Archive for May 2013

Chromebooks in Malaysia via YES4G

The Chromebooks have arrived in Malaysia: The World’s First Samsung 4G Chromebook. They come with WiFi and a WiMaX chip so you connect to YES4G (up to 20Mbps speed on this network). They retail for RM1,299 (USD$419) or RM988 (USD$318) with a 24-month contract that costs RM88 with 3.5GB of data transfer (exceed the quota and you get free data usage at a reduced speed).

In the USA, the Samsung Chromebook with 3G retails for USD$329 while the Samsung Chromebook WiFi retails for USD$249.

I’m not sure why YTL has jacked up the price so much. There is no way that a WiMaX chip costs so much more compared to the 3G chip. There is already a $80 premium in the USA to get 3G (something you can use on any network – Maxis, DiGi, Celcom, etc.). Why does the WiMaX chip cost $90 more than the 3G model (total for the privilege of WiMaX: USD$170 – RM527!). Keep in mind that this extra means you only are mobile where the YES4G network is available (which is not everywhere, compared to the 3G networks in Malaysia).

Next up: LTE is here. Speeds exceed 20Mbps easily. Maxis and Celcom are already providing devices, including portable WiFi hotspots (MiFi devices). You can also tether your devices easily.

To add: there is likely a new Samsung Chrombook in the works. If it can keep the same price point and get a lot more power, it could be very interesting. The current Chromebook went on sale at Amazon in October 2012 (so some 7+ months ago). A refresh is definitely around the corner, though that shouldn’t stop anyone from buying one (it certainly won’t stop me).

My verdict? Buy a Chromebook with WiFi only. WiFi is everywhere these days. I don’t think the premium for connecting to the YES network makes sense. Real problem? These devices aren’t sold outright in Malaysia in any official capacity which I see as a problem.

Update: With 100GB free “cloud storage”, and only 16GB local storage, one would presume that you would use the cloud a lot for things. Music and videos will have to be streamed. Can you live with 3.5GB of data transfer (this is uploads and downloads)? Will you ever really get to use your Google Drive to its potential?

Posterous, Tumblr, and blogging outposts

Fettuccine with Dungeness crabI was always a Posterous user over a Tumblr user.

How did I use Posterous? I would email photos, take random quotes from websites, etc. and ensure it made it to my “outpost”. I had stopped using Posterous a little before the Twitter acquisition, and didn’t care much for it when it shutdown. I did take a backup of my stuff though, because it never was federated to my own blog or anything like that. I did like the fact that it would post links to Twitter automatically and would save my images to Flickr as a backup bucket for my photos. 

How did I use Tumblr? It claims I have 11,766 items, which you can say is a mirror of my tweets for a period of time. It also contained a mirror of my Posterous posts. In fact it shows that it might have stopped not long after the iPhone 4 came to Malaysia and I visited Phnom Penh for a barcamp. So it does bring back memories. I just found the mass post editor – last Tumblr entry was October 2010. Apparently I started using it in June 2007. It might have even fed my last.fm feed to it as I can see music being popped in during the early days. It also states my timezone was GMT+10, so definitely legit – I was living in Melbourne then.

I decided not to delete this archive (just to rename the subdomain with the -old tag – very handy). However the new blog will never be my primary blog due to Tumblr’s architecture.

So I guess that puts an end to the re-Tumblr experiment. I even had the bookmarklet installed in the browser raring to go.

WordPress has aside support. I don’t use it here but its almost similar to a service like Tumblr, no? I guess it goes back to owning your content – I’m a fan of keeping things here on a site that I control (note that I don’t use wordpress.com either).

That said, Posterous sold for a lot less to Twitter (I speculate). Tumblr sold for $1.1 billion to Yahoo!. Let’s hope all is well, failing which users will be a migrating. 

Thinking international

My favorite view. Don't listen to CNN, Seoul is awesome“The market is so small you have to think international” – Mattias Miksche, CEO, Stardoll (TWIST#343).

Sweden has like 9 million people. They don’t think they need to “go global”. They start thinking global. The local market is too small. It’s not like the USA.

I’ve said the same thing about Malaysia (and Singapore) before: why are you building locally if you’re a web-shop? Build, test, prove yourself, but make sure you’re global. 28 million people separated by different language needs will ensure you don’t have much larger than the population of Sweden when it comes to launching a product. 

So don’t think about going global after a year. Think about being global from day one.

No rules in this game

No rules in this game | Derek Sivers: “Gurus will say what you can’t do or must do. They mean well, but they’re wrong.

For every rule they tell you, there’s an exception. They are just telling you their specific past, not your specific future.

There are no rules in this game. You change them as you go.”

(Via Derek Sivers.)

Derek is talking specifically about the music industry. I think this applies to more than just the music industry. This is sage advice that applies to any industry.

Remember, be open to advice, but be influenced by none.

Developer & Platform Evangelism – overloaded title?

I have been involved in communities all my life. From participant to leadership roles, communities are something I grok. 

It was with great interest I read about the “deep tech” team inside of its Developer & Platform Evangelist (DPE) unit. There are several names in that interview that I have crossed paths with – these folk are great developer’s advocates.

The usual folk that we expect are known as “developer evangelists“. There are quite a number of them on this list (rather lengthy).

I reckon the DPE term is overloaded. More than a year ago I was approached to do said job at Microsoft (they filled the position some eight months later). It was made clear that it was a Senior Sales Leader position.

This is a Senior Sales Leader position with responsibility for building a strong public profile which includes press, public speaking and key thought leadership opportunities; to meet with customers and partners across the country; to experience sales and strategic development; and to ensure the success of an exciting and diverse set of marketing programs.

So beware titles as they get overloaded and the original meaning is forgotten.

References: Platform Evangelism, Technology evangelism.

Should I buy the BlackBerry Q10?

The BlackBerry Q10 goes on sale in Malaysia on May 15 2013. The suggested retail price is RM2,388 (USD$805). In Singapore it is suggested to sell at SGD$898 (RM2,167 – or USD$731). First question, why are Malaysians paying more?

Point to note: I would be upgrading from a Bold 9700, something I’ve used for many years. It has been in my pocket for a long time, there are dead pixels on the screen, it does scream for an update. It should also be noted that my main phone is an iPhone, while my secondary device for roaming purposes, is a Samsung Galaxy SIII.

I asked on Twitter and got some responses. Conclusion? Overpriced and not really value for money. I tend to agree with this – after all, you can get a HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S IV, or an iPhone for less than RM2,388. Don’t forget that with a BlackBerry the premium doesn’t end there – you pay for tremendous amounts of data usage, as they’ve decided to drop BIS.

So what were the initial draws to the BlackBerry for me?

  1. BIS and its low data consumption. The idea of data being free was common years ago, but nowadays its all metered. When you’re roaming, some countries have unlimited roaming data, but what about countries that don’t? Do I really want to be paying more to receive my email? I have that with Android/iOS already…
  2. BBM. My contact list now has a handful of people still using BBM. They all use WhatsApp or some other messenger service. Even BBM diehards have quit because the rest of the world moved on. Whatsapp does the same thing. And with partnerships on some telcos, you start seeing “free data usage” for services like KakaoTalk or WeChat.
  3. QWERTY keyboard. This is useful. This is the only reason why I didn’t even bother to look at the Z10. I like Swype. I like the Android keyboard on my Nexus 7. I like the iOS keyboard too. But at the end of the day, I love a hardware keyboard. Is this worth paying a premium for? I’m not so sure

Key-point: the BlackBerry has never been my primary phone. It was always the secondary device relegated to: email, Twitter, Bloomberg (for stocks), and the occasional WordPress blog entry.

I doubt it is the primary device for many. Social apps that friends use may not be present in record time. Maybe Instagram comes soon. Who cares? App developers are 100% focused on iOS and Android. Convincing them for the third platform is hard for BlackBerry, Nokia, etc.

Free devices to supposed “influencers” aren’t going to help at this price point, when all anyone wants under their Christmas tree is an iOS or the myriad of Android devices up for grabs. Remember that at the end of the day, no one cares about processor power, memory available, megapixel count, etc. – that’s the stuff that excites a tech reviewer but not the end user (I think Nokia learned this the hard way).

My prediction? This device isn’t going to do as well as planned and Brightstar has one million of these devices pre-ordered, so I expect heavy discounting going forward. 

Can anyone convince me why I should ditch the Bold 9700 (for the Q10) going forward? 


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