For The First Time, People Queue for a Chinese Phone, Meizu M9

If you see people are queuing for a new product from Apple, you would not be surprised; if you see Chinese buyers queue for something from a Chinese brand, you may think it is weired and would not take it serious. We have tens of local mobile phone brands in China, some are Shanzhai and some are not, some are really in bad quality and some are not only relatively cheaper but also quite handy and powerful. But, never ever, we’ve seen people are so thirsty for a new phone model and even queueing for it.

M9, produced by Meizu and regarded as the best iPhone 4 replacement from a local manufacturers, is out at 2st, Jan 2011. And in Huaqiangbei, the cradleland for China Shanzhai phone, over a thousand Meizu-fans were queued for their dream-phone, M9 made by Meizu which they have been waiting for 2 years since the release of M8.

We thumb up to Meizu M9. Although you might see a different story when M9 comes to Beijing, Shanghai etc where people are more addicted to iPhone, I appreciate the courage and ambition Meizu has to compete with iPhone. As some people said, Chinese see the hope beyond Shanzhai.

[image via qq.com]

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China Unicom Promoting Public WiFi Hotspots By Offering 3 Months Free Access

Thanks to iPhone 4+WCDMA, China Unicom is really catching up with China Mobile and China Telecom in 3G. But let’s not forget about another fact about China Unicom’s iPhone 4, it has WiFi-enabled, which implied another battle field for the operators, the WiFi hot spots.

By end of  2009, China Telecom has already set up over 100k hot spots across China, and it is said China Mobile would have over 110k hot spots set up by end of 2010; For China Unicom, it has only 25,000 hot spots in 2009 and the figure in 2010 is still far behind other two operators. Obviously the success of iPhone 4+WCDMA brings confidence to China Unicom and it wants to spend more effort promoting its WiFi hot spots in 2011.

From 1st, Jan to 31st March, all China Unicom post-paid users will be able to access its public Wifi hot spots for free. What you need do is to send a text message with ‘TYWLAN’ to 10010 and the login password will be texted back immediately. According to China Unicom, the Wifi access will be unlimited in terms of both the bandwidth and time.

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The TD-SCDMA Drama – who win and who loss

The post I wrote about China Mobile got a quite few feedbacks. Thank you for reading it and even more if you have left a comment.

Some of the readers are quite mad that I am not supportive of the home grown 3G standard, calling it the worst among the three licences.

First of all, I call it the worst, purely from a performance point of view. I don’t care where it is made. And if you have problem with that, check with a technician, or someone who has tried the different services, i.e. China Mobile’s 3G, China Unicom’s and China Telecom’s.

Secondly, I would like to take the opportunity to discuss about TD. Whether it is a blessing or a curse for China, as a whole. I first studied TD in 2007. There was a national conference on technology in Shenzhen. I was still working for South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. So, I crossed border to attend the conference. Lots of interesting stuff. And there was a whole section about TD-SCDMA. I’ve already known by then, it is something important. And I spent a whole afternoon, talking to the persons in the different booths. I also made friend with one of them. His name is Andy and he worked for a company called Commit. It was one of the four companies that made TD-SCDMA baseband chip. For people who don’t know what is baseband chip – it is one of the most important chip in the mobile phone, responsible for communication. And it is the key of TD technology. Before Commit, Andy worked for Datang – the company which invented TD-SCDMA and holds its core IPs.

Andy currently works for Huawei on TD-LTE. So, he basically built his whole career on TD. But, what is he view on TD ?? He thought China did not get anything out of it.

Datang, which invented the standard, does not earn much on loyalty fee. The domestic manufactures, which are supposed to benefit from making products of the home grown technologies, do not prosper, either. In fact, Commit has gone out of business. (ZTE and Huwei are benefiting from making 3G infrastructures for the operators – but they offer solutions for all the three standards.)

Originally, as Qualcomm holds most of the 3G IPs, China hoped by developing its own standard, it can bypass Qualcomm, and save the loyalty fee in building its 3G network. But TD is not original enough, and TD products still have to use many Qualcomm IPs. (That is part of the reasons Datang does not have much loyalty fee. Another reason is TD is not popular enough.)

As the development of TD was funded by China only, it was slow and painful. The deadline for finishing TD development was delayed again and again. So, the granting of 3G licences in China was also delayed again and again. Andy said, all in all, if there was no TD, China would have 3G five years earlier.

A five-year delay is critical for many of the startups who was banking on the popularity of mobile internet. 5 years ago, many of them started their business hoping 3G would come and people would start surfing the net with their phones. One of them is a Shanghai company which provide mobile search. But, 3G did not come until recently. And today, that company is still small, with about RMB 20 million revenue. The CEO is very supportive to Chinese government. China Mobile is his business partner. But, even he agreed, if 3G could come 5 year earlier, his business will be in a much better shape.

As of the end consumers, if 3G could come 5 year earlier, today, they can enjoy a much cheaper rate for going online with their phone.

In conclude, I think no one win in this TD business. Andy said, for 4G, the Chinese government is not going interfere anymore, it will let the market decide.

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Groupon Fails To Bring Happiness To Japanese New Year Holidays

In Japanese new year’s holidays, we enjoy having osechi-ryori or specially-prepared dishes to be eaten during the first three days of January.   Most dishes are cooked to be preserved for several days to a few weeks so housewives need not cook during the period.   The dishes has been traditionally cooked at home, but nowadays people purchase finished products of them at department stores or by placing online delivery orders to popular Japanese restaurants.

Groupon Japan[J], a Japanese subsidiary that a U.S. leading daily deal service provider set up last August by taking over IVS-backed Q:pod, introduced the special new year’s deal of the osechi meals, which is being unfavorably received on Japanese blogosphere during the holidays because almost of those who have ordered the meals are complaining that ingredients are so much differ from what have been introduced on the website.

Yokohama-based restaurant Bird Cafe introduced the deal of the Osechi meals for four persons that allows you to purchase for a discount price of 10,500 yen each (regular price: 21,000 yen).   Seeing is believing.  In the pictures below, the upper one shows you what they have introduced on Groupon’s website, and the lower one shoots what a customer has actually received.

Net no Ohanashi[J], a blog focusing on Japanese blogosphere and subculture trends, interviewed Mr. Kenji Mizuguchi[J] (@gaishokubunka), the president of the restaurant about behind the scene of this incident.

Interviewer(I): Why did this happen?

Mr. Mizuguchi (M): First of all, I’m very sorry for the inconvenience this might cause our customers.   We’ve been estimating 100 orders but actually got 500 orders.   We’ve not expected such a big echo up by a Groupon promotion.   We have rolled up our sleeves and forged ahead.

I: Why did you wade right into it?

M: We were unequal to the task.   We  should have cancelled the orders when we find out we can’t serve them in an expecting way.  But we were too disconcerted to stop accepting the orders.

I: Did you find you would get complaints when you packed with such poor ingredients?

M: We were in two minds of canceling the orders or delivering packages (even if it’s imperfect).   We thought the contracts with the customers is our first priority.   We thought it was important to deliver the packages.

I: Has Groupon Japan advised you of how the promotion will reflect your business?

M: Not at all.   A daily deal service dealing with the osechi meals was the first case for Groupon, they say.   When we asked them for it, they showed great interest in dealing with it.   We were too agitated.   I had no direct contact with a sales representative from Groupon Japan, but our sales manager discussed with them and got a good feeling.   I just made up my mind to get it through.

I: You mentioned you had been expecting 100 orders.   Did distributing ingredients for 100 packages to 500 cause the hollowness in a package?

M: We started accepting orders last November, and got into preparing on December 26th.   We just needed much time to pack it all than expected because we got more orders than expected.   But we never decreased the portion of dishes.

I: But the pictures of the dishes that were actually delivered look so poor, don’t they?

M: Dishes were set in nine portions in the meal lacquer boxes.   But we couldn’t have sufficient number of separators for making the portions, and changed them to four portions.

I: Do you mean the total variety and volume of dishes are almost same as planned regardless of the number of the portions?

M: The volume was smaller than what has been introduced with the picture on the website.   I’m very sorry.

I: This case caused a high sensation on the Japanese netsphere such as 2 channel bulletin board.   Did you check them out?

M: I did look them over and found what they say.

I: Just learned why it came out.  But has you put any apologies on your website yet?

M: We outsource our website maintenance and cannot update it during the holidays.  We did asked Groupon Japan to contact all the customers for refund.   We’re very sorry that our customers had such an unpleasant thing on the New Year’s day.

I: Thank you for talking with us.

After the interview, Mr. Mizuguchi announced he had stepped down as the president of the restaurant as of January 1st, 2011.

See Also:

• Groupon Japan’s announcement and applogies to those who purchased “Birdcafe’s osechi meals” (for refund)

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Events For The Week – 1-8 Jan

For a one-stop to all events related to or concerning entrepreneurship, certain industry-meets-business forums and seminars in Singapore, check out our Calendar. If not, you can also follow our bite-size updated posts for upcoming events for the week.

Events range from simple get-togethers to full-blown conferences. Get to meet fellow developers, entrepreneurs, startup CEOs & founders, and meet & learn from CEOs of established companies who have seen it all.

Our aim here at SGE is to make it easy for you to pick & choose from the event buffet. Enjoy.

Here are the events for this week. Events are mostly in Singapore (generally 30 minutes drive from anywhere), but we also include key events from around Southeast Asia and beyond.

Wed, 5th Jan:

(1) Entrepreneurs Corner @ SMU

Fri, 7th Jan:

(1) Hackerspace Entrepreneur Mastermind

Sat, 8th Jan:

(1) Code Android Developer Job Matching

Image courtesy of joyosity.

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