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Posts Tagged ‘Asia Pacific Region’

A Sign of Arrival: CloudCamp Tour India

CloudCamp Tour India will feature five CloudCamp events over the next eight days, illustrating the the growth of the movement in one of the largest technology communities in the world.

India is on the edge of seeing significant adoption for cloud computing. Janakiram MSV works with Alcatel Lucent as Deputy General Manager, Bell Labs-India. He makes a few points about why India is poised for significant growth in his post about the battle ahead in the cloud computing market.

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“Why should Cloud vendors take India seriously? Here are some points:

1) India hasn’t hit the saturation levels yet. Unlike Americas and EMEA, India and APAC have ample scope for IT adoption. This market has a huge, untapped potential at every level – Let that be enterprise, Public Sector or ITES.

2) India is a playground and a test bed to pilot strategic adoption techniques. No other geography will give the platform vendor access to the whole ecosystem. Want to engage with ISVs and excite them to develop on your platform? Well, India is the place to go. Do you need a mature developer community to pilot a SDK adoption plan? Want to setup a Center of Excellence to showcase the capabilities of your platform? Go, talk to Infosys or Wipro!

3) The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) story is just warming up. Some of the inherent problems that India has been grappling with can now turn into a great opportunity for Cloud vendors. Think of how you can empower the clusters of small businesses through the Cloud and you have a winning story there.”

Interest in India and the Asia Pacific Region is growing. For example, Amazon Web Services recently appointed Simone Brunozzi as an evangelist for the Asia Pacific region. Its the first time Amazon has had an evangelist for the Asia Pacific region.

Microsoft’s Windows Azure is sponsoring a number of the cloud computing events. Yahoo!’s R&D group will hold the first India “hadoop Summit,” on February 24 at the event in Bangalore.

These are all signs that cloud computing is growing as rapidly in India as other parts of the world.

Events are scheduled throughout the country, starting with CloudCamp Delhi, which is now underway.

Here’s a schedule of CloudCamp events taking place through next week:

February 23, 2010 in Chennai, India

February 25, 2010 in Hyderabad, India

February 27, 2010 in Pune, India

February 28, 2010 in Bangalore, India

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Friendster Strikes Deal With Yahoo Southeast Asia

More news from the social network Friendster. The site, which was acquired in December by Malaysian payments company MOL Global, has struck a deal with Yahoo Southeast Asia. The purpose of the deal is to integrate product features and cross-promote across both Friendster and Yahoo. Both Friendster and Yahoo stand to gain from the partnership as Friendster has a significant Asian audience and Yahoo also has a steady following in the regional area for certain web services.

Friendster, which was sold for just under $30 million, has over 90 million registered users and 90 percent of its daily traffic coming from Southeast Asia today. The partnership will involve a a new social application built by Friendster that will be prominently displayed on Yahoo Southeast Asia properties and a cross-promotion of Yahoo products on Friendster.

Yahoo Search will also feature results from Friendster user profiles and fan profiles, similar to the deals struck with Twitter and Facebook by the search giants. Friendster users will also be able to link their Friendster account to their Yahoo! account to share their Friendster network activity updates and inbox via their Yahoo accounts. So, users can check their Friendster account and send updates directly from their Yahoo homepage. Users will also be able to publish their Friendster network activity to Yahoo Messenger and other Yahoo applications.

The cross promotion between Friendster and Yahoo has already been implemented but the search results and activity update integration will be rolled out over the next few months.

Friendster, which was founded in 2001, has raised over $45 million in venture capital to date, and is sitting on some potentially lucrative IP. Friendster is no longer hot in the U.S. and still has members in the Asia/Pacific region. The social network, which just rolled out a much-needed redesign, appointed Richard Kimber as its new CEO, who used to head Sales and Operations in South East Asia for Google.

The partnership makes sense; and Friendster should be doing everything it can to try to own the user base in Southeast Asia, considering that the social network is performing poorly in other parts of the world.

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Malaysian Payments Company MOL Global Snaps Up Friendster

We heard reports that Friendster was going to shopping itself to an Asian technology company but tonight, the news was released that MOL Global, a Malaysian payments company, has purchased social network Friendster. The full press release is below. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but we’ve heard that the purchase price is around $100 million.

Friendster, which was founded in 2001, has raised over $45 million in venture capital to date, and is sitting on some potentially lucrative IP. The acquisition makes sense because while Friendster is no longer hot in the U.S., it’s most definitely still has members in the Asia/Pacific region.

The social network, which just rolled out a much-needed redesign, appointed Richard Kimber as its new CEO, who used to head Sales and Operations in South East Asia for Google.

MOL Global and Friendster already had a partnership power the payments ecosystem of the Friendster Wallet and its payments platform.

MOL Retail and Payment Channels and Leading Online Social Network Combine to Form Massive Content Distribution and E-commerce Platform in Asia for Over 100 Million Users

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ — MOL Global Pte. Ltd. (”MOL Global”), an affiliate of leading online payment solutions provider MOL AccessPortal Berhad (”MOL”), and Friendster, Inc. (”Friendster”), the operator of a top global web site based on traffic and a leading social network in Asia, announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which MOL Global will acquire 100% of Friendster. The principal shareholder of MOL is Tan Sri Vincent Tan, the Chairman and CEO of Berjaya Corporation Berhad, a leading, diversified Malaysian conglomerate that has annual revenues in excess of US$1.8 billion. Following the acquisition, the operations of MOL and Friendster will be combined to create Asia’s largest end-to-end content, distribution and commerce network, pairing MOL’s offline retail channel partners and payment platform with Friendster’s large online footprint, social network and user community in Asia.

“The merger with Friendster will continue to transform the social networking industry, combining a highly intuitive and successful social media site and online marketing channel with an integrated payment platform and content network which includes games, goods, gifts, music and video. We are creating a unique company that will be well positioned to provide content to a huge, regional user base, here in Southeast Asia,” said Ganesh Kumar Bangah, president and chief executive officer of MOL.

MOL uses the leverage of a network of over 500,000 physical and virtual payment channels across 75 countries worldwide to collect payments for content and services. Its core markets are Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and India. MOL has relationships with over 70 online game publishers that have a suite of over 200 online game titles. It also has partnerships with music, movie and video content owners and distributors across the region.

“Friendster and MOL are both industry pioneers and are close partners. This combination is a natural progression of our relationship and will be an industry-changing event,” said Richard Kimber, chief executive officer at Friendster. “The new combined entity gives Friendster the kind of financial backing, retail distribution, and e-commerce infrastructure that will enable us to accelerate our strategy and create a locally relevant, fun experience for our users in Asia, both on and offline.”

In 2003, Friendster pioneered social networking, and today is a leading web site in Asia, with over 75 million registered users and over 90 percent of daily traffic coming from the region. Asian youths have embraced Friendster and use it as their primary means of connecting to and keeping in touch with friends, self-expression, sharing content and news with friends, and as a source of entertainment. Friendster users also enjoy local music, gifting, photo sharing, online games, and using Friendster on their mobile devices. All of these are incorporated in Friendster’s product suite and will be further developed over time with MOL, specifically with Asian youths in mind.

Friendster and MOL entered a global partnership in October of this year where MOL was appointed to provide an integrated payments platform, as a foundation for The Friendster Wallet and The Friendster Gift Shop, for Friendster’s users. The new combined entity will now build upon that initial set of products to deliver a content distribution network and e-commerce platform, enabling a wide array of content to be distributed to Friendster’s community and monetize via micro-transactions using MOL’s payment platform. MOL will use the leverage of its physical distribution networks to localize and extend the online reach of social networking in Southeast Asia to the physical world through Tan Sri Vincent Tan’s substantial assets across Malaysia and the region, including retail franchises in Malaysia and across Southeast Asia such as Starbucks, 7-Eleven, Borders, Krispy Kreme, Wendy’s and Papa John’s Pizza, just to name a few.

Friendster recently launched a new brand and web site packed with new features representing a significant milestone in the company’s history and further signifying the company’s evolution to focus on the Asian youth market. The notable changes include a new fun-centric brand, and a redesigned web site with a focus on local relevance, fun and simplicity.

The combined entity will maintain offices in various locations, around the world, including Mountain View, CA (USA), the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. Ganesh Kumar Bangah will become the Group Chief Executive Officer of the combined entity while Richard Kimber will become the Non-Executive Chairman.

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Mobile e-Commerce is Struggling (Part 1)

There’s no question that mobile web use is on the rise. Recent reports tell us that cellular networks worldwide are seeing major increases in growth. In fact, there are even concerns that the current infrastructure won’t be able to keep up with the new demands. According to one research firm, 3G traffic in developed markets will increase by 20% by the end of 2014 but some operators will face HSPA capacity shortfalls as soon as mid-2010, if not earlier. Forrester Research also recently predicted that more than a third of Europeans will be accessing the mobile internet by 2014.

With these levels of growth, we’re also seeing related mobile services getting a boost. App stores, both phone-based and carrier-based, are popping up left and right, mobile video usage is booming, and mobile ad markets are seeing dramatic growth, too. However, there’s one area that hasn’t yet benefitted from the mobile revolution: mobile e-commerce.

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This is part 1 of a two-part article on the mobile e-commerce market in relation to other mobile trends.

The indicators of increased mobile web usage are everywhere. Just this week, we heard Facebook reporting their mobile growth had tripled from December of last year to this past month, for example. And then there’s AT&T, the carrier for Apple’s iPhone, which is seeing so much data usage that they couldn’t even keep up, having to delay the introduction of new iPhone capabilities like MMS messaging until they were ready to handle the demand.

Mobile Ads Doing Well

Mobile-dependent markets are doing well, too, at least for the most part. A recent Gartner report states that mobile ad spending will grow 74% this year worldwide to $914.5 million. But the real growth won’t happen until 2011 when advertisers are expected to fully embrace the shift to mobile. By 2013, the firm expects the mobile ad market to surpass $13 billion with the Asia-Pacific region in the lead, followed by North America and Europe. Not only is the rise of the smartphone to thank for this trend, so is the rise in flat-rate data plans which make it easier for more consumers to afford mobile web connectivity. As more consumers go online, more web publishers begin to cater to their needs with mobile-ready versions of their websites. This, in turn, “is lifting mobile web access among non-smartphone users,” notes Gartner analyst Andrew Frank.

Mobile Video on the Rise

Along with basic web surfing, mobile users are also finding entertainment via their handhelds, specifically in the form of mobile video. According to Nielsen’s latest three-screen report, the number of people watching mobile video increased 70% from last year. Nielsen, which specifically tracks American media habits, says this increase to 15 million viewers represents the largest annual growth to date.

M-Commerce Struggles

However, not all mobile-dependent markets are doing well. Mobile e-commerce, for example, is struggling. Despite the massive numbers of mobile users, those using their phones to make purchases are still few and far between…at least here in the U.S. According to new data from eMarketer, more than 70 million U.S. mobile phone users will access the internet from their devices this year, but the m-commerce market remains immature. In an April 2009 survey by RIS News, privacy and security concerns are still at the forefront of both shoppers’ and retailers’ minds. This had led companies to drag their feet when it comes to introducing their mobile commerce plans. Says Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst, “most retailers are either standing on the sidelines or in the midst of planning their mobile commerce strategy.”

Another major problem is the lack of standardization in the mobile space. With the number of platforms now available, retailers find building a plethora of mobile applications not worth the effort. As InfoWorld recently noted, the smartphone market has become a “tower of Babel for developers.” This means that mobile retailers have to carefully pick-and-choose the platforms they plan to support in order to see reasonable returns on their investments in this space. Despite the slow growth, it appears that m-commerce could be successful if only there were enough mobile apps and shopping opportunities out there.

Already, mobile payments firm Billing Revolution found that on-the-go consumers seem happy to purchase small ticket items like pizza and movie tickets, for example.

And a March 2009 PriceGrabber.com survey found that early m-commerce adopters were even buying up higher priced items like consumer electronics, apparel and jewelry.

In other words, when it comes to m-commerce, “if you build it, they will come.” , or so it seems. However, developing m-commerce applications is only one part of the equation. For mobile e-commerce to be successful, we’ll need to adopt a number of mobile payment platforms too.

To be continued in part 2…

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