BlackBerry PlayBook arrives in Malaysia

Research in Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry PlayBook tablet was launched in Malaysia on July 15, and would be sold through a partnership with local telecommunications provider Maxis.

The tablet device is now available at a retail price of RM1,599 (US$532) for the model with 16GB of storage space; RM1,899 for 32GB and RM2,199 for 64GB. Existing subscribers to Maxis’s BlackBerry service can get a unit from RM990 when they sign up for a 3GB PlayBook data.

“We have invested in the building of an entire ecosystem that supports their communications needs through providing them with the best devices, rate plans, network coverage and customer service,” Maxis chief operating officer Jean Pascal van Overbeke said at the launch event in Kuala Lumpur.

The launch of the tablet device in Malaysia follows launches in Indonesia on July 7, and in Singapore on June 23. The PlayBook’s arrival this year comes at a challenging time for the Canada-based company, which recorded revenue of US$4.9bil for its first quarter of its 2012 fiscal year, down 12% from US$5.6bil in the previous quarter, but up 16% from US$4.2bil from the previous corresponding quarter.

The company is faring better outside the US, where international revenue in the first quarter grew 67% year-over-year. During the quarter, RIM shipped 13.2 million BlackBerry handheld devices and approximately 500,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

“Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into the second quarter, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower-than-expected outlook in the second quarter,” RIM co-chief executive officer Jim Balsillie said in a recent press release.

In related news, Malaysian newspaper The Star, citing sources close to the matter, reported that RIM is planning to outsource some of its production to a Flextronics facility in Seberang Perai, Penang.

Flextronics, which has headquarters in Singapore and presence in 30 countries, provides design, engineering and manufacturing services to a broad range of industries, including mobile telephony.

Quoting the same source, the newspaper also said that RIM may be exploring the possibility of setting up its own manufacturing facility in Penang.

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Chinese B2C Online Retail Market Share in Q1 2011

Analysis International releases its research data on Chinese B2C online retail market share in Q1, 2011. It says that in Q1, 2011 the total transaction value of Chinese B2C online retail market has reached rmb 47.07 billions (~$7.3 billions). Taobao is still leading the market (31.4%), followed by 360buy (10.2%), Joyo (Amazon China, 2.3%) and Dangdang (1.6%).

Related posts:

1. Chinese Online Retailers Ready to Take off – StarWatch Report Nov Edition Released
2. Dangdang.com Goes Public in Nasdaq Next Month
3. Price War: 360buy Vs. Dangdang

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Video: Chinese Young Man made his iPad 3

We want to warn you that this is not a short video, in which it shows how this young man built his version iPad 3 with his hands. Sure enough that his machine is widely different from what you think the real iPad 3 should look like, and, without any extra instruction, with that fake Apple logo, we must have thought that’s just another knockoff from that wonderful land Shenzhen. But all these don’t matter much, right? he deserves some admiration from us for the DIY spirit. Moreover, his iPad 3 seems great, the touch very responsive with Windows XP.

Gathering information from Internet about this video, I learned that he worked for a computer shop, and he did this in his spare time, which lasted three month. The parts are mainly from a second hand laptop, and cost him around 300 USD. Some customers were even trying to order one like this from him, but he refuse to do the business. Hmm, man, it’s not an easy job.

[Source: Youku]

• Transformer got Shanzhai-ed in China, Built from an old truck, 9.7 meters in height
• Funny DIY Device With Subtle Control of Steel Balls’ tracks
• Yet another Lego Mindstorms Rubik’s Cube Solver

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Weishi, Tencent’s Video Messaging App, the Cross-Platform FaceTime

Kik+Talkbox applications are hot in China. We said that one of the reasons people love to copy this idea is to beat Tencent (potentially). Leijun’s Miliao sounds promising, so Tencent fights back with its own Weixin. But, the fact is that you can not never under-estimate Tencent’s ability. Yesterday, Tencent announced Weishi, a Video messaging application. 

Weishi is still at limited public test stage yet. But according to its official site, it comes with a few very interesting features:

1. Weishi is functioning like Kik and Talkbox, i.e. the social connection built on Weishi users is based their phone contacts. But besides text (not clear yet if it supports voice-only messaging), Weishi upgrade the idea to Video. It actually reminds of Seesmic at its early launch, Loic called it Video Twitter. Seesmic did not work out in the end, but with the Kik model, smart phone and 3G environment, the video chat sounds much more promising.

2. support both iOS and Android – Weishi is now available for iPhone, Android and Android Pad, the iPad version is coming soon. It is like Facetime, but will be cross-platform.

3. High-quality video chat – we could not test it out yet, but the official site says the high-quality video chat is guaranteed.

I would thumb up to Tencent this time. At least, it rarely to see Tencent market its product with the words the First-ever in China.  Just can’t wait to try out Weishi.

Related posts:

1. Introduction of Four Micro-video Services: Is an era of Micro-video coming?
2. WhatsApp Kik? They are cloning us in China, that's what!
3. Why People Love Copying Kik+Talkbox

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Calling Entrepreneurs –From Goan Feni To Scotch Whiskey Lovers

[Editorial Notes: Guest article by Sanjay Anandaram, a passionate advocate of entrepreneurship in India; He brings close to two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, corporate executive, venture investor, faculty member, advisor and mentor. He’s involved with Nasscom, TiE, IIM-Bangalore, and INSEAD business school in driving entrepreneurship.]

India is the world’s largest whisky (in all its variants) market and it’s fast growing market for alcoholic products is worth in excess of $22billion. About 40 million bottles of Scotch whisky being exported by Scotland last year, up by 40% from 2009. Recently, India granted geographical indication of origin (GI) status to Scotch whisky, a legal protection that will help reinforce the authenticity of the product and enhance the market potential. This recognition is “good news for Scotland and great news for one of its most important exports” according to the Scotland Office Minister. Scotland’s whisky producers naturally see India as a priority market and the granting of the GI will ensure that Indian whiskies (99% of the consumption today) will not be able to use the term Scotch whisky on their products.

What was once an unorganized and illegal family activity of distilling is now a global recognized branded product. The Scotch whisky industry is over $6 billion in size (with 80% being exported internationally), employs around 10,000 across around 140 distilleries and generates a gross value-add per employee of over $400K with employment costs of $72K.

Huge investments in marketing, visitor-centres, processes, education and training, research, technology and production facilities has generated this. Mythology and legend have been created around this product has been created and subsequently consumed around the world.

Now compare this with say, the state of Goan Feni or Fenny which too has a GI tag – obtained in 2009. Most people are unaware of the GI tag (including producers). The industry is unorganized, small and family owned, home run, with low levels of education. The processes and technology are traditional with little or no investment in research and training. Businesses are self-financed. The branded segment is tiny with most of the produce geared for consumption in bars. About 40,000 people are employed across 4000 mini-distilleries/stills and about 1million bottled litres of cashew feni were made in 2005.

In other words, the Goan Feni industry is largely like what the Scotch whisky industry was a century ago. And worst of all, because Goan Feni is classified as a country liquor, it cannot be sold outside Goa! Goan Feni is losing market share rapidly as well.

This scenario isn’t unique to Goan Feni but is hugely illustrative of the state of affairs across a range of industries in India. So what’s to be done? How does one convert commodity, fragmented & unorganized, inefficient, self-financed businesses into brands that deliver a value to customers, partners and suppliers who have a choice and who will therefore pay for that value? The lack of an entrepreneurial mindset (one that sees opportunity and solves problems where others don’t) across the value chain – regulators to producers to distributors – is painfully visible.

Investments in technology to deliver products and services efficiently, in a scalable and transparent manner; Investments in marketing understand customers, market segments, define products and create brands; Investments in processes to ensure that consistency, predictability and reduce human dependency; Investments in partnerships and relationships to grow the entire industry; Investments in training, research and development; Accessing and harnessing capital and top quality people to deliver on the vision of the entrepreneurial mindset.

It is the aggregation of all of these that create scalable organizations that last rather than small cottage business.

The good news is that a new breed of entrepreneurs are emerging to convert the Goan Feni metaphor to that of the Scotch whisky one. Companies like MakeMyTrip in holiday packages, Via World for travel, Flipkart in retailing, Vaatsalya in healthcare, redBus in bus ticketing, Bharat Matrimony in matrimonials, Bill Junction in bill payments, Naukri in jobs are some examples. The bad news – there’s a need for many more such entrepreneurs in many more areas!

The word Whisky comes from ancient Gaelic that means “Water of Life”. There’s a need for more passionate people with the entrepreneurial mindset to deliver the water of life to the India story and to convert Goan Feni to Scotch whisky!

What’s your opinion?

[Picture Credit: BOB008/Flickr]

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Web Wednesday – 20 Jul

On July 20, Web Wednesday will have their monthly gathering. This month, Web Wednesday has privileges to feature David Wareing, the marketing guru over at Borneo Motors as the speaker. David will share about “Digital Engagement in the Automotive Industry and beyond!”

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Event Details

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When: Wed, 20th July
Time: 630pm-9pm
Where: Beer Market, #01-17, #02-02 Block 3B River Valley Road The Foundry Clarke Quay Singapore, 179021 (Map)
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Google Chrome OS with Caesar Sengupta – 22 July

As an initiative to spur more interest among the students of the National University of Singapore towards developing apps, e27 together with NUS Enterprise and Garag3 are engaging industry experts to share their experience and knowledge with the various student groups on campus. The upcoming talk will see Caesar Sengupta, Product Management Director for Google Chrome OS, presenting a short demo on the Chrome OS and answering questions from the student developer community in NUS and the public . Caesar leads the product strategy for Google Chrome OS and was previously involved in product management activities for Google Toolbar, Google Desktop and Google SideWiki. Having being with Google since 2006, he is one of the few seasoned Google product managers in Europe.

Caesar will bring, to the talk, over a decade of experience developing high-tech consumer and enterprise products. Prior to joining Google, he was involved in various engineering and research positions at Encentuate Inc., later acquired by IBM, and also Hewlett Packard Labs where he was involved in enterprise security and expert finding systems. e27 managed to grab a quick word via email with Caesar to find out what he plans to bring to the session on July 22. We only managed to get a couple of questions to him. So here they are:

Why do you think developers will be interested in the Chrome OS?

Really developers should be interested in the web – that’s what I care about from the Chrome OS perspective. I was planning to do a general briefing on ChromeOS – why, what, where we are going kind of thing. I did that for a bunch of IDA and MICA officials when they visited California and they invited me to do the same to a broader audience when I was back home in Singapore.

What do you see in the future of Chrome OS?

A much better computer for the vast majority of users. To illustrate better, here are the two videos I sent earlier Chromebook video and the What is Chrome OS video.

Event details:

Date: 22 July, 2011 (Friday)

Time: 10:00 – 11:30 am

Venue: Seminar Room, Level 1, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119613 (map)

Register here.

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GeekWeek Shanghai, From July 22 to July 29

Last year when I was interviewing Max Levchin, co-founder of Paypal, I asked him “do you think you are still a geek” after being so successful, and his remarks is still fresh in my memory. He said that “Once a geek, forever a geek.” And geek isn’t just confine to top-notch programmer any more; it should be that kind of spirit that everyone in the internet business possesses. Chinese internet calls for innovation, there’s more waiting to be changed by the geeks.

 

People who are no stranger to Chinese internet business should have the feeling that, there is always so much going on in Beijing with plenty of meetups, conferences and so on. Shanghai seems lacks behind a little bit. Indeed, Shanghai needs more opportunities for internet peers to share and network. As an independent tech media that covers Chinese internet area, TechNode has always been active in hosting or co-hosting bunch of events. What we are trying to do is to help building up the internet ecosystem.

 

That’s why we decide to venture into this, to organize the GeekWeek@Shanghai series of events with Shanghai Yangpu Technology Center, Cyzone and some other Shanghai-based web events organizers. In the week starting July 22, we will co-creat a fantastic week, hoping to make more noise and attract more attention to Shanghai internet business.

 

Listed below are the finalized events schedule, if you have any other recommendations, feel free to drop us a line at contact AT technode. You’re welcome to take an amazing ride in GeekWeek@Shanghai.

 

July 22, evening – StartupWeekend Shanghai  http://shanghai.startupweekend.org/

Preliminary assessment for StartupWeekend projects

 

July 23, afternoon – Technode Touch salon (150ppl) http://event.technode.com

Topic: Mobile Ad: Challenges and Predicament

 

July 24, afternoon – Google Technology User Group (GTUG) (100 ppl)

 

July 23 –24 StartupWeekend Shanghai  http://shanghai.startupweekend.org

 

July 24, evening – StartupWeekend Shanghai  http://shanghai.startupweekend.org

Project Roadshow

 

July 25, evening – MobileMonday Shanghai – Mobile Gaming (100ppl) http://www.mobilemondayshanghai.net

 

July, 26 – TBD

 

July 27, evening – Drupal Shanghai Happy Hour Event http://groups.drupal.org/node/160429

 

July 28, evening – Google Mobile Game development seminar

 

July 29 – ChinaAccelerater 10×10 Startup Roadshow

 

Stay tuned for latest updates on our GeekWeek@Shanghai.

 

Related posts:

1. Open Source Meetup, July 9th at Anken Green Shanghai
2. StartupWeekend Shanghai
3. BarCamp Is In Shanghai, Do We Need OpenCoffee Or OpenTea?

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Yahoo! Koprol reveals new UI features

Location-based social network service Yahoo! Koprol celebrated their first anniversary under Yahoo! on July 7 by giving members of the media a look into its new user-interface features.

Among the features that were revealed include Onboarding, which makes it easier for users to check in and understand how Koprol works; People Finder, which allows people to connect with others nearby; Hovercard, which makes it easier to look into a user’s profile; Hot Tags, which lists out popular topics and events; and Koprol Stamp, the reward system for active and social users. Also shown was the Koprol widget, which enables users to display Koprol streams to their blogs or websites.

At the press conference celebrating the anniversary, Yahoo!’s Country Manager Pontus Sonnerstedt said that Koprol has become an Indonesian success story since its acquisition on May 24. “Yahoo! believes in the constant innovation of products that fuel technology growth in new-to-net markets. We have made it a priority to enhance the service offerings on Koprol to make it easier to socialize on our platform.”

In the year under Yahoo!, Koprol saw 20-fold increase in its membership, which now stands at 1.5 million globally. The service is being used in America, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam, but 80% to 90% of its users are based in Indonesia, according to  Yahoo! Koprol co-founder Satya Witoelar.

Also mentioned during the event was “Koprol for Business”, which is a  free, location-based marketing solution for SMEs and corporations who want to socially engage with their customers. Since its launch in February, more than 3,000 businesses have registered with the service, including Rockto, AHA Broadband, Telkomsel, Nexian, and Burger King.

“We will continue on our journey as Indonesia’s first location-based service to offer relevant, affordable and highly effective marketing solutions for SME entrepreneurs and enable them to effectively target potential customers,” said Witoelar.

Koprol can be used on major smartphone platforms such as iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS, while feature phone users can run Koprol by downloading the Java app.

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Shopo – A Marketplace for Everything With An Indian Heart [Handicraft eCommerce]

Shopo is an online marketplace for handcrafted designer products. Based out of Chennai with a core team of 2, Shopo is bringing handpicked designers to sell their stuff online. The product ranges from bags to jewelry to wall arts to bed covers, pretty much everything that can be hand-crafted.  

1. How is the order fulfillment done?
Shopo has tied up with fedex for the logistics. The order fulfillment is a Shopo + Seller effort. This is what happens when an order comes through.
A confirmation mail is sent to the seller and it is followed up with an SMS. The seller confirms the order by clicking through the mail. A pick up is scheduled within 24 hours, i.e Fedex goes and picks up the stuff from the seller’s place and drops it at the buyers place.
We are proud to be the only marketplace model that also takes care of the logistics bit! So far, all our orders have reached the buyer within 3-5 days and the response has been pretty good .

2. How big is the seller network?
If you are talking about the reach of sellers, the current set of 20 sellers, together have a social reach of about 30,000 individuals!
If you are talking about the no. of sellers, We have handpicked 20 out of a preliminary list of 600 and launched with them! We intend to keep screening and launching a set of sellers in regular intervals. In fact, we will be launching 5 new sellers by end of this month!

One small but unique thing about Shopo is that they are giving a face to the seller (bio and profile pic). Given the kind of products they are selling, this gives a personal feel and a factor of trust to the buyers. On the UI front although efforts can been seen, yet there seems to be lot of scope, specially when to comes to call-to-action colors. On the SEO front, there is quite some work needed. Nonetheless, I liked their concentration on products.

The current handicraft market is quite fragmented with little to no discoverability. The purchase is usually impulsive and there is no ‘standard price’. You never know if the thing you are buying for 100 is available for 10 somewhere else. A major portion of the money is made by the middle men who bring the stuff to the market and not by the creators. Such startups are certainly filling a need gap.

Although there are people already selling stuff on Ebay etc. but there is no brand building in this space yet. There is no go-to place when it comes to handicrafts. There is a big opportunity here.

What do you think of Shopo? Would you buy designer stuff online?

Similar Startups – NCR based NetHaat and Bangalore Based Aporv

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Cazbak – Get Paid To Shop At Your Favorite Online Stores

Online shopping is steaming up and so is the advertising spend from the players wanting to get a share in the pie. Pay-Per-Registration or Pay-Per-Sale has been the safest payment model for the ecommerce players as these guarantee top line. There are ad networks like DGM that are thriving fundamentally on this model.

With the invent of affiliates there is another business model cropping up India, that of paid-to-purchase models. Like the old days of paid-to-read programs wherein a users would be incentivized to receive ads on email/SMS, this model pays to complete a purchase or register at one of the advertisers’ site. The business model is simple, the advertiser pays an affiliate commission to the network and network passes a major portion of this to the user.

Cazbak is one startup exploring this model. Based out of Baroda with a team of 8 people, Cazbak has launched parallely in US and India. For India the startup is dependent on a lot of direct affiliate sign up with the e-commerce players and other advertisers are sourced through DGM. Cazbak passes on around 75% of the affiliate commission they earn to the users. Once the user reaches a minimum limit of Rs.500, he can ask a payout through Paypal or cheque.

Amulyam is another early player in this space and has grown quite big. Though the cash-back offered by Amulyam is way lesser than what Cazbak offers for the same merchants. Amulyam has removed the logistics of sending cheques or depending on Paypal and gives out the payout in terms of mobile recharge (talktime).

Other players like Khojguru bargain out a coupon code for the users, this gives the incentive to the user and a tracking for the affiliate commission to them.

Though this is very attractive proposition for online shoppers, the one reason I am skeptical of this model is that there is no value add to the ecosystem (it simply is piggybacking on the rising ecommerce industry).
The model is already quite popular in US with some well established players. It would be interesting to see how Cazbak fares there.

What do you think of this model? What value add can they provide?

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Events For The Week – 16-23 Jul

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.

Tue 19th July:

(1) DestrActions

Wed 20th July:

(1) 50th ACE BlueSky Exchange
(2) mig33 Developer Program Launch
(3) SVCA Interactive Digital Media Sharing And Networking Session
(4) Web Wednesday

Thu 21st July:

(1) How To Create And Sustain A Bankable Business Workshop

Thu 21st-Fri 22nd July:

(1) AVCJ Forum: Private Equity and Indian and Chinese Companies In SEA

Fri 22nd-Sun 24th July:

(1) [Bali, ID] Regional Entrepreneurship Summit

Image courtesy of joyosity.

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Upcoming Events: Geeks on a Train 10×10 Conference Beijing, July 23

These events were curated by Frank Yu from Startup Digest Beijing.

July 23 - Geeks on a Train 10×10 Conference Beijing

Where: Yuan Fen Flow, 798 District

Time: From 4pm

Cost: FREE

The Geeks on a Train tour will take the Chinaccelerator startups on a ride from Dalian to Shanghai through Beijing this July!

As part of the tour, the 10×10 conference is bringing you 10 tech pioneers on stage. This is an amazing opportunity for you to have a peek at the first start-up accelerator program in China, meet interesting people and listen to amazing speakers.

Each of them will take you through their secrets, experiences and best advice about entrepreneurship during 10 minutes.

Confirmed speakers are include Richard Robinson Youlu Inc./ Stephen Wang, Alive.cn / Nick Plante, Zerosum Labs /David Kay, Yuan Fen Flow/Casper Johansen, Seravia/Frank Yu, Kwestr.

Off topic but geeks on a train rhymes with snakes on a plane (the movie)

 

 

Related posts:

1. The Global Mobile Internet Conference 2011 – coming in April
2. Wireless Developer Forum (WDF) Conference, Beijing
3. Meet SouthEast Asia Web, OpenWebAsia/SEA Conference Coming in July in Malaysia

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Expect more mobile-based attacks, says security expert

A security expert has warned that while Apple’s iOS devices haven’t been mass-targeted by hackers, consumers – especially those with jailbroken iPhones and iPads – should be wary about possible attacks in the future.

“When the iPad and iPhone first came out, the devices were what security consultants have been asking for,” said Andy Ellis, the Chief Security Officer for Akamai. “Each app is sandboxed from each other, there’s no common file system that could be exploited, and there wasn’t multitasking, so there wasn’t chance for a process-space invasion.”

“Unfortunately, Apple has been moving away from that security model, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more attacks on that,” he said, adding that for now, users have a slight headstart over the hackers as there hasn’t been a large-scale attack on the iOS platform.

As for Android devices, Ellis said that he’s unsure if Google would head towards a more secure or insecure model for its OS, and added that those with jailbroken iOS devices are the ones he’s most wary about.

“The Android phones and jailbroken iPhones probably represent the biggest risk we have because those who jailbroken them have basically taken a device that was secure by default, and replaced it with an OS that is known to be insecure,” he said.

Going mobile

Besides being a target for hackers, Ellis is seeing a rising trend in using mobile devices tethered to mobile broadband networks to carry out hacks and Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS).

“It’s not the compromised smartphones that are used to launch the attacks, but rather the laptops that are on a mobile broadband network. We no longer have the clean attribution of where these attacks come from,” he said.

Referring to figures from Akamai’s State of the Internet report, Ellis also said that there were more Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS) in the last quarter of 2010 than in the previous three quarters. And the numbers are slowly growing this year.

According to Ellis, high-profile DDoS attacks were rare in between 2005 to 2009, but came back strongly following the July 4 DDoS attacks on US government sites in which Akamai’s clients withstood a 200GB/s surge of traffic. Other sites, however, went down, and it was after those attacks that the DDoS method became popular among hackers again.

Like last year, however, Ellis expects a spike of attacks to come at the final quarter of this year. “Most attacks are timed according to when the hackers can do the most harm, and for online traders that’s during the holiday season.”

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Singapore Sustainability Awards honors businesses

Nine private and public organizations were honored for their green practices in a Singapore Sustainability Awards ceremony held on 11 July.

Two awards were given out: the Sustainable Business Awards (SBA) and the Green IT Awards (GIT). With the SBA, there were two categories, one for SMEs and another one for large enterprises. The GIT aims to recognize holistic green IT solutions.

Below are the winners.

SBA, SME category:
Greenpac
Rigel Technology
Siloso Beach Resort

SBA, Enterprise category:
DHL
Sembcorp Industries
JTC Corporation

GIT:
The National Library Board
Tak System Integration
eBUS Media Networks

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Singapore’s DBS bank offers bank accounts for startups

Called the DBS Entrepreneur’s Account for Start-ups, the bank account offers certain services at no cost as well as discounts on a business insurance plan, reported Channel NewsAsia on 13 July.

The Singapore bank is restricting the bank account eligibility to businesses under six-months old.

The new accounts allow start-ups to be “more affordable in terms of starting a bank relationship with us, giving them more convenience. And, also to introduce something which is a big cost for them which is our insurance scheme,” said DBS Bank’s head of enterprise banking Edwin Khoo.

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Philippines Digest – 15 Jul

Here you can find some interesting startup news around Philippines, not only in its capital, Manila, but also other their startup hubs such as Cebu, General Santos City, Pasay, Quezon City, and many more.

(1) Based on the World Airline Ranking compiled by Airline Business magazine, Philippine Airlines (PAL) ranked 61st in the world, raking in a total of 17.8 billion Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK).

(2) The three telecommunication giants in the Philippines supported the National Telecommunications Commission’s move to bring down interconnection charges. The proposal will bring down charges on voice calls from its current rate of P4 down to P2 per minute, while SMS rates will be reduced by P0.10 from P0.35.

(3) Franchise Asia 2011, to be hosted by the Philippines in September, will be akin to an assembly for the United Nations with more than 20 countries each sending their respective franchise brands.

(4) Becoming a restaurateur seems to be a dream for many Filipinos. One common trend among aspiring restaurateurs now is to attend culinary school to learn the basics and hone their kitchen skills. Here is a list of four culinary schools in Metro Manila for you to choose from.

(5) Globe Telecom, Philippines telecommunication company, offers new and affordable packages for entrepreneurs who want to have a complete suite of wired, wireless and broadband solutions for their businesses.

(6) Prospects for the Philippine economy remain favorable in 2011 as investments, private consumption and the services sector are expected to strengthen, the quarterly update released by the World Bank said.

(7) Entrepreneurs in Philippines no longer have to deal with long queues to remit their contributions and that of their employees when the Social Security System (SSS) implements their new remittance schedule starting this month.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.

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