Simple things, an example of partially broken IT system and probably cost mgmt system.

Queueing in a pharmacy… 24-hour pharma, facility of a famous hospital.

I noticed a very long queue in the Rx receipt … While there’s only one poor, overloaded employee serving the queue. It’s late @21:48:42, so understand-able…

Then I also notice a non-functioning (non-optimally used) digital signage/queueing system.

It was supposed to help us the queuers to know the status of our medicine, if they have finished preparing it.

So what’s supposed to happen is:
- you queue, give your Rx
- they calculate the price for med
- you confirm the cost and get an Rx number
- you pay
- you wait (and wait…..)
- you watch the signboard, wait until your Rx shows up
- you pick up the med

Automatic and smooth. Although still long.

What will happens…
- we don’t wait, but we go run errands
- we come back and miss the signboard (or the signboard simply doesn’t work… Like tonight)
- so when signboard doesn’t work, they call your name when the med is ready and you will miss it…
- we speak, try to reach, and call impatiently to the employees
- they check manually
- you get your Rx

Manual, too many human intervention.

I wished someone from IT could help to smooth the process. Increased (my) customer satisfaction. And didn’t waste my time.

Wished IT could really matter and make difference…

Update: turned out that our elect co was the culprit, due to power failure, the q-system failed too… Ha3x…

On my way to Carrefour, menemukan tulisan “KKR PGTI”. Definitely pasti acara gereja, tapi gereja yang mana ya? Gak pernah dengar gereja PGTI.

Selidik punya selidik (baca: google), ketemu ternyata “Persekutuan Gereja-Gereja Tionghoa di Indonesia”

Oh…

Quoted dari sebuah majalah komunikasi intern perusahaan:

- begin quote -

Beberapa karyawan ’smart’ tidak merasa meninggalkan loyalitas. Bukan loyalitas yang kaku… Di beberapa perusahaan, karyawan mengembangkan rasa loyalitas melalui sikap agresif. Seperti “going the extra mile”, lebih membuka wawasan, sehingga bisa merasakan kompetisi di pasaran dan mengembangkan kesiagaan untuk bertindak sejalan dengan harapan manajemen perusahaan.

Perusahaan juga perlu mengekspresikan ‘loyalitas’ pada karyawan dengan cara loyal pada prinsip-prinsip pengembangan talenta dan empowerment…

Dengan demikian, fenomena karyawan bertahan selama puluhan tahun di perusahaan tidak berarti bertahan secara pasif, namun aktif mengembangkan diri dan mendorong pertumbuhan perusahaan.

- end quote -

It’s the new contract of employment!

Just read this from my Credit Card’s agreement:

Pasal 30
Pemegang Kartu dengan ini memberikan persetujuan kepada BXXX untuk memberikan data-data Pemegang Kartu kepada pihak lain dalam rangka kegiatan promosi atau untuk tujuan komersial lainnya. Pemegang Kartu membebaskan BXXX dari segala tuntutan yang timbul akibat pemberian data-data kepada pihak lain tersebut.

[WTH?!]

Another thing worth to look at… and to really understand is the size of so-called broadband market in Indonesia.

Traditionally, we took the addressable market of broadband subscription as a percentage of households. We assume that one household will have one broadband connection.

For Indonesia, we are looking at 40-50 million households, and 20% of them is the addressable market (having the purchasing power, PC penetration, availability of connection, etc.), actual demand will be less (the people that will actually buy…). So all in all, it’s 2-3 million potential demand.

Now, does this change with the availability of 3.5G connections and phones (HSDPA or EV-DO) and soon (or not so soon) WiMAX? Not to mention netbooks? Phones are suddenly capable of consuming so much data. And phones are the first device on which many people experienced Internet.

Have the market shifted to personal broadband? Will we have 2-3 broadband connections per household? (YES!) Will we even see 2-3 broadband connections per person?

Looking at my own experience, I have one Speedy line at home, one HSDPA (which was office-paid — no longer, will disconnect), one EV-DO, one cellular data package, and one BlackBerry (not exactly broadband).

If I took the same math as above, then it’s suddenly 10-15 million potential demand. (or not?). Additional factors need to be taken into account (mobilephone penetration (!), mobile subscribers #, USB dongle sales, notebook penetration, netbook penetration, cellular coverage, …)

Am I biased? Or am I just simply optimistic? A lot of people shared my optimism… as you noticed the race towards the data package, but unfortunately a sign of price war is also imminent… (could it be driven by the pessimists that fear of market saturation?!)

Let’s do the more precise math tomorrow. Or just buy that Pyramid report….

After junk mails, junk emails, now we arrived to the era of junk SMS…

This is getting too far and too much. In this a very real example, six last messages that this poor guy received are promo SMS – some are so unrelated that can be categorized as spam!

My own experience is no different. I constantly got SMS from various cafes, credit card agents (offering credit cards and loans), bank promo, gadget promo (which I don’t mind – spam for some persons but not for me) and so much more… even scam!

“Selamat!!! Anda mdptkan hadiah undian XL MANIA :Rp.35juta, dari EXCELCOMINDO utk/info, Hub:07846647889 PIN:42ag9f577S Pelaksana:+878″

Can not blame anyone, because they’re just trying to make some decent money and business.

Somehow, somewhat, we might sign an agreement without reading the small prints, unknowingly selling our personal data to these organizations, permitting them to blast us with junks.

They thought they asked for a permission and we gave it.

Or not. Worse, they stole it. Violated my trust.

And I also noticed that the phone number that I gave to the credit card companies are the one which constantly getting bugged with telemarketing and SMS… the other one is still safe… ha3x…

But critically looking at this… is it healthy and good for the future of mobile industry in Indonesia?

Is this the so called mobile marketing? Mobile as the 7th mass media?

A wake up call!

Yes, a wake call. Let’s make the mobile marketing practice better. No more spam.

Send me SMS, yes, but of something that I care about (valuable, relevant, contextual, personal).

Send me SMS, yes, but of something so entertaining that I’m willing to forward and recommend (viral).

Send me SMS, yes…

“Bapak2 and ibu2 yg sy hormati berhubung nomor sy yg 085510… sdh terlalu banyak gangguan dr telemarketing, maka sy ganti ke nomor baru ini, mohon bisa disimpan ini sbg nomor sy” [courtesy of RP]

Ever heard of the “Cloud Computing”? Yes, computing resources and applications delivered from the “cloud” (a term normally referring to Internet as a black box network). Often also dubbed as “XaaS” or “X as a Services” – we replace “X” with whatever terms you want to deliver via the Cloud.

It is definitely something cloudy… a technology which is still early stage of adoption, but I believe it has crossed the chasm already (Need to verify that!).

Wikipedia has a good introduction of Cloud Computing. And I guess you can find a bunch from Slideshare as well. Generally accepted is there are three categories of Cloud-based services:

• Infrastructure as a Services: basic computing/IT resources (hence infrastructure) sold and provided in a pay-as-you-go manner, e.g. storage and rent-a-server-computing-power from Amazon AWS.
• Platform as a Services: in my observation this is software platforms, also delivered from the Internet, that enable you to create your own services on top of them. Example: Ning – a social networking platform.
• Software as a Services: imagine you have your word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tools, collaboration tools, image editing, mindmapping, expense & personal finance tracking, email, calendaring, address book, school management system, CRM, ERP, virtual workspace/project management, core banking system, etc. all delivered from the Internet, without installing any applications on your PC. Err, happening already?

Key drivers for Cloud Computing are (non-exhaustive list yet):

• the first ones relates to outsourcing and out-tasking
• cost effective (kind of…) – no initial investment, monthly recurring charge or sometimes free… the provider can achieve economics of scale by consolidating all the resources
• kind of cost effective in the view that you don’t need to buy licensed software as well…
• concentrate of core competencies – no need to maintain servers and infra, no need to develop own apps
• data safety in the sense of disaster recovery
• portability of data – available anywhere you are, with a bonus ease of sharing and collaboration

Key issues for adoption – I’ll put Indonesian context in bold – are:

• Internet connectivity and bandwidth – broadband is not so pervasive (but it will change!)… there are some technologies though that can optimize the use of bandwidth so that it can help application performance in low-speed links
• Trust & security – storing your sensitive data on someone else’ servers… hmm… (this is a world-wide concern, though)
• Adoption of IT in general - how many companies are adopting IT yet? Especially SME (and even big companies, trust me I was there…)
• Cost – or questionable TCO - also relates to IT adoption, especially if you have to pay for some SaaS; this in turns make our poor XaaS providers just go poorer….
• Availability of pirated apps… :-0
• Service Level Agreement
• Loss of customization (hmm… though SFDC is believed to be very customizable)
• Not best of breed applications (hmm… Google Apps is good enough and MS new Cloud-based Office suite should be cutting edge as well)

Is it happening in Indonesia? I hope it will.

• And I do hope that the opportunity is grabbed by Indonesians. I want a version of Google Apps (or Salesforce.com or whatever) hosted, created and delivered by Indonesians!
• I think the small-medium segments are the right segment to pursue. I know the Koreans government are doing this with their IT389 (or 839 or whatever), providing XaaS for their SME’s.

Sigma has already started cloud-based core banking system for small banks.

Another candidate is Zahir. One of the good accounting software package. Can we deliver them via the Cloud? (Or did they already?)

Hmm… the sky is the limit!

If you get Nokia E71, and don’t want to buy a BlackBerry because of whatsoever reasons… can you be as effective in mobile working?

What do we use BlackBerry for? William tried to share his usage pattern. He’s on corporate plan… and judging by what he shared, he’s also a heavy user. On the other hand, a typical Indonesian Jane/Joe will use less of BlackBerry’s capability.

So, I can think at least few scenarios:

1) Corporate Users, especially if you have BES in place, so you have Exchange calendar and the whole corporate address book in sync with the device,

2) for the typical guys only using BIS (BlackBerry Internet Services), connected to ISP & Internet mails, Facebook, and instant messengers

3) for the heavier users, doing more than email & chatting/social networking…

4) and only in Indonesia – BlackBerry owners without BlackBerry subscription whatsoever. Go away!

Can not comment on Scenario 1 yet.

My BES is still not working (they told us that the contract is being negotiated… ha3x), and I will apparently never experience Nokia E71 on corporate mail sync… well… Few colleagues are using E61i with GoodLink installed. Giving them a full-fledge corporate mobile email (though with stability issues….). Such thing should be available in E71 as well or I can opt for Mail for Exchange solution.

But I guess here, the challenge for Nokia is the out-of-the-box experience, BlackBerry will work right out of the box (sort of, as everything is configured/pushed OTA)… with E71, provisioning for the mobile mail is more tedious.

Scenario 2 for normal users trying to get emails & chatting on their E71?

More relevant probably, as the majority of BlackBerry users in Indonesia are actually BIS users. (Errr, maybe not, most of the owners might not have BIS subscription).

Again, I found out that my E71 still needs a bunch of additional applications (most of them are free, fortunately) before it can fully functioned as mobile mail machine.

It did change with the E75, I heard, which is coming with full email application (Nokia Messaging and Mail for Exchange) pre-installed, even coming with a quick-and-easy setup of free Ovi mail account (“from zero to emailing in 15 minutes”). Reviewed in zdnet blog here and on AAS (slightly ’bout the email apps).

But once I got the things installed on the E71…

First and foremost: email with Nokia Messaging.

Reviewed by other people already, such as here at E71fanatics and here at Symbian-Addict. In general they’re quite happy with the interface and performance of the app. Some of the negatives mentioned, e.g. HTML support and multiple accounts are already addressed. The latest that I got installed in my handset is “Product Version 5.3 Build 9.5.3.72 (main)”

• 10 email accounts, including Yahoo, Gmail (and gmail-hosted emails), Windows Live, and Ovi
• HTML-enabled
• Integration with address book
• Folder support
• Sync control – when, what

It’s still in beta, so pretty much free at this time.

Comparing to BlackBerry experience, I found few things still critically missing for me:

• stronger search functionality: customizable (search by subject, sender, …) and saved search
• attachment preview – I don’t want to download the whole attachment to view it
• handling of .ics (calendar invitations)
• filtering of emails to be delivered to the handset (BB can do this through on their BIS web setting)
• rather sluggish performance?

For normobs? Current iteration of Nokia Email should be enough to get them started in the mobile email experience and usage, I think.

Then IM, another killer app, Slick or others (Nimbuzz, Fring, e-Buddy, and others)

No yet an equivalent of BlackBerry Messenger, a messaging system exclusively available for BlackBerry subscribers. But who knows if Ovi will evolve there? (The keyword here is exclusive)

Yahoo, GTalk, ICQ, and AIM works great with Slick and the gang. Doesn’t look as good as the YM/GTalk client in BlackBerry. But does the job well enough. (I haven’t tried to send photos through mobile YM, pls remind me tomorrow….)

Fring is also a good candidate, because they have Skype integration and Facebook client as well. In good network coverage and in WLAN coverage, you can do VoIP (yay!) with your Skype contacts.

VoIP is worth mentioning

… hmm, Nokia E71 has a built-in VoIP/SIP client, that we can configure to access various VoIP services. Free talk with other VoIP users. Besides Skype (and all the IM-based voice chats), I don’t know how popular are these services. There are a bunch in Indonesia (voiprakyat, CBN Talk, etc.), but I still feel that they are a bit too geeky

Facebook?

Nokia E71 users have to stick with the mobile web site. (The E71 firmware 300.21.012 gives a facebook icon on the application menu, a click on it takes us to the m.facebook.com). So BlackBerry leads by far here.

Come on Nokia… you got the S60-Touch Facebook Client, when it’s coming to mainstream? (and to the S40?)

Browsing?

Browsing experience in E71 is good. And pretty fast (AAS article comparing mobile browser speed).

Older BlackBerries (pre OS 4.6 or 4.5) still got the “mobilized” version of the web, not full web browser. Javelin/Bold is another story, as they got a very capable browser plus the proxy/data compression.

So the challenge for Nokia is to minimize the data charges. A single homepage like yahoo! for example might eats several hundred kB of already-so-small-and-so-expensive data quota. Opera Mini will be a nice addition to install in the Nokia E71 for us who live in bandwidth-scarce mobile world.

And finally, cost.

This is where it is going to be interesting.

BlackBerry BIS subscriptions is typically around Axis BB Promo of Rp 100k or Telkomsel/Indosat/XL Rp 150k per month.  They also recently offer weekly for 25k-40k rupiah and daily (!) subscription packages – cost you Rp 4k-5k. Generally this is a flat all-you-can eat data usage.

For Nokia E71 users, I suggest them to consider data packages. Yes, a number of alternatives available… XL recently for example offers daily (Rp 2000 for 1 MB), weekly (Rp 10k for 10 MB), and monthly (starting from Rp 20k for 40 MB, Rp 50k for 130 MB, Rp 100k for 320 MB). According to them 1 MB is enough for 2.5 hours of chatting and 50 pages of m.facebook.com.

If Facebook is all what you need… do it via SMS – Axis for example offers two FB SMS packages: weekly @ Rp 1500 or monthly @ Rp 5500… most of the operators offer similar packages.

Chatting? Try Hutch 3 with YM or XL Chat. Also Rp 5k per month. Not bad.

Bottom line, temporary conclusion…

1. Cost wise E71 should be less expensive v.s. BB, while being able to do what most people need (normobs)…
2. But preparing E71 (installing applications, configuring) to achieve what BB can do requires extra effort that most people won’t take… This is where BlackBerry shines really bright – remember that it’s not a handset, it’s a service that comes with a handset.
3. Once these steps are taken, I got mixed feelings, Nokia E71 might be adequate… some limitations here and there (especially the email client), good things there and here. Reliable enough.

I’ll say, if you have your E71 and need to jump into mobile data world, do it. IM, email, browsing, and FB will work just fine. Experience is pleasant enough. I have an interesting suggestion, BTW, go sell the E71 and grab two (yes, 2, or even 3) NexianBerry.

More interesting will be Scenario 3 – the heavy users… Pushing it a bit further… reading RSS, twitter (very important!!!), maps, locations, GPS, multimedia functions, plus photo sharing/uploading and blogging other than Facebook. Oh, and don’t forget synchronization.  I will give my E71 a challenge (and a second chance, currently it’s my secondary handset, put into less active number) and write my experience in the next post.

I think most of us are familiar with this illustration…

The experience economy, showing what kind of value add experience can bring to products and services. Starbucks is a well understood example. The actual cost of producing the cup of coffee is just… well, close to nothing. The rest is value that we perceived from experience.

In fact, real experience from yesterday’s coffee/high-tea time… a cup of coffee (kopi tubruk) is Rp 4,000 (40 cents US$). While a cup of Pain de France coffee is $3.00…

But here, interestingly we can enjoy them both while sitting in the same bench – the atrium between Building B & C at Plaza Arkadia… having almost the same experience. Makes me starts questioning the value, really. (Well, you can’t bring the kopi tubruk into the PDF nicer booth/restaurant space inside the building, of course… and you can’t get the yummy bagel too from the kopi tubruk food stall).

Another interesting case would be the price of bottled water or in #IndonesiaUnite we called them aqua (“Aqua” is a brand name of the most – or first, I believe – bottled water, making it a generic… brand bought by Danone – for a fortune, I guess).

• wholesale price (buy a box – 24 x 600cc bottles) less than or close to Rp 1,000 per bottle
• retail price at supermarket – Rp 1,500; value add from of retailing & distribution
• retail price at convenience store – Rp 1,500 – Rp 2,000; value add from retailing & close proximity – within walking distance from where you live when you really-really need to buy bottled water
• retail price at kaki lima and pedagang asongan - the street vendors – Rp 2,500; value add from convenience, hey, getting a bottled water while you’re stuck in traffic/traffic light worth the extra Rp 500 man…
• (getting there) in mall food courts – Rp 3,000 ~ Rp 5,000; no where else to buy… and you need them after eating these spicy food
• in any theme parks and tourist destinations – usually more than Rp 3,000; value add here feels more like a rip off
• in fancy restaurant and movie theaters – Rp 5,000 ~ Rp 10,000… at least; same as above plus you pay for the experience – sometimes they can serve them with very nice glass, very good looking ice cubes, and lemon on top (strawberry too if you wish)
• in hotels – at least Rp 15,000… experience.

Sometimes I pay the additional $$$ voluntarily, but some other times reluctantly, feeling that they (the experience or the services) are not worth it. Point made: careful with what we are pricing. If we want a premium pricing, make sure that there is a real, premium value that the customers perceived.

Pretty much difficult to live in the era of abundance… where you have unlimited choices. Article from GigaOm about iPhone Apps extra Long Tail, few weeks ago, kind of got me thinking how… (random thoughts…)

The article in short presents the situation of an extreme long tail in Apple App Store, based on AdMob data (read: interpret this carefully, as the data might be skewed a bit [or a lot], but since there is not really hard data being published by Apple, it’s probably the best proxy). According to AdMob, many of AppStore applications are not picking any users. It’s 50k world of apps over there, so understandable.

It also mentioned that your app should be: 1) tied to big brands/user-base [Twitter, AOL/AIM, ESPN, ...], 2) really-really good and got a viral campaign, 3) boosted by promotion from Apple – put on the front page.

True. Marketing plays a important role here. But brute force marketing is not enough lah. Can a new developer compete with the big giants in launching his/her apps to receive enough spotlight?

Time to play smart? Collaborate with the giants… deal with brands to help them achieve something through your apps, collaborate with Telco to enhance their services, work with them during iPhone launches (and re-launches), link to successful web services, bundle with devices (err… in case of other handset brands ya).

Address a specific niche is always another choice. If the niche is size-able enough for survival.

Or just go solo and bold and ready to accept the fact that our app is only downloaded (and bought) by tens of users. Time to find another business model (rather than expecting users to buy/pay for our apps).

Anyway, it’s a life in long tail, where there is seldom big megahits anymore… Killer apps, anyone, ever?