NEWS: Take note of market needs

Workshop participants to get tips on making their business proposals stand out.

THE most common mistake entreprenuers make when writing a business proposal is to focus exclusively on a product without taking into consideration external factors such as market needs or potential competitors.

“This problem mostly arises due to lack of research,” said HSBC Group Communications (Malaysia) and Corporate Sustainability head Elizabeth Wee (pic).

“A good business plan should be able to stand up to any query, as well as emphasise the unique selling point of the product or service in question.”

With this in mind, HSBC will be organising a business plan writing workshop for the Round One qualifiers of the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Awards 2008/2009.

Conducted by the Malaysian Institute of Charted Secretaries and Administrators chief executive officer Phillip Tan, the workshop will highlight the key points that are integral to a solid business plan.

Wee explained that the experience of the workshop facilitator, who is also from the Women’s Institute of Management, will be helpful to the young entrepreneurs.

“Through the workshop, participants will be able to gain tips on how to make their proposals stand out,” added Wee.

The need to stand out will be crucial for the 15 short-listed teams, as round two of the competition requires them to submit a full business proposal based on their original idea.

Participants from a previous workshop reading some of the materials given to them.— Filepic.

The business plans will be judged according to their innovation and creative thinking (40%), commercial viability and potential (40%) and communication skills (20%).

Up to eight teams will make it to the third and final round, where they will present their business ideas to a panel of judges.

The HSBC Young Entrepreneur Awards is an annual competition which is being held for the seventh time in Malaysia.

It was introduced with the goal of encouraging entrepreneurship and innovative thinking among undergraduates, as well as equip them with useful business skills.

The top team will not only win the Gold award worth RM15,000 to develop their business idea, but also a a one-week entrepreneurial tour to Hong Kong.

They will also get the chance to vie for the Best of the Best award worth HK$100,000 (RM46,000) in the regional competition held in Hong Kong.

The runners up for the Silver and Bronze awards will win RM10,000 and RM5,000 respectively, as well as a week-long trip to Hong Kong.

Additionally, students whose business idea includes environmental sustainability as a factor, may win the Eco-Business Innovation Award which will be judged separately.

The winning team will receive a cash prize of RM 3,000 and join the Gold, Silver and Bronze teams on the trip to Hong Kong.

The business plan writing workshop will be held at Menara Star’s Cybertorium in Petaling Jaya on Feb 4.

NEWS: More smart schools by 2011

CYBERJAYA: The Multimedia Development Corp (MDeC) is helping the Education Ministry to upgrade 50 rural and underserved schools into smart schools.

MDeC, which is custodian of the MSC Malaysia initiative, said upgrading work will be done in three phases beginning with 15 schools this year, 15 more next year and 20 in 2011. Its senior manager of smart schools, Dr Norrizan Razali, said the 50 schools located nationwide will be modelled after the country’s pioneer 88 smart schools.

MDeC will use a different approach to upgrade the rural schools to smart schools, Norrizan said.

“It will be a whole different challenge upgrading these 50 schools,” Norrizan told In.Tech in an interview recently. Unlike the first batch of smart schools, most of the rural schools are not high performing schools but she believes that ICT (information and communications technology) can help broaden the minds and improve the grades of students there.

“These schools don’t have the same kind of access to information like the first batch,” Norrizan said.

The task in the rural schools is to uplift the human capital in those schools and conduct leadership programmes to help teachers provide the benefits of ICT to their students.

“The main challenge here is in change management so we plan to sit down with the teachers and principals of the schools to enlighten them on smart schools, as well as how these will help improve the teaching and learning process,” said Norrizan.

She said MDeC and the Education Ministry will also take an inventory of the components that will need to be installed in the would-be smart schools.

MDeC and the ministry will also help the teaching faculty in each of the rural schools to optimise the ICT facilities given to them and will ensure that proper technical support is in place. “By the end of this project, MDeC also hopes to have a model to transform more rural schools into smart schools,” Norrizan said.

The upgrading of these schools, she said, gives MDeC a chance to get a hands-on approach to developing smart schools in Malaysia. Norrizan said that since the first 88 schools were transformed into smart schools between 2006 and 2008, there are now about 1,737 new smart schools in the country. “Most of them are not ranked as five-star smart schools because to get to that level, a school must use the IT facilities provided to innovate their teaching methods and I’m not talking about (just having) Powerpoint presentations,” she said.

She said the Education Ministry will help the lower-ranked smart schools improve on their IT usage so that they will eventually become five-star smart schools.

MDeC and the ministry continue to supervise the first 88 smart schools so that they can further improve themselves, Norizzan said.

Smart schools is one of the main thrusts of the Ninth Malaysia Plan, which was announced in 2005.

According to the plan, the Government is promoting the utilisation of ICT in schools to enhance the quality of education in the country.

NEWS: CYbercrimes on the rise

Calls for dedicated court to handle such cases

By STEVEN PATRICK

PETALING JAYA: National ­ cybersecurity specialist CyberSecurity Malaysia says the nation needs a dedicated “cybercourt” in view of the huge increase in cybercrimes in the ­country last year.

Lt Col (retired) Husin Jazri, CyberSecurity chief executive ­officer, told In.Tech the number of cybercrimes reported to them had more than doubled in 2008. The situation is expected to get worse.

“Last year we handled a total of 2,123 incidents which is higher than a 100% increase compared to 2007 when we handled 1,038 incidents,” he said.

Almost half of the reported ­incidents involved fraud and the remainder were about intrusions and malicious code.

Husin was commenting on a recent call by Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor for a ­dedicated cybercourt — a court that handles only cases involving ­cybercrimes.

In a Bernama report on Jan 6, Datuk Shaziman said Malaysia needs a cybercourt in view of the increasing number of such cases.

“If in future we cannot cope anymore, we may need to have a cybercourt,” he was quoted in the report.

Husin said that as the country’s cyberpopulation increases, the number of online transactions or other activities will increase in tandem, which will likely mean more incidents of cybercrime.

“It is a natural phenomena. There will inevitably be more criminals taking advantage of the situation to conduct their crimes online.

“Increases in wireless and ­broadband capacity make it easier and faster to use the Internet. Unfortunately these facilities can be also used as a medium for ­cybercrimes,” he said.

The current economic situation, in which the global economy is heading towards a recession, will also contribute to an increase in cybercrimes, he added.

Babes in woods

According to Husin, there is still insufficient cybersecurity awareness or Internet-safety practices among Malaysians using the Web.

“For example, some people are not updating their antivirus ­software and some don’t have a unique password,” he said.

CyberSecurity has a ­cybercomplaints centre, called Cyber999, where the public can e-mail or call to report incidents or complain about cyberissues such as malware infections, intrusions, online harassment, spam, malicious websites, etc.

“After we receive a report, we validate the complaint and refer the complainant to the police or help him or her lodge a complaint with the service provider or website concerned,” he said.

Husin was attending the Organisation of Islamic Conferences-Computer Emergency Response Team (OIC-CERT) Seminar 2009 in the capital recently.

He said the purpose of the ­seminar is to enable research collaboration among Islamic ­countries to deal with cyberthreats.

The idea is to share information, Husin said. “If for instance there are cyberattacks in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, they can notify us in Malaysia so we can be better prepared,” he said.

CyberSecurity comes under the purview of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. It is a one-stop co-ordination centre for national cybersecurity initiatives.

NEWS: Keeping ICT growth on track

KEY ICT players are adamant that there will be no let-up in growth for the local technology market, despite the dire outlook of the global economic landscape. Industry giants Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Dell and Microsoft say they are here for the long haul and that they aim to help both consumers and enterprises brave through this crisis through smart technology usage.

Patel points out that Intel has taken an extensive approach in broadband locally.

Yan says HP aims to go after markets beyond major towns.

Intel Malaysia’s country manager Ryaz Patel says the company is committed to manufacturing through its Penang and Kulim sites and has taken an extensive approach in broadband locally.

“The new class of product that Intel has introduced, the netbook, embraces this (strategy). The fact that connectivity is a rising necessity in both corporate and personal markets and key to productivity, also supports this drive. Globally, we’re taking a bullish approach into 2009 in the R&D (research and development) perspective,” he says, adding that Intel spent some US$5 billion (RM17.5 billion) across the globe this year.

Although the market has softened in the current fourth quarter and the outlook grim for next year, growth is still positive, according to Acer Sales & Services Sdn Bhd’s general manager Ricky Tan.

“In terms of PC penetration, there is room for growth, and Acer’s projection for next year is double-digit. The components market is set to slow down, and prices will come down. All this will allow us to make our products more competitive,” he says, adding that services and solutions will be key in Acer’s product offerings.

HP Malaysia also will continue to drive demand in the market.

“This year, we have put investments into the retail business by establishing eight HP shops operated by retailers. Next year, we will continue on this path. We aim to make our products available in smaller towns around the country and also run meaningful ICT programmes,” says company general manager, imaging and printing group Yan Yoke Ping.

Besides that, HP intends to grow the number of its retail stores by double- or triple-fold, depending

on area and the readiness of retailers.

Dell is on the same track with HP in terms of going after markets beyond major towns.

“Dell is committed to continue to invest in Malaysia and to roll out competitive products that enhance connectivity such as the netbook,” says company marketing director, Asean consumers Alex Ng.

And although cost is important, Dell is looking at service to offer a better deal to consumers, he adds.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is urging local enterprises to look at fundamentals and not put the brakes on ICT spending.

“I don’t know how long it will take to pull out of the bad times, but things will get better. Although it is important to be prudent, it must be done with more dimension so that we come out of it better. This is where investing in ICT wisely plays a role,” says Microsoft Malaysia’s managing director Yasmin Mahmood.

She highlights virtualisation, collaboration and office productivity as technology areas important for enterprises.

Packet-1 Networks’ chief executive officer Michael Lai believes that ICT is no longer just about technology, but also about being connected. By second half of next year, P1, together with Intel, will make available products that allow auto-WiMax/Wi-Fi connection for both businesses and masses, he says.

NEWS: Yahoo free email gets more social

Yahoo has began weaving trendy social networking features into its popular free e-mail service as it vies to be the preferred launching point for Internet surfers.

Yahoo says it is providing tools that let people use its e-mail service to build interactive communities based on friends and interests.

“Mail is the largest dormant social graph,” Yahoo Mail’s vice president John Kremer said while outlining enhancements to the service used by 275 million people worldwide every month.

A “smarter inbox” puts messages from friends or family in a separate, tabbed file so they don’t get buried under mountains of spam or work e-mail.

The inbox for the first time lets people install third-party applications such as movie recommendation service Flixster and blogging tools from WordPress.

Technology from startup Xoopit (pronounced as swoop-it) will fetch all pictures buried in stored e-mails, even retrieving images from Web site links found in messages.

“E-mail is a place where a lot of people live,” said Xoopit’s co-founder Bijan Marashi.

“Yahoo users have years of gems in old e-mails. There are hundreds of millions of people not on social networks, but with years of data in their e-mail.”

Yahoo Mail is being infused with a “social dimension” that builds on similar features being added to the California firm’s other Internet properties, according to Open Strategy’s director of product development Cody Simms.

Mirroring a winning move by social networking star Facebook, Yahoo opened up its platform this year to let third-party developers create fun, hip, or functional applications adapted to its online offerings.

Yahoo wants to enhance the social aspects of its Web site to attract new people to its online services and get existing users to spend more time on its advertising-supported pages.

Yahoo claims more than 500 million users worldwide but has been struggling to cash in on its popularity.

Yahoo is not trying to be a MySpace or Facebook, but wants to add “the right bits of social that make sense to our audience,” said Yahoo Audience Product Division vice president Ash Patel.

“There are maybe 150 to 250 million users on those networks,” Patel said of the top two social networking services. “With the billion people on the Web, that means some 800 million don’t use those services.”

Yahoo is aiming to give its half a billion users tools that let them better connect as a community while using its Web pages, according to Patel.

“To be a starting point in this day and age, you have to add the best of the Web – social elements,” Patel said, referring to Yahoo’s goal of being the preferred launch point for Web surfers.

“Yahoo started off linking people to the rest of the Web. It is part of our culture. It is part of our heritage.” – AFP

NEWS: Selective ICT Spending Ahead

ENTERPRISES this year are expected to take a cautious approach towards spending on ICT applications which have unclear or intangible return on investment (ROI).

Shukla expects hosted UC, hosted contact centres, managed UC services and managed security services to be in demand this year.

Frost & Sullivan’s industry manager Shivanu Shukla said enterprises will be looking at spend-to-save and focus on how technology can reduce costs and optimise resources.

According to him, among key technologies for enterprises this year are conferencing and collaboration applications, self-service applications, hosted/managed services and software-

as-a-service.

“The current economic crisis is shifting CIO (chief information officer) priorities to ROI. Preserving cash within the business is a

priority for most enterprises. Many will take a cautious approach towards spending and need to justify the investment in quantifiable measures.

“Video conferencing, Web conferencing and Web collaboration have a tangible ROI that can be measured in terms of savings on travel costs with the use of these applications. A solid business case can be made to justify investments in such technologies,” he said.

Many enterprises that have already imposed a ban on overseas travel unless it is customer-facing or critically important to the business, are expected to look at video-conferencing solutions on the back of such changing policies.

Meanwhile, self-service applications such as voice portals with speech applications are set to improve customer experience and reduce costs.

“Current times call for greater emphasis on the customer. During times like this, certain companies will succeed while others will find it hard to survive. The ability of enterprises to be close to their customers and provide a good experience will ensure that the business will grow and be sustained. With today’s improving technology, self-service applications can offer personalised customer experience and better customer retention,” Shukla said.

He noted that the contact centre will also face challenges in reducing costs this year.

“Many businesses in the growth markets of the Asia-Pacific such as India, China and Malaysia have been enjoying strong growth in customer base, leading to an increase in call volumes, which calls for more agents and increased costs. Self-service applications such as interactive voice responses and voice portals will be considered to manage this growth and reduce operational costs and transfer call volumes from live agents to self-service,” he said.

Hosted unified communications, hosted contact centres, managed UC services and managed security services are expected to be in demand as enterprises are under pressure to preserve cash.

“The current credit crisis is putting more pressure on businesses to keep cash reserves rather than heavy capital expenditure on IT. So, while CIOs understand the potential benefits of emerging technologies, the high upfront cost is a big deterrent to adoption. This is driving demand for hosted and managed services, which have an operating expenditure model with utility-based pricing or a fixed rate per month,” Shukla said.

He pointed out that the hosted model gives customers a chance to try out new technologies and see the benefits to their business without making a significant capital investment. Once the customer is convinced that the technology is of value to the business, they can take a decision on whether to continue on a hosted model or invest in an on-premise solution.

“A big deterrent to adoption of hosted offerings has been limited bandwidth and high bandwidth costs. On both fronts, improvements are expected, which, in turn, will drive the adoption of hosted services,” Shukla said.

NEWS: Baidu Web site apologizes for pornography charge

BEIJING (AP) - China's most popular search engine Baidu apologized Wednesday for hosting links to pornographic content after it was criticized by the government, saying it was sorry for the negative impact on society.

The Chinese government blocks access to many Web sites it considers subversive or too political, and Internet companies regularly self-censor to keep from running afoul of the authorities.

Baidu and Google were among 19 Web sites criticized Monday for carrying vulgar or pornographic content, as seven government agencies launched a one-month campaign to clean up China's Internet content.

The two companies had failed to take "efficient'' measures after receiving notices from the country's Internet watchdog, the government said.

"Besides deleting the obscene content and links concerned, we have improved our regulatory system,'' Baidu said in a notice on its Web site.

"We apologize to the netizens at large for the negative impacts we brought upon the society.''

Google could not immediately be reached for comment.

A note in Chinese on its Google China blog late Tuesday said it fixed links that contained "vulgar content.''

It was trying to limit bad content without reducing the effectiveness of its search engine, it said.

China has the world's largest population of Internet users with more than 250 million.

Popular Chinese Web portal Sohu, and Tencent, the company that owns China's most popular instant messaging system, QQ, as well as an internet portal, apologized separately late Tuesday.

While distributing pornography is punishable under China's law and banned in the country, with foreign pornographic Web sites blocked, distribution of "vulgar'' materials is not so clearly defined.

Wang Qiang, a staff member of the Beijing Internet management office, which is responsible for punishing violators, told the China Daily newspaper Wednesday they were working on punishment schemes for the more vague charge of spreading vulgar images.

NEWS: 兆亿网络新办公楼开幕 捐菩中2千令吉

（槟岛西南区讯）堪称全马最大网络虚拟主机供应商的兆亿网络有限公司（Exabytes Networks）庆祝新办公楼落成及欢庆2009新的一年，不忘社会教育工作，捐献2千令吉予菩提中学作为迁校基金。

为配合业务发展需求，该公司从玛央广场迁往商得高科技大厦18楼，新办公楼拥有比原有的办公室2.5倍大的空间，可容纳70个员工，而且，在设计方面也注入新概念，如设立玩乐室（Fun Room），让员工松弛紧綳的心情。此外，也设有迷你图书馆及两个训练室。

该公司于周三晚上邀请槟州旅游发展、文化、艺术及文物委员会主席罗兴强行政议员主持剪彩仪式，见证该公司迈入里程碑的历史性一刻。出席者包括拿督郭家骅行政议员、菩提中学董事长兼建委会主席唯悟法师及该公司的商业客户。

罗兴强赞扬协助推广旅游

罗兴强行政议员在会上赞扬该公司不只是在于牟利，同时也协助新政府推广州内的旅游发展，例如为州旅游发展、文化、艺术及文物委员会所设立的www.visitpenang.gov.my馆方旅游网站提供半义务性质的技术支援，这个网站目前已获得良好的反应。

他指出，由于该公司所提供的技术咨询及支援服务是属于半义务性质，州政府只需付一年5千令吉的管理费，相比与旧网站的8万令吉费用，确实让州政府省下许多费用，毕竟这些都是人民的纳税钱。

他说，在该公司的支援下，最近举办的槟城大桥国际马拉松跑也首度提供网上报名服务，为外国选手及公众人士提供便利。此外，旅游年鉴每个月的节目也通过电邮不断更新。

曾淇赐：目前社会不能缺少网络

兆亿网络有限公司首席执行员曾淇赐表示，在目前的社会，网页已经成为犹如电话及传真机般同等重要，尽管面对金融风暴，但，这并无影响公司的业务。事实上，电邮的广泛使用将可减少交通及电话服务的开销。

“举个例子，被裁退者，若要开创新企业或是电子商务，他们将需要网上储存，因此这也为我们开创新商机。”

他指出，该公司于2001年设立，当时只是一间小小的专利销售公司，仅有5名员工，发展至今日，已成为全马最大的网络虚拟主机供应商，共有45名员工，其中3人是在赛城的分行。目前该公司拥有逾2万2千名客户，遍布全球121个国家。

NEWS: 全球校友一线牵 吉华互动网站开步

亚罗士打7日讯）《吉华互动网站》正式开步，今后国内外校友可通过该网站了解母校最新进展及互相交流。

吉华校友会主席王庆中日前在推介礼上声称，该校友会在前任主席郑江湖，卢有福领导时期已经展开网页发展计划，至2008年7月份才积极投入网页建构任务，借用网际网络的跨国平台，号召全球吉华校友齐献心力，凝聚遍布国内外的校友人力，财力，物力筹办100年校庆。

他也指出，《吉华互动网站》将是一个兼具校友沟通联谊、发布吉华6校会讯、校友会新动态、搜集校史资料的多功能、全互动站台。

他欢迎各地校友浏览网站，注册成为电子会员，号召更多校友前来参与，让《吉华互动网站》成为最受欢迎的网站，尤其希望年轻校友加入校友会，壮大校友会阵容，成为未来的校友会领导人。

董家教校友互动

《吉华互动网站》（http://www.kh-alumni.com/）， 是吉华校友会配合迎百年庆典大计划，精心构思的“吉华电子化计划”，希望一举带动吉华董家教成员，遍布全球各地的校友，在网上互相学习，借重电子资讯强化 教学效益、组织效率，成为未来全球校友一线牵，齐为吉华开拓往后百年新教育方案的桥头堡。所提供的内容包括供校友网上登记的电子会员系统，供校友追踪母校 和校友会消息的电子报系统，供搜集校友意见和看法的论坛，供校友跨国交流的聊天室，供母校促进教学的网上教育系统等。

分3 ROOM：

ROOM 01:《吉华电子新闻网》是广播校友、母校和校友会活动资讯的《吉华互动网站》；

目 前，电子新闻网有两个等级的投稿区，一是完全公开予校友，董家教成员，甚至在借学生和学生家长自由投稿的区域，只需将写好的稿件贴上投稿栏，按送出即可等 待登上新闻网。另一特设投稿区，是专供拥有本身部落格，熟悉部落撰稿方式的校友申请，获批为这一等级的校友，可直接将稿件和贴图送上电子新闻网，管理员批 阅即可直接送上首页。

ROOM 02:《吉华大家族》《吉华大家族》是一个结合部落格功能和游戏广场的虚拟空间，相等于正在构思的吉华校友俱乐部。在这一空间，校友不只可以书写自已的部 落文章，还可参与数之不尽的部落活动如心理测验、趣味投票、十二生肖命理、网上读书会等，难以置信的是，这一空间还提供数以千计的网上电台、电影院和电子 游戏等，足让加入吉华大家族的校友，经营个人部落文章之同时，也尽兴于久违的康乐、联谊、互动游戏。

ROOM 03:《吉华·纵横天下论坛》《吉华·纵横天下论坛》促进校友的知识，通过论坛找回读书时代天南地北无所不谈的好时光。

NEWS: Return of the EPF computer scheme?

PETALING JAYA: The Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom) is hopeful that the EPF computer purchase scheme will be revived this year.

“Pikom is giving its full support to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (SKMM), which is in looking into reinstating the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) Computer Purchase Withdrawal Scheme,” Pikom chairman David Wong said.

“It would be good to relook at EPF’s ‘One Home, One Computer’ campaign, It will allow people to have the flexibility to purchase a PC using their EPF funds,” he added.

Wong said PC penetration in Malaysia is still below 50%. “A lot of money is being poured into broadband infrastructure but PC penetration is still 44%. More people need to own a PC to leverage on all this infrastructure.

Should this scheme be reinstated, there will be no excuse not to own a PC,” he said.

Wong said that local PC penetration should move up to 70% and added that Pikom are seeking to meet with the Energy, Water and Communications Ministry to discuss the revival of the scheme.

“We need to help them to minimise the abuse that happened when the scheme was first introduced in 2000.

“Some people abused the scheme and used the EPF PC money to buy other goods. We need to sit down with the SKMM and create a more transparent process,” he said.

Back then, about 750,000 EPF contributors withdrew money amounting to an estimated RM2.2bil, under the EPF PC scheme. Out of that, about 87,000 contributors were believed to have been involved in fraudulent withdrawals from 2000 to 2002, according to the Finance Ministry.

Under the scheme, EPF contributors could withdraw a maximum of RM3,500 from the fund to purchase a PC.

According to Pikom, roughly 72,000 PCs were sold under the scheme.

The EPF gave Pos Malaysia Bhd and Bank Simpanan Nasional rights for sales under the scheme, which was finally discontinued in 2002, due to abuse.

Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor was reported in a local daily saying that EPF contributors should be allowed to withdraw their money to buy computers as they were an essential learning tool.

“A computer is an essential item for the purpose of learning and, therefore, I have requested the SKMM to review the best way to continue with the scheme,” he was quoted as saying.