the poorer parts of Indonesia, such as in Sabang and Papua.

Before the sacrifice, the butcher will say a prayer and also mention the buyer’s name.

Purchasers, however, don’t get to pick animals out, and are not presented with proof of their sacrifice other than an e-mail confirmation.

A goat, priced at Rp 1 million, yields about 40 200-gram cans of meat. Cows sell for Rp 10 million and provide about 400 cans of meat for the poor.

Another option is for buyers the share the costs of a cow with seven others.

Rumah Zakat also has consultants available to talk buyers through the process via Internet messenger service.

Three sociologists from the University of Indonesia declined to comment about the practice of arranging sacrifices online, because it is considered a sensitive issue. However, Masdar F Mas’udi, the deputy chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, said buying sacrificial livestock on the Internet should not be controversial.

“Life is changing. If it is possible to buy sacrifices indirectly with credible information, it is not a problem,” he said.

Masdar said the most important concern was whether buyers were being scammed.

Sapiqu
www.sapiqu.com
risdiy@yahoo.com
0811226023
(022) 87825922

Rumah Zakat
www.rumahzakat.org
welcome@rumahzakat.org
0804 100 1000

Others:
www.aqiqahqurbam.com
www.tebarhewan.or.id
www.hewanqurban.com

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Iraq government launches its own channel on YouTube

2009-11-25T17:43:00.002+07:00

BBC News,

The Iraq government has followed in the footsteps of the Queen and the Pope and set up its own YouTube channel.

Just one in every hundred of the population has access to the net

The channel has been set up to promote transparency and allows people to watch speeches and behind-the-scenes footage.

The country's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said it was aimed at "people both at home and abroad".

In an opening address on the channel he said it was also an opportunity to show the world what Iraq had been through during the war.

"The government sees in this video technology an opportunity to show our achievements," said Mr al-Maliki.

"The world has not seen what the Iraqi government has been able to achieve in regard to security, economy, politics and building."

He said it was also a "showcase potential investment opportunities" and would be used to show the world the "vigorous war and terror" that Iraq had been through.

Mr al-Maliki said the channel was "one of the methods" that the government would use to "connect with people globally".

However, the first video published on the channel had a key feature disabled, meaning that viewers could not leave comments.

In addition, the web service may be of limited value to many of Iraq's citizens.

The UN estimates that just one in every hundred of the population has access to the internet. It has no figures of the number of people who have broadband subscriptions.

The channel has been set up by the Iraqi National Media Center and says it is aimed at "publicising the most important activities of the Iraqi Government".

Eric Schmidt, head of Google, said it was "exciting to see the Iraqi Government embrace online video as a new way to connect and engage with the Iraqi people and citizens of the web around the world".

Hackers steal electronic data from top climate research center

2009-11-21T22:52:00.015+07:00

Scientists' e-mails deriding skeptics of warming become public

By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer ,Saturday, November 21, 2009

Hackers broke into the electronic files of one of the world's foremost climate research centers this week and posted an array of e-mails in which prominent scientists engaged in a blunt discussion of global warming research and disparaged climate-change skeptics.

The skeptics have seized upon e-mails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Britain as evidence that scientific data have been rigged to make it appear as if humans are causing global warming. The researchers, however, say the e-mails have been taken out of context and merely reflect an honest exchange of ideas.

University officials confirmed the data breach, which involves more than 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents, but said they could not say how many of the stolen items were authentic.

"We are aware that information from a server in one area of the university has been made available on public websites," the statement says. "We are extremely concerned that personal information about individuals may have been compromised. Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm what proportion of this material is genuine."

Michael E. Mann, who directs the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said in a telephone interview from Paris that skeptics are "taking these words totally out of context to make something trivial appear nefarious."

In one e-mail from 1999, the center's director, Phil Jones, alludes to one of Mann's articles in the journal Nature and writes, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Mann said the "trick" Jones referred to was placing a chart of proxy temperature records, which ended in 1980, next to a line showing the temperature record collected by instruments from that time onward. "It's hardly anything you would call a trick," Mann said, adding that both charts were differentiated and clearly marked.

But Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said this and other exchanges show researchers have colluded to establish the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change.

"It is clear that some of the 'world's leading climate scientists,' as they are always described, are more dedicated to promoting the alarmist political agenda than in scientific research," said Ebell, whose group is funded in part by energy companies. "Some of the e-mails that I have read are blatant displays of personal pettiness, unethical conniving, and twisting the science to support their political position."

In one e-mail, Ben Santer, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, offered to beat up skeptic Pat Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, out of sympathy for Jones.

Neither Jones nor Santer could be reached for comment.

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Brin: Two Google Operating Systems May Become One

2009-11-21T16:32:00.004+07:00

Google co-founder says Chrome and Android could someday become a single OS. Chrome browser plus Android OS equals... Android.

PC World, David Coursey

Saying that Chrome is for the Internet and Android for devices, requires a belief that users actually make the distinction.

They don't and Google knows it, but only co-founder Sergey Brin can say so.

In this case, it is the Emperor seeing his subjects' new clothes. Or the profound lack thereof.

(And if you haven't seen Chrome OS, here is our visual tour).

Following the Thursday's Chrome OS announcement, Brin informally told reporters that the two operating systems were "likely to converge over time," but offered no specific timetable.

His remarks didn't seem important at the time and were briefly lost in the excitement of the new OS. Today, however, people who heard the remark realized Brin actually said something important. And it undermines the whole Chrome OS concept.

Brin cited the common Linux OS and WebKit browser heritage the two operating systems share as an example of forces driving them together.

During the presentation, other Google execs described a "perfect storm of converging trends" that somehow required it to develop and support two separate operating systems.

Maybe converging trends lead to converging operating systems? Could be, just ask Sergey Brin.

I had already wondered what the difference would be between Android and Chrome when installed on a netbook. Given the Chrome browser, wouldn't Android do all the same things Chrome could do, plus run Android applications?

Isn't that what users really want? A s opposed to an operating system only capable of running a browser and connecting to Internet-based applications?

It is easy to understand why Google wants to keep Chrome OS and Android separated in our minds: Chrome OS seems revolutionary, if a bit far-fetched. Android, by comparison, is the evolution of what are already doing.

In reality, Chrome OS is a subset of Android, Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. It's the new Lite OS, faster and less filling.

However, merge Chrome and Android and you end up with Android.

It will be hard for Google to keep people from noticing what a good idea that is. An idea that in some ways cuts the legs right out from under a standalone Chrome OS.

David Coursey tweets as @techinciter and can be contacted via his Web site.

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Indonesia Information Technology Report Q4 2009 - New Report Published

2009-11-21T07:13:00.002+07:00

New report provides detailed analysis of the Information Technology market

Companiesandmarkets.com and OfficialWire, by Press Office, Published on November 20, 2009

The Indonesian IT market should grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 13% over 2009-2013 despite a deceleration in 2009, with demand in key segments affected by the global economic crisis. In H109, some manufacturing organisations deferred IT procurements, but there was continued spending in the financial sector, which had previously accounted for as much as 30% of total spending.

Demand is expected to pick up in 2010, and return to double-digit territory by 2011.

Government spending is expected to increase this year, and some fundamental drivers, including low computer penetration and growing affordability, should ensure that the market remains in positive growth territory. Indeed, Indonesia is projected to be one of the best regional IT market growth prospects over BMI's five-year forecast period. 2009 has undoubtedly brought more caution, however, with pressure for cutbacks as companies focus more on the bottom line and immediate needs.

By 2013, Indonesia's hardware-dominated IT market is projected to reach a value of US$5.7bn, displaying faster growth than many Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) neighbours. With information and communication technologies (ICT) penetration of only around 20% and development restricted to richer areas such as Java, the market has much latent growth potential. However, the country's uneven development, and resultant digital divide, is a major barrier to faster growth within this potentially huge IT market.

Industry Developments

In H109 a ministerial decree directed that local government offices across Indonesia must adopt open source software (OSS) by 2011. The mayor of Surabaya revealed in July 2009 that his city had launched a pilot project for OSS applications. According to the mayor, all Surabaya municipal offices were now using the software, and civil servants had been given relevant training. The local government hoped that the municipality could save between 20% and 25% of its budget.

E-government is expected to emerge as an area of growing opportunity for IT vendors over the next couple of years. Currently, several ministries at both federal and province level are planning to implement projects. In 2008, a number of projects were launched, including an e-procurement system by the State Ministry for State Enterprise, which covered 25 state-owned enterprises, including state oil and gas company Pertamina and state electricity company Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN).

The government is also rolling out new e-learning initiatives, which could see education's share of the local IT spending rise from its estimated level of around 4%. The current ratio of PCs to students in public schools is around 1:3,200, and the government wants to increase this to 1:20. As there are 53mn students in Indonesia's schools system, this would require at least 2.5mn computers.

Indonesia Information Technology Report Q4 2009 Â© Business Monitor International Ltd Page 6 Competitive Landscape Multinational vendors dominate the Indonesian brand PC market leaders, with Acer currently boasting the edge in both notebook and desktop segments. In addition to HP and Acer, the rest of the top five comprises of Dell, Lenovo and Zyrex. While locally assembled 'white boxes' still claim up to 60% of the local PC market, a number of local PC and notebooks brands also enjoy increasing success, including Zyrex and Ion.

Acer is thought to have a market share of more than 40% for notebooks. In 2009 the Taiwanese vendor continued to expand its presence across both notebook and desktop segments with more product releases.

Meanwhile, HP has pledged to reclaim top spot in the Indonesian market from Acer at some point in H110 and has been aggressive in launching new notebook and netbook series.

IT services vendors have reported a growing demand in the telecoms, manufacturing and banking sectors.

Oracle has an agreement with local IT solutions provider PT Sigma Cipta Caraka (Sigma) to provide outsourcing services. Meanwhile, e-government is also being eyed by IT services vendors as a potential growth area. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said that it had targeted the government as a future growth driver in the Indonesian market. Currently, TCS's 15 local clients are principally from sectors such as banking and financial services, telecoms and media.

Hardware

The report forecasts 2009 Indonesia computer hardware spending of around US$2.5bn, up from US$2.4bn last year. Growth decelerated in 2009 and is forecast to be in low single digits this year before ticking up again in 2010. Double-digit growth is expected to resume in 2011, with the market rising to a value of nearly US$4.0bn by 2013.

Early results for 2009 were encouraging, due largely to notebook sales, which surged thanks to the popularity of netbooks; notebook sales grew faster than desktops in H109. In the current environment, the most promising growth driver is perhaps the consumer segment, which accounts for around 25% of computer demand. The main drivers are growing affordability and more credit availability.

Software

For 2009, software sales are projected at US$402mn, up from an estimated US$377mn in 2008, despite the current economic slowdown. There were signs in H109 that many firms planned to increase software spending. One market inhibitor is the continuing software piracy problem, which, by the local government's own figures, loses Indonesian software companies alone more than US$100mn a year.

Over the forecast period, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software continues to be of most interest to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) market as currently only around 20% of Indonesian SMEs are estimated to make use of IT.

IT Services

Indonesia's IT services market is projected to be worth US$589mn in 2009, recording year-on-year (y-oy) growth of 4% from US$564mn in 2008. Currently, IT services account for only 17% of the country's hardware-centric IT market sales. Hardware deployment services remain the largest Indonesian IT services category, with approximately a 20% share.

In 2009, the banking sector continued to provide opportunities for IT vendors, despite the fallout from the global financial crisis. Banks continued with transformation strategies driven by factors such as new technologies & services and regulatory compliance. However, most opportunities are currently in fundamental service areas such as system integration, support systems, training, professional services, outsourcing and internet services.

E-Readiness

Low telephone line density, high charges and low PC penetration are all significant obstacles to higher internet penetration. However, the picture is not all bad as there are signs of faster growth in user numbers, and recent surveys have shown that, among a very small elite, there is fast adoption, by regional standards, of broadband and a willingness to pay for video conferencing, security and other additional features. The government is encouraging fixed wireless deployments, including WiMAX, to bring the internet to more remote areas.

The government is also rolling out an internet-based National Education Network, which involves 1,000 network points in five clusters nationwide, designed to facilitate the use of the internet in schools. Despite some advances in e-education, constraints remain due to poor infrastructure and lack of public awareness in a country where only 20mn people own fixed-line telephones.

FAQ: All you need to try out the Office 2010 Beta

2009-11-20T04:48:00.009+07:00

Everyone can get Microsoft's next-gen productivity suite, but all the pieces aren't ready

Computerworld, Gregg Keizer, November 19, 2009 01:51 PM ET

As anticipated, Microsoft yesterday launched the first, and likely only, public beta of Office 2010.

Because this is the last available-to-all milestone for the new suite, Microsoft's geared up to get the beta into the hands of a very large group. "Instead of tens of thousands who tried the Technical Preview, now we're talking about millions and million of people," Takeshi Numoto, the corporate vice president for Office, said in an interview Wednesday.

On your end, the best thing about Office 2010 Beta is that you can use it free-of-charge for nearly a year: The preview won't expire until Oct. 31, 2010.

But what does our expert say? "Anyone interested in Office should get a copy of this beta," wrote Preston Gralla in his first-take review. "It was solid and performed well without crashing once. I experienced none of the slowness that you sometimes do with betas."

You can find out whether Gralla's right by downloading the beta and giving Office 2010 a spin yourself. But where is it, how do you install it, what do you need to run it, and how do you get rid of it if it's a can of worms?

Questions, questions, questions. Here are our answers.

When can I download the beta?That's easy: Now. Microsoft rolled out the beta during a keynote at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) mid-day Wednesday.

Where do I get it? The public download is available from the Microsoft site, on this page.

Office 2010, by the way, is the first Microsoft suite to be offered in both 32- and 64-bit versions. Choose the version that fits your operating system. You can check to see whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit edition of Windows 7 by clicking the Start button, then clicking Control Panel and System Maintenance. Click System.

Follow the instructions here for checking Vista and XP.

Is Microsoft limiting who can download the beta, like it did with the Technical Preview, or the number of people who can have it?No, there is no numerical cap on the number of downloads for Office 2010.

It's unclear whether Microsoft will set a time limit on Office 2010 Beta, as it did for Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) last summer. "I'm not sure if we have a specific plan to shut off availability at some point," said Numoto. Microsoft does plan, however, on making sure "millions and millions" of users are able to download and try the preview, Numoto added.

What edition of Office 2010 is the beta? At the Nov. 18 debut, the version offered everyone was Office Professional Plus 2010, the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink collection.

Global CIO: Building A Brand Takes IT Flexibility

2009-11-18T21:38:00.003+07:00

There are fundamental differences in how marketing and IT see their roles, and the world. And it's bad for a company's brand when the CIO and marketing execs don't get along.

InformationWeek, By Brian Gillooly, November 17, 2009 03:04 PM

When my colleague Chris Murphy recently raised the issue of IT's impact on brand, and specifically the role the CIO plays in brand development, a reader responded by calling Chris' thoughts "blindingly obvious." The reader later added, "I can't believe that there's a CIO on the planet who doesn't understand this."

Sadly, there are plenty of CIOs who don't understand this, or at least don't pay heed to it to the extent it deserves in the rapidly unfolding collaborative IT environment. It's an environment in which customers, who ultimately determine what a brand means and what value it has, are increasingly taking control of their own buying experiences through the use of collaborative technologies and social media.

Forbes CIO Mykolas Rambus talks about managing cost cutting, the changing role of the CIO, building leadership within, and his company's high priority on mining intelligence from vast amounts of data.

Chris' column prompted a call from Bruce Rogow, a good friend of mine who speaks with more CIOs than anyone I know through his "IT Odyssey," a trek Bruce makes each year across the country and during which he visits with an average of 120 CIOs and other executives. His mission is simply to better understand the role of the CIO and the impact of IT and to track changes in how IT is used and valued in the organization. Bruce told me that recently he's been making an effort to meet with both the CIO and top marketing folks at some of the firms he visits to better understand the impact of IT on the brand. It's part of a project he's working on for Don Tapscott's nGenera Insights program called "Marketing 2.0."

Bruce says that, by and large, marketing people and IT people just don't get along. That might not surprise some (especially those who think that IT people don't get along with anybody!) The reason is that there's a fundamental difference in how each group thinks about its role: While this is admittedly a generalization, IT people tend to look at things linearly and in absolutes; marketing people tend to look at things conceptually and more fluidly. The problem is, both are responsible for building, protecting, and projecting the brand, so they've got to figure out a way to communicate and work together better.

In most of Rogow's Odyssey visits, he says IT and marketing--and specifically many CIOs and CMOs--simply don't get along. In one visit, he sat with the CIO awaiting someone from marketing who never showed. In a conversation that Rogow says typifies the relationship between the two officers at many companies, the CIO told Rogow he wasn't surprised by the no-show and that he "can't stand the [CMO]." According to Rogow, a staggering 10% or less of the 150 or so CIOs he's met with in the past year described the relationship with marketing in a positive way.

But the problem doesn't lie just with marketing, or with a perception (accurate or not) that IT is a weird science that few others can hope to grasp. One part of the problem, and a very correctable one, is the need for IT to become more flexible, says Rogow. IT has to figure out a way to work differently--become more agile, assign the right people to a project, worry about nuances that they may have dismissed before, and understand they're dealing with people who sometimes don't quite know what they're asking for. As I said earlier, marketing tends to focus on a concept--unlike, say, manufacturing, which generally knows what it wants from IT.

This need for flexibility in a collaborative world as a means of building the brand is most apparent when you consider that, in their research on the Marketing 2.0 project, the nGenera Insight folks discovered that there are at least 81 distinct IT customer touch points. These include some of the obvious like order status systems, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as things like kiosks, mobile applets, and online simulations. That's a lot of links in the brand chain that have to be firing on all cylinders, and it creates quite a burden on IT moving forward. CIOs who don't get that are in for a world of hurt when a disgruntled customer decides to use some of those 81 touch points to express displeasure among equally influential customer cohorts.

Rogow says there are three primary reasons that IT has begun influencing the marketing experience, and therefore the brand, so much over the past three to five years.

First, marketing has shifted dramatically to include the customer experience, partly due to technology, and partly as result of a cultural phenomenon. The second is the number of times and ways that IT is touching the customer today (those 81 distinct touch points). And the third is how IT is delivered, which can have a profound impact on customers' perception of brand.

While Rogow claims that the assertion in Chris Murphy's column by Andy Bateman, CEO of Interbrand New York, that, in building brands, "the CIO is as important a change agent as the CMO" is a bit of hyperbole, he agrees wholeheartedly with the concept that the CIO and IT are integral to helping define the value of the brand.

So what should CIOs do? One is to work on relationships. At companies where the IT and marketing teams are doing well at brand management, the CIO has generally, over a period of time, developed a working relationship at the senior level, executive management level, and staff level, where there is now a certain amount of both trust and distinctive competence. What's critical, says Rogow, is to force what one CIO called "trust incidents" between IT and marketing, as well as between IT and the customer. Don't assume that if you have confidence in one particular area, such as building supply chain systems, that your IT teams have the skills and working relationship to automatically succeed with another area of the business, such as creating effective mobile applets for the marketing department. Keep working at it.

It also may require another look at the enterprise architecture. Some companies will hire an IT person to work in marketing, and vice versa, and assume cross-pollination will just work. But that may only be a cosmetic solution: If you have 16 order-entry systems, Rogow says, you've still got a problem because of the confusion and complexity it can create for a marketing department. "You've got to get lean" by streamlining and cutting wasteful processes and systems, he says.

Ultimately, says Rogow, where CIOs and IT teams are great at developing order-entry and inventory systems, managing PCs, and building global supply chains, one of the next major challenges for IT is to step up to support the brand, and to ensure that the company is aware of IT's role in that.

Twitter has replaced RSS, claims Unilever exec

2009-11-18T00:48:00.010+07:00

StrategyEye, by Andrew McDonald, 17th November 2009

As a business tool Twitter is now more powerful than RSS, according to the VP of global communications and planning at brand giant, Unilever.Speaking onstage at the 140 Characters Conference in London, Unilever’s Babs Rangagiah claims that the microblogging platform has surpassed its consumer origins.

“I think Twitter is the single best business tool I have now,” Rangagiah says. “In many ways it’s replaced my RSS feeds. It’s replaced how many different newspapers I go to. I used to go to a bunch of places [on the web] on any given morning, to get any information about what we’re doing for work, for our brands, for business, for statistics. All of that now, I feel, based on the followers that I have, I get through Twitter and the links [on Twitter].”

Rangagiah adds that for marketing products, it is essential for brands to reach out to the public.

“It is critical in today’s world, when you are marketing to people, to really live the space. Not just to read about it and to hear about it, but to be out there. I think anybody that’s in media today – media, entertainment and technology – has to be using Twitter. It’s just part of the job.”

Unilever is responsible for a host of household brands, such as PG Tips, Persil and Flora.

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