Recent IT launches defy economic stagnancy theory
Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta
zatni@cbn.net.id
Our economy may still be sluggish, corruption still rampant, our image on the international stage still tainted by the continued barrage of thoughtless and self-serving remarks from our own government officials, and we are beginning to admit the sickness of our society, but technological advancements do not stop and wait for us to put our house in order.
A lot of launch events have taken place in Jakarta in the last few months, and they basically demonstrate that there is still strong confidence in the Indonesian IT market.
Alcatel, for example, has included Indonesia as one of the countries where it plans to aggressively market its cellphones. Today this French company is back, introducing the cool looking One Touch 331 and 535 models on the Indonesian market.
I was lucky enough (and extremely happy) to win a OT535 as a door prize during its launch, and I will review it for you. It is a great product, I should say.
Alcatel's launch of these two models came after Siemens introduced its A60 and C62 worldwide and Nokia officially launched its N3100 model in Indonesia.
Clearly, cellphone aficionados who like to change handsets every month will not run out of options as long as they have the extra cash. And, believe me, plenty of them do.
Helping SMEs
It has been a long time since we last visited our friends at HP-Compaq. It is not because they have been quiet. Not at all. There have been product launches, new technology initiatives, etc. going on at HP-Compaq.
I just did not have the chance to write my report for you. However, what the company showcased at Jakarta's Shangri-La hotel last month were a series of solutions -- not only products -- that would be useful to our small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
By now small businesses must understand that using the right IT means increasing their productivity. However, small as they are, they cannot afford to hire IT support personnel like the big enterprises do. What they need is pre-packaged solutions and products that they can buy and use without too much hassle.
This was clearly the main theme of HP's event last month. The range of products and solutions were so broad that we will need to discuss what was interesting in an upcoming article.
As reported by my colleague Sari P. Setiogi in last Saturday's issue of The Jakarta Post, an Indonesian Wi-Fi Consortium has just been established, involving one Internet Service Provider (ISP), one publisher, one software vendor, three hardware vendors and one Wi-Fi system integrator.
These are major IT companies, including Acer, Cisco Systems, Intel and Microsoft, and their objectives are to accelerate the acceptance of hotspots in Indonesia.
CBN, the ISP, has actually been running two hotspots on a trial basis at Plaza Senayan and Cilandak Town Square. I happened to have a Centrino-based ThinkPad T40 with me during the announcement of the consortium, and the hotspot gave me more than 200 Kbps access speed.
It was great, although I had needed the help of two masters -- one from Intel and another from CBN -- to set up the connection.
Arya Sanjaya, Intel's Business Development Manager, even showed me that he was able to access his office using the highly secured virtual private network (VPN). As you know, a VPN is like a protected tunnel inside the Internet ocean that allows a user to connect directly to a system.
"With this capability, an employee can continue his work here without fear their data is being snooped on by other Internet users," Arya said.
Surely we hope that CBN as well as other ISPs will soon build more hotspots around the city, especially on campuses. Eventually, users will be able to use credit cards or buy pre- paid vouchers to use the hotspot facilities to stay connected-and excited.
Sun on the Enterprise and Desktop
Like the sun in Jakarta lately, it has not been the brightest of Sun Microsystems' recent days due to the various warnings it has received from analysts, including Merrill Lynch's Steve Milunovich.
Nonetheless, the Santa Clara-based company is still making technology strides. Sun Microsystems Indonesia launched its Java Enterprise System and Java Desktop System last week. Both, as you can expect, promise lower costs per user and interoperability with other platforms.
Unavoidably, Windows and MS Office came up during the Q&A after the presentation, especially when it comes to the discussion on prices.
How low? For US$138 per user per year, an enterprise will be able to equip each of its employees with server-based Web services and the desktop tools that they need to be productive.
The latter includes StarOffice productivity suite that has been gaining a lot of momentum lately, especially after the full enforcement of Indonesia's Intellectual Property Law back in late July.
For Internet browsing, Sun includes Mozilla. There are calendaring, instant messaging and other utilities as well. Sun says that a number of hardware vendors, including HP, have expressed their commitment to providing the products in their desktop systems.
The Linux-based Sun Java Desktop System can run on any x86 system or Sun's own Sun Ray product lines.
Clearly, convincing potential customers of the price advantage and integration with the servers, which is Sun's traditional strength, will be the task of its marketing people. In the meantime, let us put StarOffice 7.0 on the list of products to review in the near future, for it is unlikely that Sun will indeed set forever tomorrow.