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Happy DiGi!

Now that I'm in still in the festive mood of Eid al-Adha (its 3rd day, and the "formal" celebration for the billion plus Muslims around the world is about to end in less than three hours from now, before Maghrib (dawn) of Saturday, 13th Thw al-Hijjah (the 12th/final month in Islamic Hijri calendar), let's talk about another "Happy"...

[Well, Xmas & New Year's Day is coming up soon, so, it's more Happy Holidays afterwards for the rest of this month...]

This "Happy" (or "h>ppy") I stumbled upon after seeing a Google Adsense banner being displayed on my one of websites...

I'm a DiGi loyal user (for nearly three years now, since first switching to it from Maxis/Celcom back in January 2005, after having being demo-ed its GPRS Edge connectivity by the CEO himself, on Mr Morten Lundal's phone at Gurney Plaza -- hehe, how many people can say that they were sold the telco service by Mr CEO of a BIG3 Telco!), but I only found about this new product from DiGi today, although it has been soft-launched earlier this month on 7 DEC 2007 supposedly, according to a underground announcement on Lowyat.net forum. The domain itself was first registered just two days earlier, on 5 DEC 2007 -- THAT has gotta to one of the fastest product/brand launches by a corporation!! And cool brand name too I must say...

Hmm... Did Wind Koh of Hebat Interactive just made tons of money off this domain he previously owned? (This "You don't know Wind?" gentleman who proudly blogged about his recent marriage with Zoyee Lee (another fellow Friendster 'otai') in August 2007, happens to be one of the earliest local domainers having snapped many of cool Malaysia-centric names in his portfolio including merdeka.com, play.com.my and x.com.my)

By just looking at the website @ happy.com.my, not many people would have realized that this is another product from DiGi because it's not mentioned clearly on the site itself. But I just had to find out more about it because it looks so professional and corporate-like funded... (and I'm in the telco/telecommunications consultation business). The press release section both on its Malay and English versions is still empty to-date. And a check at Digi corporate website also lacks anything about this Happy thing on its Media Room/Press Release section. Even the copyright byline only says "Happy © Copyright 2007". The only sections that mention DiGi or DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd (DTSB, supposedly fully owned by DiGi.com Bhd) are the Privacy Policy and T&C pages. Good for DiGi to make the site clearly bearing the same theme as its yellow-tubed happy people as on its TV ads!

A further google digging points me to this active discussion at Lowyat.net - http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/586224 (these guys are quick!). And Bernama had indeed reported about it back on 7 DEC 2007: "Digi's Happy To Tap New Market In Prepaid Services" and Utusan Malaysia picked up the story a day later with its Malay language reports: "DiGi ceburi pasaran mudah alih caj rendah" (translation: "DiGi enters low-cost mobile market") and "Lebih gembira dengan Happy" (meaning "happier with Happy").

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 7 (Bernama) -- DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd today launched Happy, calling it the country's first no-frills prepaid mobile service to tap a new niche market.

Happy was created based on findings that for 90 percent of Malaysian consumers, calls and short messaging service (SMS) were the services most widely used, DiGi said.

Its chief executive officer Morten Lundal said the market trend was rapidly changing, from the situation of three players in the market to many players.

"You will also see this in Europe and globally. We don't mind to be just adding to that market dynamics and introduced Happy to take market share in that new marketplace," Lundal said.

"So, Happy is an insurance to compete in the smaller and emerging markets that people have overlooked from before," he said.

Lundal said Happy marked an experiment by DiGi to tap the new niche market, competing in the marketplace as a separate mobile service.

"There will be several new players in Malaysia and going forward, Happy is an excellent instrument for DiGi to compete with them," he said.

According to Lundal, Happy will not affect DiGi in terms of market share as the company's products are targeted at broader and different markets.

He said Happy was the brainchild of four "rebels" in DiGi who took about six to eight weeks to develop the service.

It will come under these people operating as a separate team but still under DiGi and using the mobile operator's nationwide backbone to roll out the service, he added.

Happy offers a simple plan that enables customers to make call and send SMS to any network for one sen per second up to 99 sen and 10 sen per SMS.

The starter pack is priced from RM5 per pack and available at participating Giant hypermarkets. Customers can also order it online at the www.happy.com.my website.

Finally, TM (parent of Celcom) gets a good and bold competition for its iTalk! All the best DiGi!!

[in addition to the rather less popular options from TIME, RedTone, NasionCom etc -- I wonder if Maxis has a comparable product in the market or coming up soon...]

BTW, I was commenting earlier on Dr Irfan Khairi's blog on how Malaysia corporations don't seem to 'happy' to join in the world in corporate social responsibilities (CSR) as clearly observed during the 3-day Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) Event on the Future (GK3) which was hosted by the Malaysia-based secretariat for the second time in Malaysia in seven years (the last one was in the year 2000) -- Besides TM (which got in last minute but lacked any major presentation as its corporate booth), MIMOS (running a decent booth, and also represented by its former CEO, Tengku Datuk Dr Mohd Azzman Shariffadee) and KTAK (represented majorly only by its minister, the 'lighter-moments' Dato Seri Dr Lim Kheng Yaik), no other major Malaysia-based corporations (i.e. 'Berhad' publicly listed companies) were well represented in this Malaysia-hosted congregation of nearly 2000 individuals from 150+ countries representing NGOs and other ICT/media-centric business leaders like Intel, Microsoft, Nokia-Siemens, Alcatel, AlJazeera, BBC etc.

When asked by Rinalia Rahim, the Chair of GK3 Working Committee during a Ministerial panel session, Dr Lim responded with and acknowledgment on his ministry do realize the implementation problems on the many existing government policies and added his usual humor, "... an old man like me has to come to events like this, when there are so many agencies already set up to take up these tasks..."

DiGi on the other hand, although did not make an obvious representation, was actually represented by its major shareholding company, Telenor, through Grameen Phone of Bangladesh (also majorly owned by Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank, winner of a Nobel Peace Price in 2006).

And now that DiGi has just donated some 200 cattle for Eid al-Adha 'qurban', perhaps I'll stick longer with DiGi although this company is still charging me arms and legs (same old rates) for SMSes at 15-cent per message to other networks through its DiGi Business plan I signed up long time ago -- almost switch to another telco/mobile broadband provider up to having filled the entire form, but canceled last minute when told that 3.5G/HSDPA service is after all not yet available in my Penang town -- thought Maxis and Celcom advertised aggressively on how they've covered the entire Penang!! Oh well, maybe I'll wait until Number Portability arrives in Malaysia. Until then, it's Happy DiGi still...

I am a supreme nerd!!!

According to NerdTests.net, my nerdiness is:

All hail the monstrous nerd...

You are by far the SUPREME NERD GOD!!!

2% scored higher (more nerdy),
0% scored the same, and
98% scored lower (less nerdy).

Well, I know I'm a nerd (and proud of it), but I'd like to think that I'm not the nerdiest of people. And looks like I'm right: 2% other people who took the test are nerdier than me!

It's good to know though that being a nerd is not longer as bad as in the 70s (as portrayed in 80s and older movies) and earlier when these individuals constantly get laughed at all the time: Einstein, Newton, Stephen Hawkings etc. to name a few of today's big names in science. Today, some of the richest people, both seniors and freshies are some of the nerdiests: William H Gates III (one of the biggest philantropists out there too, and one-time TIME Person of the Year, side-by-side with U2's Bono not too long ago), the Googleaires pair, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the two Yahoo!s, Linux's Torvalds, Apple's Steves (Jobs is now the biggest individual shareholder of Disney!) and many more today's cool and filthy rich guys especially those in the ICT/computer industries.

Heck, last year, TIME even named 'YOU' (nerds who came up with user-generated content on YouTube and millions other websites.) as its 2006 Persons of the Year...

Wanna be rich and cool?

Be a nerd (and entrepreneurial)!

(See, even the people behind nerdtests.net are making good money themselves by coming up with cool gift items: tshirts, stuffed bears, caps etc.)

Seas of people all over Penang...

The weekend that ended November and started December, the final month of 2007, has concluded and what an eventful one it was for Penangites and her visitors. Congregations of people can be spotted at various locations including at Sg. Nibong (for Pesta Eskpo that began last Thursday, 29 NOV), Padang Kota / Esplanade (for Boria shows etc during the Program Merakyatkan Seni Budaya (PMS) by KekkWa in collaboration with Pemuda Umno) and at PISA Bayan Baru (for the 3rd PC Fair season of the year, organized by PIKOM).

And I happened to be at each of these, plus two other wedding reception ceremonies during the short span of two days and two nights, so it was food, music, long walk and people watching for me all weekend long! While Pesta Ekspo and PMS managed to pull tens of thousands of people each day, PC Fair with 118 participating vendors (the 2nd largest PC expo in Malaysia after next week's in Kuala Lumpur, I think!) was able to garner 100,000+ people in a single day seamingly, at least from my observation on Sunday, its final MEGA SALE day. Check out this snap of heads there, cramping like clogged pipe (psst... captured using the very camera just purchased there just minutes earlier):


And aargh.... I just found out that the tablet notebook I bought less than two months ago has been replaced with an upgraded model (with slightly better Athlon CPU), and this new model retails for the same price plus all the same goodies (an extra 6-cell battery and an optical mouse). How fast these tech items you bought get devalued! With my good thumbs up, my good friend ended up buying eight pieces of this upgraded model for his staff, spending some well over RM20,000 in one place. I on the other hand kept my spending minimal to no more than RM1,000 because I was reserving for more purchases at PC Fair KL next week...

Talking about gadget buying, I must express how disappointed I am with e-commerce (online mail order) in Malaysia. While I used to get items delivered within the same week or much faster back in the US, the 3.5G phone I ordered nearly two months ago (from two separate vendors that have been approved by credit card companies of Ambank, MBF and EON Bank) still hasn't arrive, and both vendors seem too lazy to acknowledge much of the delivery status to me either via phone or email -- I ended up canceling on of the two orders and requested an item change with the other, but this vendor still failed to deliver within the five-day promise. (TIME TO CANCEL THAT ORDER and head to a local shop today!) Oh well, I also first learned at Penang PC Fair after long conversation with Celcom and Maxis vendors that after all the brouhahas I've heard about Maxis and Celcom now delivering 3.5G/HSDPA, it turns out that the service hasn't even reach Penang (or reach out of Klang Valley), bummer!

C'mon local telcos: Only 15% or so of Malaysia's population live in Klang Valley!!

Can't wait to get my hand on a 3.5G unit soon though, so I can start testing the service first-hand, now that I'm about to ditch TMNET Streamyx after a full-year of bad experience as it nears its 1-year contract expiration. Besides, I'm also thinking to ditch Digi for either Celcom or Maxis considering that after nearly two years with Digi Business, I can't believe the company's still (OVER)charging me for SMSes at 15-cent per outbound text message to other providers (while SMSes now cost for 1-cent or less each with most other plans and with other mobile providers)! But perhaps I should wait for Number Portability to arrive in Malaysia, supposedly sometime in 2008, so I can keep my vanity phone number (one that spells both my own personal name and one of my company's brand name)...

Now that the weekend with its back-to-back parties ended, it's time to shift back to work starting tomorrow morning, finishing up procrastinated stuff and gearing up for business meetings here in Penang and Kuala Lumpur before I continue with a full week of 'outstationing' in KL next week, for more and more events of course - Sif00-Microsoft Meet, KL PC Fair (about double in size or larger compared to Penang's!), i4D Film Festival, World Electronic Media Forum (WEMF3) and the Global Knowledge Event on the Future (GK3).

Then, it's back to Penang for MiRC ICT Week, and I'm already in the mood for a long Eid & Christmas holidays right afterwards -- gotta start to plan my holiday's travel now!

So how was your weekend my good reader? Feeling adventurous? Join me in KL next week!

Eid Open House @ Padang Kota (10nov07)

Refer http://calendar.pp.com.my for more details and to add info into your PIM (Outlook etc).

See you there!