Recent IT launches defy economic stagnancy theory

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.