On 25th August 2005, IITA (Institute of Information Technology Assessment) of Korea had a MoU signing ceremony with its Malaysian counterpart Mimos Bhd to enable partnership.
I was invited to the ceremony and found that the main agenda is to enable Korea to penetrate the middle east market. The followings are some information why Korea is interested with middle east market.
1. The internet user is 21.5 million
2. GDP, Korea ranked 11th in the world
3. ICT industry is the core industry for them. (total of 14% contributed to GDP and 30% contributed to export)
4. 80% of population lives in the urban while 98% located from telephone station.
5. They terminate 10-15% of project yearly. The freeze funds are recycled back to new projects.
6. They are lacking core technology and would always cooperate with US like IBM, HP and etc.
7. Their successes is greatly attributed to CDMA, TRAM and etc.
8. They are having around 50-70 projects currently and the total cost of it is USD 325 million.
9. They have a USD400 million dollar budget for R & D and most of the projects are top-down (means centrally controlled)
10. They make use of their neighbour Japan (as inventor), China (core producer), vietnam (as testing ground) while Korea itself in charge of commercialization.
Based on these 10 points, it seems like they are having saturation problems. That is why they need Malaysia to link to over to the Middle East. But are they for real ? Do they really need Malaysia as the link to middle east just because we are a muslim country?
I know why...
For a second, I thought that they are sincere, but then after having done the following research, I finally found the real answer.
1. First of all, their total population is = 47 million (south korea) + 21 million(north korea) = 68 million. This mean that they are not facing any saturation yet.
2. Along with the MoU signing, they also presented Malaysian participant with their IT strategy called the IT839 strategy. I had the documentation digitized and you can download it from here.
Answer
After having going through the documentation, copying line per line, I realized the reason for Korean to specifically brief Malaysians, especially Mimos about their plan in order to achieve few things:
1. To show off. (not priority)
2. Marketing & awareness (not priority)
3. To avoid competition by psychologically demotivate Malaysian for reason that those technologies mentioned in their documentation has been maturely developed and there is no need for us to perform R & D anymore in related area. Should we require anything, just liaise with them. (Priority)
Think about this, if someone having the interest to initiate R & D in the area of VOD (video on demand), he or she might feel de-motivated because when the time is ready for the fruit to bear, the market would have already been saturated. But we can only assume that all Koreans are as good as their Samsung and Kia counterpart, couldn’t there be slightest chance of further discount? We can only guess, unless equipped with strong market intelligence, we may never succeed to overcome the worry of sudden paradigm death due to globalization. To understand this better, try to watch the movie Basic Instinct (forget the sexual part) where basically confidence defies all.
Psychologically, we have been invaded and lost the battle. By signing the MOU, is Malaysian having more confidence or less confidence. We can only inform the world that we have the following flagship applications. Perhaps we are not a dreamer, we believe in building foundations. We know what we are doing, by leveraging on our natural resources, Singaporeans, Koreans, Hong Kong and Taiwan all have to work double hard to achieve our comfortable level. But sadly Malaysian has always been overslept even though our natural resources haven’t stop working for us until now.
TX & T-Schwarzenegger:
Let’s quote another example. Have you guys watched the movie “Terminator 3 : Rise of the Machine”. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s terminator was captured by the resistance (on a mission to assassinate John Connor) and sent back to the past to protect John Connor and future wife Kate Brewster. The enemy however, sent back a better machine called the TX. According to the movie, T-Arnold is outdated compared to TX. This means the enemy deliberately sent an older machine to the human side to play safe for the possibility that in case the machine is captured and reprogrammed, machine would still on the high side. The script of the movie never deliberately mentioned this fact, but it could be part of the “hidden” agenda. Nevertheless, it is not really important because TX eventually failed, perhaps she was too busy tidying her hair.
If you look at the official document given to all participants (Malaysian), it is basically crap. It is not any specification nor a business plan. It is just telling that Korea will lead this and lead that and please bear with them. But one thing for sure, it is very obvious that they mean business, every suggestion is concluded with the expected results in monetary sense. Despite claiming that they are supposed to improve daily life and etc, we can pretty much say that IT business is about money, and not about saving and improving life, which is merely an excuse, just like the promise of biotech. (who really needs biotech anyway?)
Where is Malaysia?
Malaysian 7 Flagship Applications under MSC Initiative:
1. E-government
2. Multi-purpose card
3. Smart school
4. Telehealth
5. R & D cluster
6. Technopreneur development
7. E-business
Can you see the difference between IT839 and this ?
Malaysia, where is our direction? Is there anything left for us to do now. The world is left with Middle East and China, two virtually untapped markets. This is based on the fact that the US and Europe isn’t going to buy anything from us, sometimes our eyes are to weak to spot the fact that Mat-Sallehs look down on Asian.
Can we afford to wait for another ten years, by focusing on fundamental R & D while serving the ICT realm with normal casual-going attitude and depending on the natural resources?
Their Intention:
They want to make us as the market. Therefore, in conjunction with that, KAIT (Korean Association of IT) will be organization a ICT events from 7-9 September at MiECC (Mines international convention center). The following Korean companies will be coming to town.
Company | Business Type |
icraft | MC-Printer, MC-Reader, Mobi-Hoo |
AdvanceTech | Embedded Computer, I/O Module, DVR product |
AnyFill | Universal Cellular phone charger |
Bangsol | ATM Middleware |
Bangsol | RFID Reader , Tags, Controller & Writer |
DMuze | CANNY - Home Entertainment Hub |
GS-Teletech | Repeater for mobile telecommunication service / Power Amplifier |
HG-Tel | Wireless Communication Equipment, ( System & RF Module ) |
Hit | SI, SM, Payment Package |
innohitek | RF Passive Component & Optical transceiver and RF small Repeater |
Kobrics | IP based ADSL DSLAM , Ethernet, Gigabit Switch, VoIP phone, Gateway |
Kobrics | PDA, Mobile Printer |
Kobrics | xDLS, Mobile Game |
Neh-ftech | VoIP Gateway - IP Phone - Router |
Neh-ftech | CTI Technology(Contact Center) |
S1 | Radio Frequency Identification , Smart Cards, Security Solutions |
xenoinfo | Auto-Internet Broadcasting & Web-Casting Solution Enco-magic |
VIA-Scope | IPScan System |
dit-totec | Semi Conductor Key Door Lock System, Fingerprint Identification Door Lock System, Common Functions |
egiskorea | XDWORLD Builder & XDWORLD Builder Pro, Viewer, Development Kit |
fusion soft | Mobile S/W, PMP, PDA Phone Solution, Cell DB |
K-Bit | Web Camera, FM Transmitter |
K-Bit | Add-on 3D Ultrasound Imaging solution |
Win-itech | LBS, Emergency Management System, Call Center |
Taihan | Cable and Acc’y, GE-PON , Network Integration based on Turn-key |
Valox | GE-PON (optical broadband access equipment) |
They claimed that they are looking for business-matching. But i really doubt that, knowing that Malaysian is in fact the emerging market, apart from Middle East and China, they are hoping to grap the pie from Malaysian companies.
Comments
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