Keeping an eye on Chinese phones

Interesting to see a lot of traffic recently coming from a post on Yahoo’s finance boards; this is to my post discussing the CECT T100 – the phone with biometric security. It seems I’m not the only one interested in what’s going on with Chinese phone design.

From that Yahoo! thread, I see that the T100 is available for CNY1380, or SGD270 – which is a pretty good price. Some Beijing-based friends are coming to Singapore soon; perhaps I should ask them to bring me one…

Apparently the T100 is being very well-received within China; at least, so say China Economic Review.

The development of biometric security for phones very much seems to be  driven by Asian demand. A quick review finds that:

• LG are introducing fingerprint-access phones for the Korean market.
• Hitachi bringing out a model in Japan.

Singapore, of course, is home to the most notorious example of the dangers of losing your phone. My own phone didn’t have anything controversial on it in the least, but as  our phones increasingly become our gateway to our online selves, our address-book of first resort, our digital recorders of our everyday curiosity…. the need for better security is clear. This is a trend to watch.

The enduring power of… memory

I was discussing computer game design recently with a young Singaporean, and asked him: if he were to design a computer game for his grandmother, what would it be like? Without missing a beat, he said “Killing Japanese”. Thus, the enduring memories in South-east Asia.

Looking for a new phone

A year ago, I bought a Nokia 6708, largely for the stylus input and Chinese dictionary. I was pretty happy with it at first, but I have to say that I gradually became more and more dissatisfied. It blue-screened quite a bit, frequently hung and needed a reboot, and regularlt seemed to just turn itself off. It took ages to boot. The lack of letters on the keyboard gradually became a real nuisance. I found that I hardly ever used the Chinese dictionary. The USB connection to my Windows XP laptop was really fussy, and hardly ever seemed to work, so I couldn’t transfer files. The camera quality was pretty lousy. I began to think about getting a replacement.

Then two weeks ago I accidentally left it in a taxi. I’ve filed lost property reports, but it hasn’t shown up and probably never will. I’ve been using my old Nokia 6108, but it’s really obsolete now – especially as I can’t transfer my contacts from my laptop, and there’s no way I’m going to type them all in manually! I had been planning to hang on a few months until Meizu MiniOne is released, but now I can’t wait that long.

Actually, the timing is a bit serendipitous. I’d also been thinking that I need:

• a music player. The Zling Nax (Chinese clone of an iPod Nano) that I bought as an experiment is actually pretty crap, with terrible battery life and sound.
• mobile internet. The 6708 was actually internet-enabled, but my current phone plan doesn’t include data transfer; I signed up for this plan when I first came to Singapore in 2002! My contract has long since expired, but I’ve never got around to changing anything

I’m even more convinced that I need mobile internet after reading this O’Reilly Radar article by Peter Brantley. The points he makes about the way the Millennials (he just says “younger generation”) work – constantly online, social, self-organising, flat hierarchy – are spot on, and remind me of things I was thinking about quite a bit last year: how is this going to work out in Asia? The cultural changes and power shifts that are being driven by ubiquitous multimedia technology, social tools, and mobile internetmean that it’s not just about management styles any more. Here in Singapore, the government is reaching an uneasy modus vivendi with the internet-enabled voice of its citizens, but I’m not sure how it’s going to work out. During the recent protests in Myanmar, we’ve seen how important mobile phone cameras and internet access were – to the extent that the junta were forced to simply cut off all internet access to the outside world. China, of course, will be watching all of this very carefully indeed. However, I’m straying into what’s going to be a separate blog post!

So: I need a new phone, mobile internet, and an mp3 player. To get internet access, I need to sign a new contract. If I sign a new contract, I get discounts on a number of handsets, one of which is the Nokia N73 “Music Edition” which, to be honest, seems to cover all bases, except that it doesn’t have wifi… Seems to be a good choice, though, at S$368, which is what M1 are offering…

A view from Asia

Recently, I got asked to write a piece, in 300 words, about the global economy. A tall order! Bearing in mind that the target audience isn’t likely to be particularly aware of what’s going on in Asia, I couldn’t assume any prior knowledge. So, I decided to pitch it in a personal narrative format. On the basis of this, I’ve been asked to rewrite it in a longer form, with a more political spin, which I’m working on. Anyhow, here’s the original version (all rights reserved, copyright claimed, yadda yadda yadda!):

It’s 7am in Singapore. The view from my desk looks over a patch of jungle to the sea, flat and glowing gold in the early tropical sunlight. In the distance are palm-fringed islands, part of the Riau archipelago. Through the open window, the birds chirp and whoop; whiffs drift in of the incense being burned by the elderly caretaker at the Taoist altar in the car park, many floors below.

It might be a Joseph Conrad story – apart from the gargantuan cargo ship, stacked high with containers, which floats lazily just offshore. It’s one of dozens that will pass my window today on their way to China, carrying scrap metal, pig carcasses, telecoms equipment, water treatment plants, and Swiss watches: the lowest and highest ends of what Europe produces. Later, the tide will turn, and yet more ships will slip into the channel between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, heading for the Indian Ocean, and carrying – well, most of what you’re going to buy anytime soon.

Also in view is Singapore’s Art Deco railway station, the terminus of a line that will soon be able to take goods and travelers non-stop through Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, up to China’s Yunnan Province. From there, one way leads to Myanmar and the new Irrawaddy shipping lanes, or on to India. Another way leads up to northern China, and onwards to the Central Asian ‘stans, or the Karakoram highway to Pakistan.

Asia is reconnecting itself, and forming once more into a market that’s been disrupted since the Europeans first arrived. As barriers fall, incomes are rising, creating an internal economy that might someday overtake the EU and US. There is a definite energy and optimism, as people look forward to a better future. Of course, there are less positive sides to this development – but there’s a lot of good news too, and today, it’s pleasant to watch the ships and trains pass on their way.

Migration patterns of white-collar jobs

I’ve been singing the praises of IBM recently, from a social technologies point of view, because of the way they’re using tools like Second Life and Xing. A lot of this is aimed at their growing workforce in China, and I guess India isn’t far behind.

Of course, there’s a downside: this is the migration of those jobs from the West, especially, the US, to cheaper developing economies. In IBM’s case, this has become very controversial following Bob Cringely’s series of articles on IBM’s LEAN process.  I took the time yesterday to read the comment thread on his previous article on the topic, and it’s very interesting from an MBA point of view.

Naturally, businesses seek to cut costs; this is natural. However, of course, you don’t do this if you have a good reason to go the other way and charge a premium. IBM seems to have been in the latter category: the huge amount of experience, domain-specific knowledge, and talent that the company could draw on gave excellent value for money even if the  price was higher. If these comments are representative, however, it seems that the current IBM management are cutting their most knowledgable (and most expensive) employees in order to cut costs, and replacing them with cheaper – because inexperienced – hires in developing economies such as Argentina, South Africa, and of course Asia.

This seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater: employee costs are reduced, but customer satisfaction is also plummeting, because the exit of specialised knowledge leads to longer problem resolution times. It seems many customers won’t be renewing their contracts – and at the same time, the remaining talent at IBM is overworked, demoralised, and looking for an exit. IF those comments are representative. If they are, then the future doesn’t look so rosy for Big Blue.

On a broader scope, though, this outsourcing of white-collar jobs is still gathering steam. A common complaint, and one that relates to the IBM comments, is that the Asian employees getting the new jobs are unable to think creatively, and can only do exactly what they are told to do – even if there are errors that they are expected to detect.  It’s something I’ve referred to before, and certainly applies even here in Singapore.

I’m talking about this because I’ve just been looking at old posts, and see that even in 2003 I was looking at this trend and wondering where I would fit in – and how I would react to it.  Taking the MBA was my response, of course.

As I think about this, I can perhaps see a niche evolving where  I could see an opportunity… got to start planning for the next few years…

A new world, with Chinese characteristics

I’ve been writing about how globalization will eventually lead to world fashions being set in Asia and going West for a long time, most recently here (which is still getting a lot of hits). So, I’m always interested to see other posts on the topic, and a couple have popped up recently:

• Momus, writing in Wired, says Culture Flows Through English Channels, but Not for Long. As a Scottish writer and musician who splits his time between Berlin, New York, and Tokyo, he has an excellent perspective on the cultural and linguistic goings on.
• Asia Times online also has a very good article on how China is translating the influences of globalization into its own cultural terms – whilst simultaneously beginning to export its cultural influences to the rest of the world, who aren’t expecting it and may have to make some uncomfortable adjustments. The author is from the Shanghai-based China Europe International Business School, and so has excellent credentials for this kind of observation.

Global business social networking: Xing wins

OK, I think I made a good call on who’s winning the social networking war: I’m convinced that it will be Xing (formerly OpenBC).

I was introduced to OpenBC early on in my MBA here, and to LinkedIn just after I went on exchange to Beijing. Based on my experience with both, I observed that neither is really influential here in Singapore, but that OpenBC was far and away more popular in China. Once OpenBC changed their name to Xing, it was clear to me that they were going to be the winners, and I came out and said so, here.

LinkedIn fought back with its ‘Answers’ service, but I think that’s not enough. It has its defenders, but I thought they were missing the point, as I argued here. (And btw, I take this opportunity to apologise to Jan Meise for not responding to his comment and thoughtful article – sorry, Jan, I was too busy). However, I continued to believe that Xing, with its European background, seemed to have a better grip on the importance of language and localisation than LinkedIn did.

I’ve just seen something that, for me settles the argument:

That’s it. Game over. IBM, Second Life and Xing, all together. There must be something big coming down the pipeline to follow this up.

One thought:

Voice is coming soon to Second Life. Apparently, it will be implemented (in a very interesting way, btw) by Vivox. Still… Xing already has Skype integration; they know how to do this. LinkedIn? No. So I guess there’ll be some behind the scenes talks between Xing and Vivox….

Where can LinkedIn go to rival this? WoW and SKype? Hardly. So, my bet: Xing wins, big time, and globally.

And since I’m sure someone will ask, I have no stock or other financial interest in Xing, LinkedIn, IBM, or any other company mentioned here (save only that as I’ve said before, I’ve been willing for nearly 2 years to pay for premium membership of Xing, but couldn’t justify it for LinkedIn).

All about India

A lot of India-related topics appeared in the feeds today…

My fellow blogger from my MBA cohort, Cogito, hasn’t posted much on his Indophiles blog for a long time; I guess being married now has something to do with that, eh Cogito? However, the Indophiles RSS feed twitched in its sleep or something, and sent out a whole bunch of articles dating back a couple of years. It was opportune, because the last article discusses nanotechnology, currently much on my mind after reading the Diamond Age. Cogito links to a Red Herring article (subscriber-only, unfortunately) about Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia, who now plans to establish a nanotech city in north India…

The prominent UK thinktank Demos has just published a series of reports on innovation in Asia: The Atlas of Ideas. The four papers (one on innovation in Asia generally, and one each on India, China, and South Korea) are 10 pounds each, but there are other free downloads. The press release for the paper on India says:

“Many Indian policy makers believe that the UK is in danger of complacency, with most young Indians now choosing the US and Silicon Valley over the UK.”

(Also interesting is that apparently the researchers also spent time in Singapore: why no paper on innovation here, I wonder…?)

Meanwhile, Information Week inform us that Accenture now have more staff based in India than they do in the US:

The tipping point is here. For the first time, a major Western outsourcer will have more staff in India than in the United States, as Accenture says it plans to increase its head count on the subcontinent to 35,000 by August.

However, there is still some hope for those in Europe and the US who are willing to chase opportunity, as quantity of employees in India doesn’t necessarily equate to quality – or, these days, affordability. Asia Times discovers that executive search firms in India are fielding more and more queries from Westerners who, with their greater experience at senior levels, combined with the increasing cost of local staff, offer attractive value for money if they will relocate to India.

All of the above applies more or less accurately to China as well, of course, but the language difference complicates things more.