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Saturday, November 21, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Local and global firms join in with Strength Thailand
Local and international PC vendors have joined the 4-billion-baht computer bidding project of the Office of the Basic Education Commission, running under the three-year "Strength Thailand" project, which covers more than 400,000 PCs - of which some 100,000 units are to be procured for the first batch.
V Technology, of DCom Group, has teamed up with local PC manufacturer Atec Computers and says it is ready in terms of capacity and service network.
According to V Technology System managing director Nathapong P, V Tech will be responsible for distribution channels and supply chain, while Atec will handle product specifications and manufacturing processes.
"Having many players is of benefit to the project in terms of service because there is dissemination of computer dealers," Nathapong said, noting that the company expects to have some 10-15 percent of the total project value.
The advantage of V Tech is the supply chain because components are delivered by DCom, so the cost is more efficient than other vendors, especially international brands,that have to ship in their products.
"We try to link the system with DCom's dropping point centre which has networks nationwide and this will shortcut the procedure of system integrators and dealers," the managing director said, adding that the DCom network will boost the efficiency of the services offered to schools.
The company has a target to enter some 3,000-4,000 schools by working with some 80 dealers nationwide. The first year will see an on-site service and after that the service network of DCom will handle matters.
Atec Computer assistant vice president Jatupong Rongklad said that Atec machines have qualified in lab tests.They include machines for general processing, the server and the client for students, and now they are preparing for demonstrations this month.
The capacity production is ready,he said, adding that 20,000-30,000 units should suffice.
Nathapong added that next year the company will propose the government makes the procurement more open so all dealers nationwide can partake in the project and help schools make the right decisions based on the central specifications.
According to SVOA CEO Vira Intanate, the company will partner with international vendors such as Dell and Samsung to supply computer servers and printers.
The company will work with its 300 dealers nationwide to support the project, he said, adding that SVOA aims to increase 10 percent of its sales revenue if they win the project.
Vira noted that readiness in products delivery and price are advantages of SVOA.
Key players such as Acer, Hewlett Packard will also share the project biddings.
V Technology, of DCom Group, has teamed up with local PC manufacturer Atec Computers and says it is ready in terms of capacity and service network.
According to V Technology System managing director Nathapong P, V Tech will be responsible for distribution channels and supply chain, while Atec will handle product specifications and manufacturing processes.
"Having many players is of benefit to the project in terms of service because there is dissemination of computer dealers," Nathapong said, noting that the company expects to have some 10-15 percent of the total project value.
The advantage of V Tech is the supply chain because components are delivered by DCom, so the cost is more efficient than other vendors, especially international brands,that have to ship in their products.
"We try to link the system with DCom's dropping point centre which has networks nationwide and this will shortcut the procedure of system integrators and dealers," the managing director said, adding that the DCom network will boost the efficiency of the services offered to schools.
The company has a target to enter some 3,000-4,000 schools by working with some 80 dealers nationwide. The first year will see an on-site service and after that the service network of DCom will handle matters.
Atec Computer assistant vice president Jatupong Rongklad said that Atec machines have qualified in lab tests.They include machines for general processing, the server and the client for students, and now they are preparing for demonstrations this month.
The capacity production is ready,he said, adding that 20,000-30,000 units should suffice.
Nathapong added that next year the company will propose the government makes the procurement more open so all dealers nationwide can partake in the project and help schools make the right decisions based on the central specifications.
According to SVOA CEO Vira Intanate, the company will partner with international vendors such as Dell and Samsung to supply computer servers and printers.
The company will work with its 300 dealers nationwide to support the project, he said, adding that SVOA aims to increase 10 percent of its sales revenue if they win the project.
Vira noted that readiness in products delivery and price are advantages of SVOA.
Key players such as Acer, Hewlett Packard will also share the project biddings.
Making books affordable
The National Book Fair starting tomorrow flashed me back to several similar real-life dramas I saw at the last event earlier this year. A girl looked desperately at a colourful book while the mother rushed her to move on to other stalls as she could not afford the price. At another booth selling history magazines and pocketbooks, a boy arrived to show the seller all his money and asked how many books he could get from the amount. It's a pity for many children that they cannot read any book they want as their families cannot afford pricey children's books.
What I witnessed seems to contradict the government's publicity aimed at fostering youths' reading habits -with a vow that reading is the foundation of intellectual development. The cabinet in August adopted "reading" as the national agenda and 2009-2019 has been designated a "decade of reading". A committee promoting the reading chaired by the Education Ministry will drive the agenda to reality.
But how can poor children in the countryside have a chance to read good non-textbooks as many of them still don't have enough food to eat in a day? One easy answer is, going to a school or community library. But I am still sceptical about the titles available in those libraries,whether they are attractive enough to draw the interest of young children. Another issue is how many community libraries does Thailand have? Are they accessible to rural children?
The government is currently campaigning aggressively to establish a "creative economy" with a hefty budget of around 20 billion baht. Supporting the private sector to produce more affordable quality children's books should be put in this scheme as certainly books would better fit the criteria of a creative economy than fixing damaged fences at an ancient site. The government has for decades provided incentives to promote investment in several industries and services to drive the economy. Is it possible for publishers to be given some incentives to print quality reading materials so they can produce lower-priced books to serve the public? I believe Thai publishers have tried their best to publish good books but have not succeeded in knocking down the price to an affordable level for low and medium-income families.
The book distribution system is another worrying factor that can determine the survival of many publishing houses,especially small ones. Currently, most publishers pin their hopes on sales at the National Book Fair, organised twice a year in Bangkok, plus a few times on a smaller scale in the major provinces.
Several small publishers say over half of their annual sales are generated by the two fairs, forcing them to print out new titles at the fair to avoid missing the most important marketing opportunities.The process partly results in inferior quality of the books, proven by errors in the first edition or more updated information in later editions.
A study by the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand shows that 13,348 titles were introduced to the market in 2008 or 36.57 new titles each day. Imagine how difficult it is for a publisher to roll out a best-selling book amidst all the new titles put on shelves each day.
Thailand had 512 publishers as of last year - around 83%were small publishers with less than 30 million baht in annual sales,7% were large publishers with over 100 million baht sales. The rest were medium-sized. However, the medium and large publishers controlled 86% of the 18.9-billion-baht sales in 2008.That sales structure will be similar to this year's projected figure of 19-19.2 billion baht. What will be different is the the diminishing share of small publishers who cannot withstand the economic struggle and are losing liquidity to continue their business.
With the fair's fixed schedule, book readers, especially in Bangkok, are waiting to shop for new books from the over-crowded events - estimated to attract 1.5 million fairgoers in each edition. They would cut their visits to local bookshops as publishers normally give discounts of 20-50% in exchange for getting cash and bypassing the distributing agents. This is one of the reasons why individually-owned bookshops are unlikely to survive in Thailand. Only chain-bookstores are flourishing. The association's statistics counted 2,995 active bookshops last year, a sharp rise from 1,913 in 2007 as the figure included small Book Smile corners at 7-Eleven convenience stores.
Thailand is still far from being a knowledge-based economy as average spending per year of the Thai people on books is only 300 baht. The government will need great concrete efforts to cultivate the reading habit, which will become true only when books are affordable and accessible to all who want to read them.
What I witnessed seems to contradict the government's publicity aimed at fostering youths' reading habits -with a vow that reading is the foundation of intellectual development. The cabinet in August adopted "reading" as the national agenda and 2009-2019 has been designated a "decade of reading". A committee promoting the reading chaired by the Education Ministry will drive the agenda to reality.
But how can poor children in the countryside have a chance to read good non-textbooks as many of them still don't have enough food to eat in a day? One easy answer is, going to a school or community library. But I am still sceptical about the titles available in those libraries,whether they are attractive enough to draw the interest of young children. Another issue is how many community libraries does Thailand have? Are they accessible to rural children?
The government is currently campaigning aggressively to establish a "creative economy" with a hefty budget of around 20 billion baht. Supporting the private sector to produce more affordable quality children's books should be put in this scheme as certainly books would better fit the criteria of a creative economy than fixing damaged fences at an ancient site. The government has for decades provided incentives to promote investment in several industries and services to drive the economy. Is it possible for publishers to be given some incentives to print quality reading materials so they can produce lower-priced books to serve the public? I believe Thai publishers have tried their best to publish good books but have not succeeded in knocking down the price to an affordable level for low and medium-income families.
The book distribution system is another worrying factor that can determine the survival of many publishing houses,especially small ones. Currently, most publishers pin their hopes on sales at the National Book Fair, organised twice a year in Bangkok, plus a few times on a smaller scale in the major provinces.
Several small publishers say over half of their annual sales are generated by the two fairs, forcing them to print out new titles at the fair to avoid missing the most important marketing opportunities.The process partly results in inferior quality of the books, proven by errors in the first edition or more updated information in later editions.
A study by the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand shows that 13,348 titles were introduced to the market in 2008 or 36.57 new titles each day. Imagine how difficult it is for a publisher to roll out a best-selling book amidst all the new titles put on shelves each day.
Thailand had 512 publishers as of last year - around 83%were small publishers with less than 30 million baht in annual sales,7% were large publishers with over 100 million baht sales. The rest were medium-sized. However, the medium and large publishers controlled 86% of the 18.9-billion-baht sales in 2008.That sales structure will be similar to this year's projected figure of 19-19.2 billion baht. What will be different is the the diminishing share of small publishers who cannot withstand the economic struggle and are losing liquidity to continue their business.
With the fair's fixed schedule, book readers, especially in Bangkok, are waiting to shop for new books from the over-crowded events - estimated to attract 1.5 million fairgoers in each edition. They would cut their visits to local bookshops as publishers normally give discounts of 20-50% in exchange for getting cash and bypassing the distributing agents. This is one of the reasons why individually-owned bookshops are unlikely to survive in Thailand. Only chain-bookstores are flourishing. The association's statistics counted 2,995 active bookshops last year, a sharp rise from 1,913 in 2007 as the figure included small Book Smile corners at 7-Eleven convenience stores.
Thailand is still far from being a knowledge-based economy as average spending per year of the Thai people on books is only 300 baht. The government will need great concrete efforts to cultivate the reading habit, which will become true only when books are affordable and accessible to all who want to read them.
Magnificent seven
In the most important, most revered event since the invention of the brontosaurus trap,Microsoft shipped the most incredibly fabulous operating system ever made; the release of Windows 7 also spurred a new generation of personal computers of all sizes at prices well below last month's offers.The top reason Windows 7 does not suck: There is no registered website called Windows7Sucks.com
Kindle e-book reader maker Amazon.com and new Nook e-book reader vendor Barnes and Noble got it on; B&N got great reviews for the "Kindle killer"Nook, with dual screens and touch controls so you can "turn" pages, plays MP3s and allows many non-B&N book formats, although not the Kindle one;Amazon then killed the US version of its Kindle in favour of the international one, reduced its price to $260(8,700 baht), same as the Nook; it's not yet clear what you can get in Thailand with a Nook, but you sure can't (yet) get much, relatively speaking, with a Kindle;but here's the biggest difference so far,which Amazon.com has ignored: the Nook lets you lend e-books to any other Nook owner, just as if they were paper books; the borrowed books expire on the borrower's Nook in two weeks.
Phone maker Nokia of Finland announced it is suing iPhone maker Apple of America for being a copycat; lawyers said they figure Nokia can get at least one, probably two per cent (retail) for every iPhone sold by Steve "President for Life" Jobs and crew via the lawsuit,which sure beats working for it -$6 (200 baht) to $12(400 baht) on 30 million phones sold so far, works out to $400 million or 25 percent of the whole Apple empire profits during the last quarter;there were 10 patent thefts, the Finnish executives said, on everything from moving data to security and encryption.
Nokia of Finland announced that it is one month behind on shipping its new flagship N900 phone, the first to run on Linux software; delay of the $750(25,000 baht) phone had absolutely no part in making Nokia so short that it had to sue Apple, slap yourself for such a thought.
Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, said he had one regret:the double slash that follows the "http:"in standard web addresses; he estimated that 14.2 gazillion users have wasted 48.72 bazillion hours typing those two keystrokes, and he's sorry; of course there's no reason to ever type that, since your browser does it for you when you type "www.bangkokpost.com" but Tim needs to admit he made one error in his lifetime.
The International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, which doesn't sell any phones or services, announced that there should be a mobile phone charger that will work with any phone; now who would ever have thought of that, without a UN body to wind up a major study on the subject?;the GSM Association estimates that 51,000 tonnes of chargers are made each year in order to keep companies able to have their own unique ones.
The Well, Doh Award of the Week was presented at arm's length to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the group's deputy secretary-general Petko Draganov said that developing countries will miss some of the stuff available on the Internet if they don't install more broadband infrastructure; a report that used your tax baht to compile said that quite a few people use mobile phones but companies are more likely to invest in countries with excellent broadband connections; no one ever had thought of this before, right?
Sun Microsystems , as a result of the Oracle takeover, said it will allow 3,000 current workers never to bother coming to work again; Sun referred to the losses as "jobs," not people; now the fourth largest server maker in the world, Sun said it lost $2.2 billion in its last fiscal year; European regulators are holding up approval of the Oracle purchase in the hope of getting some money in exchange for not involving Oracle in court cases.
The multi-gazillionaire and very annoying investor Carl Icahn resigned from the board at Yahoo ; he spun it as a vote of confidence, saying current directors are taking the formerly threatened company seriously; Yahoo reported increased profits but smaller revenues in the third quarter.
The US House of Representatives voted to censure Vietnam for jailing bloggers; the non-binding resolution sponsored by southern California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said the Internet is "a crucial tool for the citizens of Vietnam to be able to exercise their freedom of expression and association;"Hanoi has recently jailed at least nine activists for up to six years apiece for holding pro-democracy banners. Iran jailed blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan for 10 months - in solitary confinement.
Kindle e-book reader maker Amazon.com and new Nook e-book reader vendor Barnes and Noble got it on; B&N got great reviews for the "Kindle killer"Nook, with dual screens and touch controls so you can "turn" pages, plays MP3s and allows many non-B&N book formats, although not the Kindle one;Amazon then killed the US version of its Kindle in favour of the international one, reduced its price to $260(8,700 baht), same as the Nook; it's not yet clear what you can get in Thailand with a Nook, but you sure can't (yet) get much, relatively speaking, with a Kindle;but here's the biggest difference so far,which Amazon.com has ignored: the Nook lets you lend e-books to any other Nook owner, just as if they were paper books; the borrowed books expire on the borrower's Nook in two weeks.
Phone maker Nokia of Finland announced it is suing iPhone maker Apple of America for being a copycat; lawyers said they figure Nokia can get at least one, probably two per cent (retail) for every iPhone sold by Steve "President for Life" Jobs and crew via the lawsuit,which sure beats working for it -$6 (200 baht) to $12(400 baht) on 30 million phones sold so far, works out to $400 million or 25 percent of the whole Apple empire profits during the last quarter;there were 10 patent thefts, the Finnish executives said, on everything from moving data to security and encryption.
Nokia of Finland announced that it is one month behind on shipping its new flagship N900 phone, the first to run on Linux software; delay of the $750(25,000 baht) phone had absolutely no part in making Nokia so short that it had to sue Apple, slap yourself for such a thought.
Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, said he had one regret:the double slash that follows the "http:"in standard web addresses; he estimated that 14.2 gazillion users have wasted 48.72 bazillion hours typing those two keystrokes, and he's sorry; of course there's no reason to ever type that, since your browser does it for you when you type "www.bangkokpost.com" but Tim needs to admit he made one error in his lifetime.
The International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, which doesn't sell any phones or services, announced that there should be a mobile phone charger that will work with any phone; now who would ever have thought of that, without a UN body to wind up a major study on the subject?;the GSM Association estimates that 51,000 tonnes of chargers are made each year in order to keep companies able to have their own unique ones.
The Well, Doh Award of the Week was presented at arm's length to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the group's deputy secretary-general Petko Draganov said that developing countries will miss some of the stuff available on the Internet if they don't install more broadband infrastructure; a report that used your tax baht to compile said that quite a few people use mobile phones but companies are more likely to invest in countries with excellent broadband connections; no one ever had thought of this before, right?
Sun Microsystems , as a result of the Oracle takeover, said it will allow 3,000 current workers never to bother coming to work again; Sun referred to the losses as "jobs," not people; now the fourth largest server maker in the world, Sun said it lost $2.2 billion in its last fiscal year; European regulators are holding up approval of the Oracle purchase in the hope of getting some money in exchange for not involving Oracle in court cases.
The multi-gazillionaire and very annoying investor Carl Icahn resigned from the board at Yahoo ; he spun it as a vote of confidence, saying current directors are taking the formerly threatened company seriously; Yahoo reported increased profits but smaller revenues in the third quarter.
The US House of Representatives voted to censure Vietnam for jailing bloggers; the non-binding resolution sponsored by southern California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said the Internet is "a crucial tool for the citizens of Vietnam to be able to exercise their freedom of expression and association;"Hanoi has recently jailed at least nine activists for up to six years apiece for holding pro-democracy banners. Iran jailed blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan for 10 months - in solitary confinement.
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