NEWS: MDeC holds Great ICT Sale

KUALA LUMPUR: The inaugural MSC Malaysia Great ICT (information and communications technology) Sale later this month is to cater to the rising demand for enterprise software and services from the small- and medium-scale enterprise (SME) sector.

The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), which organised the nationwide event, said SMEs in the country are also more willing now to engage in e-commerce than they were a few short years ago, and so are seeking out such software and services.

To meet these needs, the Great ICT Sale will involve some 50 top MSC Malaysia companies offering their products, which will include accounting programs, e-commerce solutions, hosting services, and payment gateways.

There are more than 2,000 MSC Malaysia companies, but MDeC has pared this down to 50 for the month-long event. Among the criteria is that the chosen company must offer the best discount or enhanced value for bundled solutions.

However, handing out discounts is not the main goal of the event, said Saifol Bahri, MDeC vice-president of industry development.

“What we really want is to let the SMEs know what software and services are available to them, as well as to educate them on the concept of software as a service,” he said at the launch of the Great ICT Sale in Kuala Lumpur today.

MDeC, guardian of the MSC Malaysia initiative, estimates that there are 60,000 SMEs in the country.

More aware

A recent survey of 400 SMEs, commissioned by MDeC and carried out by researcher Frost & Sullivan, found that half of the SMEs that participated expect to engage in e-commerce within the next two years.

Saifol said that if the survey had been carried out five years ago, there would have been no positive feedback whatsoever by the SMEs on embracing e-commerce.

“The SMEs at that time would have asked, ‘What is e-commerce?’ Now, the SMEs are coming around because most of their clients are already on some sort of e-commerce platform and they do not want to be left behind,” he said.

MDeC foresees a boom in SME demand for software and services as a result of the sea change because currently only 11% of local SMEs are engaged in e-commerce.

Another catalyst for SMEs embracing e-commerce is the advent of software-as-a-service solutions, which help reduce the cost of an SME getting into e-commerce, according to Saifol.

Such solutions revolve around companies “leasing” ICT software as a service over the Internet which means they do not have to spend on costly infrastructure, such as servers.

According to the survey, only 25% of the SMEs polled had their own servers.

Where it’s at

The Great ICT Sale will take place in cyberspace and the real world from July 20 to Aug 21.

It will be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on July 20 and 21; at the Penang International Sports Arena from Aug 7 to 9; and the Persada Johor International Convention Centre from Aug 14 to 16.

To check out the sale in cyberspace, surf to
www.mscmalaysia.my/greatictsale between July 20 and Aug 20.

MDeC is targeting a modest total of 400 SMEs to come to the sale and it expects about RM5mil in sales of software and services to be racked up by the end of the event.

Among the MSC Malaysia companies offering products are applications and web-hosting solutions provider StarFusion Sdn Bhd; accounting solutions provider MYOB Sdn Bhd; and Exa Bytes Sdn Bhd, which provides web-hosting and domain-name registration solutions.

The sale is among several activities of the National ICT Month, which is organised by the Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom) in the same period.