EASTERN EYE
The start of 1999 has seen an air of optimism return, with many companies appointing staff, creating joint ventures, embarking on global partnerships, launching products and much more. Local currencies are stabilising, new governments in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia are doing well and IT-related product forecasts are up.
Contributing to Asia's continued recovery is the announcement by Computer Associates (CA) that it will be looking for strategic acquisitions and joint ventures in the region this year. Charles Wang, chairman and chief executive, admitted at a recent press briefing that he had mismanaged CA's presence here and would address that with heavy investment.
CA recently appointed Ian Hughes as vice president and country manager for its Thai office. Hughes, a 26-year IT veteran, joined the company in 1990 and has held posts in Australia, Hong Kong and India before accepting the top job in Thailand.
He said: 'I feel this will be a good year for us. With improved products and the imminent release of The Next Dimension (TND), I'm confident of seeing an upturn in the market.'
As part of its strategy to gain a better foothold in the Thai market, CA has unveiled its latest technology, Neugents. Currently available only for the Windows NT environment, Neugents actually learns a particular system over a period of a couple of weeks. While it learns, there is no apparent degradation of the system, according to CA executives, after which it will predict possible failures before they happen.
Thai users of CA's TNG Unicenter platform can add Neugents to their current architecture, but in the next Unicenter release, TND, the technology will be built in. But industry analysts are predicting that TND - slated for 1999 - will be late, dubbing it Unicenter 2000.
Chua Meng Pin, vice president of CA Asia, said: 'Economies are bad in many countries with businesses facing financial problems and re-engineering difficulties. In a bullish economy, total cost of ownership and productivity is important. That's why TNG and Neugents will be able to assist many companies.'
CA will market Neugents to its existing local customers, with two of Thailand's leading universities, Chulalongkorn University and King Mongkut Institute of Technology (KMIT), expected to show an interest. Both are Unicenter sites and manage thousands of PCs and servers across their campuses.
Hewlett Packard is keeping up the pressure on its rival, signing two working agreements and appointing Nelson Tsang as enterprise accounts organisation country manager. Nelson also retains his current position as regional channel partner manager, computer systems organisation.
HP has appointed local distributor Tech Pacific as its fifth channel partner. 'I'm confident Tech Pacific can play a main role in our marketing effort,' said Kenneth Low, country manager of commercial channels organisation, HP (Thailand). 'It has expertise, experienced sales and support teams, a thorough knowledge of HP products, a chain of loyal customers and dealers, and branches in Australia, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.'
HP also appointed Accton Technology, one of Asia's brightest companies that dominates the local network scene in Taiwan with its network interface cards (NICs), hubs and switches. Accton, which is looking to expand its operations into larger markets, chose HP because of its strong product line and customer support. Under the terms of the agreement, Accton will market and sell HP's ProCurve networking products across the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Australia), while HP will benefit by leveraging Accton's large customer base across the region. Both companies will work closely on pre-sales customer support.
With many Thai companies looking for alternative networking suppliers, HP and Accton expect revenue to reach $4 million this year. That figure could be boosted by Accton's planned move to open an office in Bangkok in the near future.
The UK has also featured strongly over the past several weeks, with a British online recruitment company becoming the first of its kind to open in Thailand and another expanding its internet-based product line. Top Jobs on the Net (TJON) chose Thailand over several other ASEAN nations because it offers better costing, according to Nicholas Hawkins, regional director, business development, TJON Thailand.
'TJON will market its services both on and off the Net and will be using the Web, print and radio advertising to promote its brand in Thailand,' he added.
The service, which went live on 1 February, is currently available in English but will soon be accessible in Thai, Hawkins revealed. The company already has 10 main clients in Thailand and plans to help engineers and technical services, professionals and management recruits find the right job.
Graham Sharp Paul, managing director of TJON Asia-Pacific, said: 'We are looking at long-term opportunities here in Thailand and think it is ideal for internet users and those seeking jobs in Asia.'
Meanwhile, Cyberia, one of Bangkok's oldest internet cafes, has launched its own fully featured Web portal site. With hyperlinks to other sites including Lonely Planet, Orientation Thailand will serve as a key source of information for travellers heading to the region. The portal site has a database of more than 2,000 sites, with more than 4,000 being added on a continuous basis. Other companies have shunned the Thai internet community, preferring to set up portal sites in Singapore and Malaysia where they believe more internet users reside.
Kulthep Narula, marketing director of Valiant Corporation, which holds the licence to produce Orientation Thailand, said: 'Thai Web users now have a home base that shows the Web from a Thai point of view. Whether it be news, weather, chat rooms or links to other Websites, they're all here.'
Other features on the site include travel supplied by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and headline news from Thailand's leading newspapers.
It also connects with local online communities through its direct Web-based access to local Usenet discussion groups and IRC chat channels.
Local systems integrator Iris-Ifec (I&I) has landed a contract worth more than 20 million baht with Siam Daikin Sales. I&I will implement Oracle's ERP software in two phases at several of the company's offices. Sithisak Kesornwibul, managing director of Siam Daikin Sales, said: 'Replacing the entire system enables us to provide updated services throughout the company. We hope the ERP system will encourage growth, support the export of Thai products and ultimately bring income to the country.'
In other developments in the region, Dell has announced the appointment of four senior executives. Ron Goh has been appointed vice president for Asia and will lead the company's business to large corporations, government and institutional customers in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. He will also be responsible for driving Dell's business through distributor partnerships across the region.
Joining as Dell's vice president, service and technical support, is Gerry Sheridan. Doris Lau joins as director of corporate communications. She will lead Dell's enhanced portfolio of communications initiatives, covering external public relations and brand management across the region.
Also upping the ante is Canon Marketing (Thailand), a branch of Canon, which has announced the appointment of Surisak Thawansakvudhi to senior marketing manager of the Systems Product Department. Surisak joined Canon Marketing in 1994 and was responsible for image management systems products. In 1997, he was assigned to look after marketing, sales and service of systems products. Under his leadership, Canon systems products such as scanners and digital cameras, and especially its printers and information systems, are now strongly positioned in the Thai IT market.
Philip Hall is editor of Thai Computerworld, based in Bangkok.