Folks, if you read all the nonsense I highlighted in the previous postings, and you enjoy reading my twisted English, and do the same "common SMALL issue, highlight BIG" like the suspect AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim was doing, you will like this part of the story.
(AKN Mtech aka M3 TECHNOLOGIES (ASIA) BERHAD)
When one aunty check through 1,000,000 bottles of Coca-Cola and found 100 bottles with deffective items, she was "excited" and starts posting her own "Coca-Cola is poison" blog. Suddenly a lori driver, construction worker, old teacher, and a college girl started to join the party. Suddenly Coca-Cola seems to have a lot of issues and people starts to feel pain, went to hospital, screaming food poisoning, all relates to Coca-Cola!!!
Like Jeff Ooi's posting (read here), here is the AKN Mtech's stories. Let's see if you should believe in the biased perspective. Story goes this way.
*Copy and paste into Jeff's bandwagon driving you to believe in his direction, so you can see the same result and purpose. Any similarity of messages is NOT coincident!
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Here we go!
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"When the earlier blog was posted, hundreds of complaints came in especially related to gambling Magnum 4D subscriptions."*
"COOL!! UPDATED VERSION. Just 3 instalments, and the AKN Mtech scam story has drawn responses from ( 1 ) Screenshots readers who realised they were being scammed and provided me with proof; ( 2 ) AKN MTech who instructed their PR agencies to set up private meeting with this blogger, agenda unknown; ( 3 ) Other SMS gateway providers who wanted to give "their side" of the story. I will cross the bridge one by one (ya, true I will), listening to them with an open mind to protect AKN Mtech (ya, I will, really!)" **
**(Note: sorry folks, I am not free to meet them actually. Too busy making up stories and hope to earn my 2 cents from google advertisement for my Phuket trip. So I just make it up as twisted as possible for your reading pleasure.)
Let's see what Uncle Lim has to say when he has 100 complaints going to his office, the media and public, made up the way he made up to him competitors. To add salt to Uncle Lim's problem, here are some complaints received just 3 days after the blog was posted.
This week alone, I have received thirty (30 / tiga puluh) messages sent via 3xxxx short code printed "AKN MTech" that I didn't subscribe to, or solicited for. I will post how much I have been charged once the next Maxis bill gets delivered in my email.
For the moment, let's give some space for the suffering fools among Malaysians scammed by the Celcos and their external CPs to have their say.
READ ON... I am publishing the first batch of five emails from Screenshots readers on the basis that is a matter of grave public interest that involved millions of scam money.
Email #1::
From: Susita Ramdan Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2007 3:33 PM
To: 'customercare@xxx.com.my'
Subject: FW: Maxis bill statement Account xxxxxxxx dated 22/05/2007
Dear CEO,
Having visited mobilebedsidenews.blogspot.com today, I had for the first time in months reviewed my Maxis statement.
To my amazement I had been billed for 'External Content Provider' service as evidenced on page 2 of the above enclosed statement.
Now - I did not subscribe to the above services - period. (did I?I forogt)
The External Content Provider spells AKN Mtech.
Can you look into this and suspend this service?
Susita Ramdan
Kota Kinabaru
Email #2::
From: Anthony Mat Salleh
To: mobiledebside
Date: May 22, 2007 10:13 PM
Subject: SMS Scam
Hi Lim (ahem, I'm Miss Mobile Lim), I read your posting on SMS Scam. Here, I have attached evidence of such SMS scanned from my bill. Not only I received SMS from AKN Mtech, I got another from Digi own service.
Best regards,
Anthony Mat Salleh
Email #3::
From: Abu Bakar
To customercare@maxis
Date:May 24, 2007 10:33 AM Subject: External Content Provider
Hello,
I am a taxi driver and I felt cheated by this bodoh SMS company AKN Mtech.
I do not recall suscribing for the following contents. In fact, I have a personal distaste against SMS spam!
I did not touch any SMS service, I did not know how to ON SOCCER and ON 4D and ON TOTO, so I don't want to pay for the last 6 months SMS charges. Please help me report to Maxis and give me all my money back.
No, don't misunderstand, my credit card debt has nothing to do with this. I did not intended to buy cloths and goods and I being broke has nothing to do with my SMS claims. I am a victim!
No no no! I bukan 4D gambler, I am muslim I do not gamble. Stop, stop all the services I don't want to pay.
Abu Bakar
Johor Bharu, Johor
Email #4::
From: Cik Fatimah
To customercare@yellowman
Date:May 22, 2007 11:22 AM
Subject: Yellow Man Rob me! Shark!!
Apa itu External Content Provider? Bill this month shows a strange name AKN Mtech and charges me RM1.00. Aku 60 tahun tidak main SMS, macam mana langgan SMS.
Digi ini selalu hantar SMS promosi, cakap percuma ambil duit nenek tua ini. Cucu nenek baru umur 12 tidak tahu main SMS. Sila ambil perhatian dan tutup AKN Mtech, jahanam, kesian.
Cik Fatimah
Email #5
From: Tuk Pekan Kecil
To customercare@yellowman
Date:May 25, 2007 8:25 AM
Subject: Perompak Digi Orang Puteh
Mengapa dicharge GPRS fee, ringtone caller fee lagi apa itu fu-yoh fee, video fee, apa itu promosi AKN, siapa AKN dan sebagainya? AKN itu abang adik Digi ke? Saya mau telefon call sahaja. Lu orang puteh jangan fikir orang tua tidak tahu ya. Lu pandai promosi ya tipu anak orang tua guna ini guna itu service.
Daripada
Tuk Pekan Kecil kena rompak
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Here we end!
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The list goes on, stay tune for more touching, exciting and angry complaints about AKN Mtech, the father of all spamming.
My 2 cents !
Miss Mobile Lim*
Must clarify, not Uncle Lim's relatives
Exciting and amazing ist it? Now read the disclaimer before you leave.
Friday, May 25, 2007
AKN Mtech (aka M3 TECHNOLOGIES (ASIA) BERHAD) the true sex & gambling service provider?
If you believe in one-sided story and high-lighted common issues could create fake impression and big public issues, you bet. Fortunately there is something called Internet, where balance could be found between accusations and facts.
Try check out this company (AKN Mtech aka M3 TECHNOLOGIES (ASIA) BERHAD) who acts like a god father for his own agenda (read here), while himself is selling extreme services outside of the country. What a cheap way to make-up issues for his Malaysia competitors and rob in other country. Typical dirty old man. Shame on you!
Note: Who said "subscription to sex content" is illegal, unethical or bad boys work? Take a look at one of the largest bad boy operating in Thailand, business run by our beloved Uncle Lim from AKN Mtech!
Here is a bigger snapshot if you can't view the images. Pitty young kids trying to download the "Doremon" cartoon image have to craw through the sex photos. (Sorry folks, have to censor the topless parts. )
Here is another business AKN Mtech is doing in Malaysia, which represent 90% of their income selling gambling results and 4D numbers predictions. Are they suppose to be Syariah compliance and not suppose to provide such subscription services to Malay community? Check Malay Newspaper you will find their advertisement.
Try check out this company (AKN Mtech aka M3 TECHNOLOGIES (ASIA) BERHAD) who acts like a god father for his own agenda (read here), while himself is selling extreme services outside of the country. What a cheap way to make-up issues for his Malaysia competitors and rob in other country. Typical dirty old man. Shame on you!
Note: Who said "subscription to sex content" is illegal, unethical or bad boys work? Take a look at one of the largest bad boy operating in Thailand, business run by our beloved Uncle Lim from AKN Mtech!
Here is a bigger snapshot if you can't view the images. Pitty young kids trying to download the "Doremon" cartoon image have to craw through the sex photos. (Sorry folks, have to censor the topless parts. )
Here is another business AKN Mtech is doing in Malaysia, which represent 90% of their income selling gambling results and 4D numbers predictions. Are they suppose to be Syariah compliance and not suppose to provide such subscription services to Malay community? Check Malay Newspaper you will find their advertisement.
note: sms short code 33131 is AKN Mtech short code.
By the way, so that you know, AKN Mtech is one of the largest "spammer" and possible "spoof master" who did all the SMS Spoofing and Short Code Masking dirty works (read Jeff Ooi: The bad boys... Celcos? CPs? MCMC?). Smart enough, nobody knows how to "spoof" except himself, as a telco person when asking all the players, so far nobody has a damn clue how to do it! Suspicious folks?
Note: Read the sentences "We have the rights to change pricing anytime without notice (means they can charge RM50 per content anytime)", and "even you cancel the subscription service you will receive promotional messages (which means they can SPAM you anytime)".
So that you really really know who is the "father of all spam", I mean the "belated father of all spam", AKN Mtech started his business doing spamming. He calls himself "bulk sms provider", which send sms to millions of users on behalf of his clients (in today's term means SPAM!).
AND, besides all these examples, AKN Mtech also has the following problems exactly the same he accuse competitors of serious wrong doings (read here again). These issues are common business errors, which happens to telcos, utility companies, airline, public services like traffic light, etc, where in this industry could easily be resolve by forwarding the issue to telco, telco forwards to service providers and resolve or fix immediately. The industry was all the while running efficiently under this normal system until Uncle Lim "trap" and "made up false urgency" for his own "Agenda" (Read here).
1. Termination error. Sounds like "Terminator 3". Bad itsn't folks? When you send the STOP command to a service, the system will send you a confirmation message. There is no defination what the system should reply what kind of message if you send to the WRONG service yourself. Service providers are not Microsoft or IBM, which tries their best to make sure error free. Our beloved Uncle Lim track and wait for the small service providers to accidentally faces such errors. How he did it? He test all the service providers services and wait for that very bad day when server crash, internet down, database delay etc. If you understand technology, these are "common bugs" even Microsoft or IBM cannot guarantee.
Note: See this common errors? What do you expect Malaysian IT companies to beat the giant for "100% perfect system" while Microsoft, IBM or Google can't guarantee that? Do you think the US government will suspend Google for repeatedly facing unintentional error if Yahoo starts poisoning Google behind the scene?
Unfortunately, with Uncle Lim dirty work to track 1 out of 1,000,000 transaction which happens to falls into such error was repeatedly picked up by him and highlighted, he made competitors look as if it's devil work. Question : is Uncle Lim's own services all free from such errors? You bet! There are few hundred records awaiting AKN Mtech facing "SAME TECHNICAL GLITCHES" which competitors are not so free to make a report. AKN Mtech is not god, and no better than others. Here are the glitches found within AKN Mtech services:
a. Can't STOP services
b. When STOP ALL, promotion messages (spam) still comes in
c. When subscribe to a service, the unsubscribe message keyword is different
d. Services with no pricing and frequency, spamming 10-20 messages when you subscribe.
e. About 20 records where services were not accessible especially when send in STOP isntruction (could be their server error, internet down or database issue).
Summary
Fortunate enough, we have consumers, telcos and authorities such as MCMC and Consumer Forum which are matured enough to differentiate real or fake issues and urgencies on such issues.
The solution is simple: Fix the twisted loophole in the Guideline (so nobody can frame competitor in hope that their services get suspended), escalate any issues back to the telcos so that issues could be verified and solved immediately, Stop the telcos nonsense percentage to fix at 15% for telcos and 85% to service providers, the industry grows by itself healthly. Let the demand and supply do the talking.
AKN Mtech's sabotage competitors since year 2004!
Some latest contribution from readers as follows:
"....... Lester under Lim Seng Boon hates Lim inside out for the dirty works he did on competitors. The dirty trace back to year 2004 when he instructed his staff to trap and frame competitors looking for their faults and sabotage competitors so his own chat spam service can win the market...." Very very sick old man out of his mind. Read this piece of blog from year 2004:
Click above image to enlarge the blog. Click here for original blog. Read the line ".... My GM made us test all the chat services in the market I had to choise one which had a faulty system. ..." AKN Mtech's staff was asked to trap and frame competitors and try to find common system faults, so they can make up complaints and sabotage competitor, and their own system can enjoy the market profit.
That was very lame uncle Lim!
Miss Mobile Lim
Not Uncle Lim's relative
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
AKN Mtech (M3 TECHNOLOGIES (ASIA) BERHAD) vs Macrokiosk : Preventive Gateway for what purpose? If true, so?
Continue from previous Chapter, the academy discussion came thus far to study the reasons behind two competitors attack and defend on winning some preventive system. Here goes the story for you to think and judge:
If you read Jeff Ooi's comments (click here for the article) which receive spoon feed information likely from AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim (check out who is Uncle Lim), you will like the latest episode of the story. The latest episode is about a tiny company with big ambition, which though he could make money out of other competitors but actually he is heading to the grave yard killing the entire industry.
Who is Macrokiosk? The company is one of the young talented mobile technology companies in Malaysia which recently benefited from the AKN Mtech's business agenda. While AKN Mtech make up urgency scene and caught some attention by manipulating operators (telcos) , MCMC (the authority to regulate telcos), media and the latest edition the Internet blogs as if there is a need to implement some sort of system to ease industry issues, Macrokiosk squeeze into the telcos to propose some sort of "solution". Any tech guy will know there is no such need and the solution cost nothing more than $50,000. With Macrokiosk technical background, a team of 5 programmers will finish the job in less than 30 days. Good for a young company who can provide some good system for the industry right? (If they did get to work on the project, so what is Uncle Lim screaming about?)
In fact, Jeff Ooi information on when, how and what was discussed in the closed meeting was so fast and clear, as if he was inside the meeting room! It is exactly what was discussed; even the attendance can't record down as detail. On May, there was a meeting at MCMC office pushed hard by AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim. Uncle Lim frustration is partially understandable. He will be eating his own poison for the mess he'd created.
Uncle Lim's 2 years effort to create user complaints and make up issues to show that there are issues with his competitors did not pay off, but damage to himself. The normal business issues escalated to become as if there is serious problem, have highlighted to the authority. Authority without knowing the entire scenario have directionless asked the telcos to do something, and that something was again initiated by AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim (who thought he is the CLEAN god father coming to the rescue, which proven not) to have some kind of preventive system. Fortunately and unfortunately, Uncle Lim gets shock when he found that the very unlikely competitor Macrokiosk was rumored to get the projects for both Maxis and Celcom.
This is earthquake and tsunami for Uncle Lim! This is why he has no where to go (because everybody knew his tricks) but to go online and manipulate Jeff Ooi. Else what else he can do?
Fine, now here comes the left over mess. Since there is something to be done, there is this preventive system which is (a) unproven to handle massive traffic, (b) worst, proven by many Macrokiosk customers their system sucks*~, (c) system is so suck up it virtually frustrate more users and create real issues, (d) all competitors will die off if telco takes another 1% of the already unhealthy percentage. Many competitors only earn "FEW" percentage gross profit margin, if taken 1 more % the entire industry collapse.
(*~ friend working for them said their technical glitches is so bad, worst than Celcom - which is the worst telco system ever in Malaysia)
Now reading back the story earlier, why there is a need for any system? Did Macrokiosk study what mess he could have created by taking 1% out of the industry? The market if evolves by itself pressured by consumers and natural demand is almost ready to push the telcos to give up more percentage, but instead Macrokiosk made the mobile operator (telco) think that they can take "more" percentages. However, industry source heard from yellow company was saying that it's better to have some system rather than no system just to please the damage done by Uncle Lim. So the best option is still going back to the industry players. Macrokiosk is one of the better alternative then? You bet they are one of the better "option" (better than Uncle Lim definately) so as other service providers in his industry. Everybody can go and bid (did someone says only Uncle Lim can do it?) but who will win is another business decision by mobile operators (telcos). Question: what is wrong with that if Microkiosk compete and bid on their technology, and did won eventually? Compared to handing over the job to AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim, Macrokiosk seems to be a better option and hope for the industry if they did won the project. Sad to see that other better technology suppliers may have deliver better job, but so what? Its not about "WHO GETS A PROJECT, but WHO CAN CREATE LESS PROBLEM" and clean up mess did by Uncle Lim!
When AKN Mtech vs Macrokiosk in this dry market, ended up nobody getting anything. Did telcos know that taking 10% out of $500million is better than 50% of $10 million market size? Did mobile operator (telco) knows that by taking another few % from the market will crash the market from $500 million to $50 million, or worst, die off like the IVR market?
Personal point of view as an X staff from the mobile operator (telco), I will like to see who within Maxis approved such unprofessional rush deal and who would take the personal benefit by taking more from service providers. That mysterious person or persons may have self interest, who knows? Did Maxis had a management culture change or the clean culture doesn't matter any more? As for Macrokiosk or any other vendors who got the projects, God Bless You and best wishes for the telecommunication industry.
Lesson learnt. Think twice before one trying to play politic and tactic to hype for demand, or propose something with huge impact but can't handle it. You kill your own business end of the day.
Hey what do you know! Friend from yellow mobile operator said maybe Maxis take the cream and do it themselves. What a joke taking opportunity and manipulate further "by placing the cost on the consumers"! So who is the shark?
My 2 cents.
Miss Mobile Lim
If you read Jeff Ooi's comments (click here for the article) which receive spoon feed information likely from AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim (check out who is Uncle Lim), you will like the latest episode of the story. The latest episode is about a tiny company with big ambition, which though he could make money out of other competitors but actually he is heading to the grave yard killing the entire industry.
Who is Macrokiosk? The company is one of the young talented mobile technology companies in Malaysia which recently benefited from the AKN Mtech's business agenda. While AKN Mtech make up urgency scene and caught some attention by manipulating operators (telcos) , MCMC (the authority to regulate telcos), media and the latest edition the Internet blogs as if there is a need to implement some sort of system to ease industry issues, Macrokiosk squeeze into the telcos to propose some sort of "solution". Any tech guy will know there is no such need and the solution cost nothing more than $50,000. With Macrokiosk technical background, a team of 5 programmers will finish the job in less than 30 days. Good for a young company who can provide some good system for the industry right? (If they did get to work on the project, so what is Uncle Lim screaming about?)
In fact, Jeff Ooi information on when, how and what was discussed in the closed meeting was so fast and clear, as if he was inside the meeting room! It is exactly what was discussed; even the attendance can't record down as detail. On May, there was a meeting at MCMC office pushed hard by AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim. Uncle Lim frustration is partially understandable. He will be eating his own poison for the mess he'd created.
Uncle Lim's 2 years effort to create user complaints and make up issues to show that there are issues with his competitors did not pay off, but damage to himself. The normal business issues escalated to become as if there is serious problem, have highlighted to the authority. Authority without knowing the entire scenario have directionless asked the telcos to do something, and that something was again initiated by AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim (who thought he is the CLEAN god father coming to the rescue, which proven not) to have some kind of preventive system. Fortunately and unfortunately, Uncle Lim gets shock when he found that the very unlikely competitor Macrokiosk was rumored to get the projects for both Maxis and Celcom.
This is earthquake and tsunami for Uncle Lim! This is why he has no where to go (because everybody knew his tricks) but to go online and manipulate Jeff Ooi. Else what else he can do?
Fine, now here comes the left over mess. Since there is something to be done, there is this preventive system which is (a) unproven to handle massive traffic, (b) worst, proven by many Macrokiosk customers their system sucks*~
(*~ friend working for them said their technical glitches is so bad, worst than Celcom - which is the worst telco system ever in Malaysia)
Now reading back the story earlier, why there is a need for any system? Did Macrokiosk study what mess he could have created by taking 1% out of the industry? The market if evolves by itself pressured by consumers and natural demand is almost ready to push the telcos to give up more percentage, but instead Macrokiosk made the mobile operator (telco) think that they can take "more" percentages. However, industry source heard from yellow company was saying that it's better to have some system rather than no system just to please the damage done by Uncle Lim. So the best option is still going back to the industry players. Macrokiosk is one of the better alternative then? You bet they are one of the better "option" (better than Uncle Lim definately) so as other service providers in his industry. Everybody can go and bid (did someone says only Uncle Lim can do it?) but who will win is another business decision by mobile operators (telcos). Question: what is wrong with that if Microkiosk compete and bid on their technology, and did won eventually? Compared to handing over the job to AKN Mtech's Uncle Lim, Macrokiosk seems to be a better option and hope for the industry if they did won the project. Sad to see that other better technology suppliers may have deliver better job, but so what? Its not about "WHO GETS A PROJECT, but WHO CAN CREATE LESS PROBLEM" and clean up mess did by Uncle Lim!
When AKN Mtech vs Macrokiosk in this dry market, ended up nobody getting anything. Did telcos know that taking 10% out of $500million is better than 50% of $10 million market size? Did mobile operator (telco) knows that by taking another few % from the market will crash the market from $500 million to $50 million, or worst, die off like the IVR market?
Personal point of view as an X staff from the mobile operator (telco), I will like to see who within Maxis approved such unprofessional rush deal and who would take the personal benefit by taking more from service providers. That mysterious person or persons may have self interest, who knows? Did Maxis had a management culture change or the clean culture doesn't matter any more? As for Macrokiosk or any other vendors who got the projects, God Bless You and best wishes for the telecommunication industry.
Lesson learnt. Think twice before one trying to play politic and tactic to hype for demand, or propose something with huge impact but can't handle it. You kill your own business end of the day.
Hey what do you know! Friend from yellow mobile operator said maybe Maxis take the cream and do it themselves. What a joke taking opportunity and manipulate further "by placing the cost on the consumers"! So who is the shark?
My 2 cents.
Miss Mobile Lim
(draft) Academy Study (1): AKN Mtech’s Uncle Lim (AKN Mtech, aka M3 TECHNOLOGIES (ASIA) BERHAD), the man who kills the mobile data industry?
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(Folks! Still drafting the story. Any comment or suggestions, keep on coming!)
How far can internet blog be abused? The bad news is any suspect, from any background can jump online and post anything as they perceived correct or incorrect, and either true or not depends on information feed to them, or what came across his/her mind to accuse anyone for anything (like what you are reading right now). The reason of all these abuses could be for the purpose of political agenda, personal hates, self-perceived heroic act or lame businesses attacking competitors. Good news is internet is a fair ground for the victims (those who being accused) or street heroes to defend and put justice in place by cracking false claims online. Sad news is, most victims who didn’t care what the suspect did online did not defend themselves and left many unjust and unanswered questions hanging on the web. This is why until today, user-generated information on the internet is still not perceived as credible source. Unless the person who pick up the information and make it a reference is stupid, or to gain personal fame, or came with political motive, nobody will use that information as valid source of reference. Internet users already had a mindset whereby internet equals false speculations and meant for entertainment purpose only.
So be it! If you have nothing to do, sit still and have fun reading this wonderful story! Of cause for entertainment purpose only!
(some blogger's email quote)
".....True or not you did bloggers a favor gain back some dignity by suggesting blog equals personal story making, not suppose to defame like some bloggers......"
"Better than Harry Porter!"
"Marvelous story. Did you mention story?"
"Absolutely wonderful! In the sphere of blogging, this is a balance at work...."
Are you ready for R&D, Speed and Innovation challenges?
In any business or industry, healthy competition will stimulate creativity, productivity and create values for end users. Healthy business environment with fair competition will create industry leaders and nurture national heroes. For example, competition using R&D, speed to market and innovation creates national heroes like Hyundai, Samsung, LG and KIA for South Korea. Earlier 80’s there are Sony, Matsushita, Honda and Toyota from Japan. Other examples you can find Siemens, Nokia and Motorola representing their own national interest. They compete without using dirty tricks like back stabbing, make up user complaints, create misleading cases, false accusations and bad mouth on competitors back, politicking authorities or media just to attack competitors indirectly and to bring themselves up. Instead they compete face to face on product innovation, re-engineer speed-to-market processes by achieving just-in-time production, and create new services on the Blue Ocean. Of cause the openness and non-intervention policy of their government helps nurtured fair competition environment, which plays a major role in their success.
End of the day, it’s the end users who decide and balance between demand and supply, pricing and value, and who will be the winners. Good product will win the users; bad product will die off by itself. Basic demand and supply will determine the market direction. Any intervention of the market direction will slow down the revolution process and kill the hope of the industry. In every round of the revolution process, the winners share common characteristics: R&D capability, speed to market and innovation. In a nut shell, for Malaysia to step foot on the cruel International business league, Malaysian companies should grow up and compete like a “man” (sorry girls, can’t find a better word). Stop messing with competitors behind the scene at home (kampong) and move forward.
The Malaysian Kampong Boy Dilemma
The Uncle Lim story started way back to year 2002, when Uncle Lim discovered the mobile short messaging service (SMS) commercial value. By chance, Uncle Lim rides on the SMS growth period without much effort. Just like any industries growth period, there is not much technology required. Any Ali, Abu and Abeng can make money riding on the up trend. Uncle Lim is among the few lucky ones who ride it all the way to IPO on MESS-DAQ (opps, I did not mention MESDAQ yeah!) and made his first bucket of gold.
Sadly all honeymoons are beautifying but short life. When it comes to reality test, while Uncle Lim enjoys counting his new found fortune, young talented IT players catch up with more creative products, faster time to market strategies and strong R&D capabilities which rivals old players and took the industry to the next level. Many of the young entrepreneurs did not stand still when they made their success in Malaysia. Instead they move further to export their technology to other countries and made their success globally. This exciting moment flourish while Malaysia steps into its 50th birthday. Finally, the MSC concept shows fruitful results – a new breed of brave Malaysian were born! These new generation of strong IT talents is what exactly the country needs. These are the hope of the nation and Asia as a whole to take on the Americans which dominate the IT industry for centuries. These are the future multi-national corporation (MNC) which will revolutionize Malaysia kampong boy culture. These are the seeds of the nation to show the world Malaysian really BOLEH beyond just making highest, longest and biggest moon cake records.
*(Kampong boy culture: Most Malaysian companies only did well at home. Being kampong boy mentality, they bully kampong competitors and act like a king, they though the world is simple. When comes to International test, their naïve mentality made them fail miserably. This culture will haunt Malaysian as long it is not upgraded with knowledge.)
At the same time when kampong boy Uncle Lim was still day dreaming at the beachside, International competitors including those from Europe, America, South Korea and Hong Kong came into this country. These are real super powers which came with loads of cash and latest cutting edge technologies. Even though at that time I was employed by another foreign company (operator/telco) to compete with the Malaysians (call it yellow invade), I can still feel the excitement when I actually look back. The service providers market, it’s the Malaysia young players who forted the local market by competing on real technology head to head with the foreign competitors during year 2002-2006 and gained most of the markets. For the first time in Malaysia history, young companies defeated Western competitors under fair competition environment (without government biased intervention), and won the battle. This is the moment Malaysian shown their true capability by competing on real technology and finally broke through the OEM era like the so called made-in-Malaysia national car, or assembly lines who call themselves semi-conductor technology companies.
(note. Also unfortunately
Unfortunately, the young companies were back fired and pulled back by the old-economy looser. When Uncle Lim discovered the quick shift of technology, he was too late to catch up. Uncle Lim faces the cruel reality of technology evolution test. He tries to copy the competitor’s technologies, services and marketing concepts, including the exact product pricing and advertisement design. Pity his effort, as you can imagine, he fails to catch up and thing turn sour. Technology is all about speed-ahead and innovation, not following others trail! Maybe he is too old to understand, or maybe he couldn’t accept the cruel reality of technology business. When Uncle Lim failed, he turns his strategy from copying to accusing competitors’ products being sour-grape, and further turns abusive. Here is how all the ridiculous back stabbing drama begun.
Early year 2004, Uncle Lim started off by changing more of his services to subscription model. Being the king of Magnum 4D subscription, he is too lazy and late to the market and lack of R&D capability, Uncle Lim fails miserably as expected. He (was believed) later turns behind the scene and started to hire college students, construction field workers, drunken Indian truck drive, etc, to purposely trap all competitors’ services and create complaints to operators (telcos) in hope that this will slow down competitor’s growth, and in hope that he can propose some "solution system" to operators (telcos). Uncle Lim mania act did create some attention from operators.
*(attention from operators: mobile operators (telcos) initially did take a bite on Uncle Lim’s trick and though that there are indeed a lot of blind users accidentally subscribe to services they don’t want. Later when consistent patent of complains was discovered, they finally knew they were being trapped and mislead by Uncle Lim. Operators now act more caution when dealing with made up complaints.)
The Service Industry Evolution Game: Transition from Single purchase to Group purchase (subscription model)
Let’s look at how the mobile industry evolves. The mobile service industry turns from simple text services to sophisticate and expensive licensed multimedia services. Just like any service industry, users demand more and more sophisticated products over the time. This evolution will require more sophisticated and expensive technology to fulfill market needs. For example, the infrastructure investment to offer text services starts from $250,000 USD*. The investment to offer multimedia services cost about $5million USD. Video and live streaming will cost nothing less than $20million USD startup investment. Users may be able to pay $0.50 for 1 premium text service; they may not be able to pay $500 for 1 multimedia service if it was sold under per-request business model. This is where sophisticated services could be offered at lower cost using creative marketing, where subscription service being the most common business model being used globally. (I only copy-and-paste the info from 1 source, correct me if you have better alternative numbers.)
Let’s look back at some history examples of the evolution game. Finds out how an industry evolves from low cost simple technology to expensive sophisticated technology and how single purchase evolves to group purchase (or calls it subscription model). How competitors compete on R&D, speed and innovation, under pure demand and supply environment without using dirty tactics.
Mobile operators (telcos) started post-paid service by charging monthly subscription fees. It doesn’t matter if you use or did not use your cellphone, you will have to pay $20 per month. Without this subscription fee, how could Maxis or Celcom recover the billion dollars spent on infrastructure? (a-hem. How they going to pay my salary?) This shared-cost concept is commonly being used by all operators worldwide. When competitor Digi joins the competition, did Digi ask the operator-license authority to cancel all Maxis and Celcom subscribers so they can take advantage on recruiting new users? Digi instead compete like a “man” and won his glory.
Why would anyone pay to watch TV if you have TV1, TV2 and TV3 for free? Nobody would have though of paying subscription fee to watch more sophisticated content on satellite/cableTV like Astro, and by market demand and supply, Astro although charges expensive monthly subscription fee, still there are 1 million household using their service. When MITV joins the league, MITV did not lobby the authority or manipulate any media to bad mouth Astro in hope that MITV can compete from day-one. They accept the fact that they are too late and compete creatively.
Do you think that Tenaga National with billion dollar infrastructure investment can recover their investment without recurring fees (or call it basic monthly fees)? So as PUAS Water Treatment Company and other infrastructure businesses, they all need to use the group purchase, shared cost business model.
Fitness equipment was sold to wealthy individuals and only few can afford. The basic demand and supply turns fitness concept into subscription service and could be enjoyed by majority users today. Did anyone force the users to join fitness clubs and pay $150 per month, auto deduct from their credit card?
Internet service provider, Yahoo, provides music downloads using subscription service. To host music portal with 100,000 songs could cost Yahoo few million dollars a year, if without charging users subscription fees, Yahoo can’t provide the services at street price. The shared-cost business model has helped Yahoo gained many subscribers. Again, this is a willing buyer and willing seller market.
Japan Imode is subscription based technology, where Japan NTT relied 50% of their revenue from data services, mostly contributed from Imode. End users will not be possible to enjoy millions of sophisticated services from the few billion dollar spent by Imode and 50,000 Imode developers if not because of support from subscription revenue.
When you go for beauty salon or sports clubs, you can pay per use, monthly, yearly or few years, and auto deduct from your credit card every month.
We live in the twisted world of subscription model, such as housing bank loan, car loan, education loan or credit card debt. Instead of paying per purchase (pay your house, car or education fee one lump sum), bank provides loan, and you pay by installment. This is the same concept for subscription services – pay periodically to enjoy the services now, at smaller tickets.
In a nutshell, service evolution will evolve naturally by itself. Nobody should ever interfere or manipulate the evolution process, or damages will be created and kills the future hope of an industry. Obstacle of the country such as Uncle Lim from the old economy should focus on moving forward by compete via R&D or just retire. An industry will either attract demand and stays on or die naturally if the business model doesn’t works.
Healthy Competition: Compete like a man!
Competitors should spend time on R&D instead of slowing down competitors using dirty tactics. Sophisticated services require expensive infrastructure investment. Operators (telcos) have to provide different subscription services, such as ring back tone (caller ringtone or call me tone, what ever they call it), 3G service packages (latest being Digi Fu-Yoh service package, Celcom music clubs etc), from $3 per month to $25 per month charged to consumer phone bill monthly. Fortunately, no operator use lame competition strategy to accuse that Digi is actually the big white shark skinning the consumers by charging $3 a month for Fu-Yoh service package. Maxis did not cheaply hire part-time college student to file complaint to MCMC that Celcom SMSC system error is so frequent, that SMS could went missing or sending hundreds of SMS charged to users phone bill during peak hours, and further accuse those events as spam. Celcom also did not purposely set 100 cellphone to trap hundreds of services provided by Digi just hope that one or few of Digi services could have bugs and take the opportunity to file consumer complaints on Digi. Unlike Uncle Lim, the local operators (telcos) did what they are suppose to do, which is to compete on marketing concept by focusing on R&D, speed to market and innovation.
Take a look at the global (healthy) competition. Nokia takes the crown and Siemens closed the mobile phone unit; Samsung takes on Sony in less than 5 years in electronic devices; Honda takes on Nissan just last year after loosing the automobile beauty contest few years ago! Look back at the local business landscape. Where is Proton today? Have you found any real made-in-Malaysia brands went global in large scale? Have you seen any Microsoft, Apple or Google created out from Malaysian garage?
There is no lack of talented young Malaysia companies, but it’s the unhealthy business environment carried forward from the old economy that kills these young bloods. You have old economy morons who cannot stand the young talents which pops up with more brilliant ideas and advance technologies and tries to kills them while they are still young; you have old school politically linked companies (or as they claim themselves are) who lobby to set twisted regulations and stretch their dirty hands to prevent young companies from growing; you have people who stuck in the 70’s mind set trying to fake political influence threatening young companies to stop disturbing their cheese hopefully they will give up and hand over the cheese to the old man. Even more unfortunate, most of the Malaysian super power and policy makers are still held on the hands of the last century generation which stuck in old economy mindset.
All these obstacles have pulled back the hope of the nation. The young talents either loose their competitive edge spending time combating domestic non productive interventions, or they just end up working for foreign companies (like my X-yellow friend who work for UK company now). Many would have given up and moved overseas serving foreign companies, and the biggest looser is the country itself.
Uncle Lim fit exactly the same mind set of a typical kampong boy mentality by using all sorts of dirty tactics to kill competitors behind the scene. This is a true reflection of what a typical Malaysian old economy will think and do to kills the country’s new hope. As a Malaysian, Uncle Lim still practices the “Malaysian stabbing Malaysian culture”, which also explains why Malaysian technology companies can’t grow like the Korean or Japanese. If there is any left-over obstacle from the old economy to be clean up, this is one of the old minds who should be shut down and retire. Give way to young talents, let the globe spin by itself and give the country a new hope.
The Beginning: MCMC twisted guideline by Mysterious PoK BeH Soo
(OK, as one of my X-yellow colleague suggested, I did not coincidently name Poh Bee Soo yeah.)
When Little Lim cannot get his candy, he turns his effort to create problems to make sure all the kids don’t get the candy. “Ali's hands are dirty”; “Abu is naughty”; “Abeng is ugly, so can’t give him candy either”, all the made up reasons surfaces. To make Ali, Abu and Abeng looks more realistic, Little Lim held a camera and wait in the toilet everyday for Ali to comes in and cleans his hands because he accidentally touches some a student bycicle and accuse him for "attempted stealing"; he waited Abu to accidentally kicks an empty soft drink can and accuse him of "littering and vandalism"; he hides in Abeng backyard for months just to snap a very unlikely moment when Abeng chases away a dog from messing with his rubbish bag, being "animal torture and abuse". By repeatedly spying, trapping, and capturing misunderstood accident scenes to frame Ali, Abu and Abeng, Little Lim repeatedly reports to the school principle, the school guard, and the headmaster, it seems true that Ali, Abu and Abeng are bad boys which create problems everyday. Despite their clear clarification, Little Lim kept repeatedly singing the misleading "evidence" that Ali, Abu and Abeng had "violated", from one classroom to another. This dirty tactic is humiliating and shame to the nation.
In fantasy world, Old Uncle Lim can’t compete face to face with young players in terms of R&D capability, speed to market, and innovation, he turns his target to influence every people he came across to stop the industry from moving forward. How can you make the train stop if you can’t run as fast? Create bumper and obstacles! This is what exactly Uncle Lim has been doing since early 2006 until today.
The academy simulation suggest that: Uncle Lim’s behind the scene manipulation on PoK BeH Soo (read below) helped spoon feed her to came out with a PBS-Guideline, and slot in the trap and loophole Uncle Lim intended to use as a weapon to kill his competitors.
Now lets look at the cards Uncle Lim has on hand to make up cases and create complaints to fulfill the PBS-Guideline prophesy.
Double Standard 1: Myth on 100% Technical Error Proof
The easiest target Uncle Lim can get his hands on is a lady by the name of PoK BeH Soo***, the Mobile data division executive from Digi (a mobile operator/telco in wonderland called Malaysia). Proud herself as a law student, she arrogantly acts like the police woman in her own fantasy world and sets regulations based on her own theory. Her accusations including complaining about marketing strategies, wordings and methods she perceive not right. In her own world, she is the government. When asked “what about Digi’s marketing strategy doing exactly the same thing”, she proudly answers “telco is different”. When did the law allow government to burn houses and civilians can’t even light the candles at night? When she suspend a service provider access code for technical glitches due to server crash, internet breakdown or database problems, which could trigger unintended error sms, delay of transactions, or all kinds of bugs, when asked why Digi has same problem all the time, she said “service provider should guarantee 100% no error, but telcos can’t guarantee that telco is 100% error proof”. Again, which law school did she attended which allow such double standard? (J, sorry if I lost few wordings when copy the sentence. cant fit in.)
(NOTE***PoK BeH Soo (PBS) as people calls her names, although she is twisted and as a x-coworker under same yellow company, people hates her especially technical staff. Thanks to her psycho act, people have to do extra work for no reason. Customer support has to smile at her even though she made them answer hate phone calls and hate her inside out for creating complains. She doesn't represent yellow company culture as a whole, don't get it wrong ok. The Yellow Man is innocent!)
Have you seen Pepsi hiring lame consumers to drink all the Coke in the country trying to find a cockroach or dirt in the bottle and ask the government to close Coca-Cola factory? Have you heard of Maxis hire college student to test Celcom soccer subscription services and file police report when Celcom system sends out error messages or charges wrong pricing unintentionally?
To take this further, PoK BeH Soo set her own guideline (PBS-Guideline) and asks every service providers to follow by force. Of cause nobody wants to challenge a mad lady and let her does whatever she wants to says, and Uncle Lim agenda finally took place.
Double Standard 2: Pricing & Creative Marketing
Have you seen MAS accusing AirAsia from offering “air ticket to Bangkok starting from $9.90” being misleading? Have you seen AirAsia hire people to wait at MAS ticket counter to see the “Mana Ada System (MAS)” incident happens every day and complaint to the transport ministry MAS should be closed down (and let AirAsia take the business) because of frequent technical error damaging consumer confidence and country image? Have you seen Maxis made up some consumer complaints to accuse Digi offering $0.01 cent per SMS and put the smallest font type right at the bottom of the advertisement stated “terms and condition applies” being illegal marketing method? Have you seen TV3 accusing Astro for charging higher subscription fee by pushing more content to users with the term most user sign but didn’t read “we can adjust pricing anytime”? Have you heard of Toyota suing Hyundai for copying their car design and sell at lower price?
PoK Beh Soo the best tool for Uncle Lim to manipulate starts interfering service providers marketing activities by suspending service provider service codes with her own reasons. On what rights and ground did PoK BeH Soo represent the authority which sets creative marketing and pricing strategies? Tun Tan Sri Datin PoK BeH Soo, by taking large spoon feed from Uncle Lim, starts to stop service providers from giving lower pricing for selected content offering, highlight discounted items with special price, or mix products to offer package price, etc (forgot what other crap reasons entire Yellow coworkers has to suffer doing extra works, I heard was a lot more!). That is the starting and ending of the entire mobile data industry. No special offers, no marketing gimmicks or carrots, no creativity. What is the better way to disturb and stop competitors from taking your cheese? Create obstacles! Once more, PBS did it again and proudly written this clause in her PBS-Guideline.
You do not see these entire lame tactics in fair competition industries, but you find our beloved Uncle Lim doing exactly all these dirty work everyday in the last 2 years. When you full-time frame and pick up sand from thousands of rice bowls you will find a lot of sand and rock. It makes up false scenario that there seems to have “a lot of problem” from the targeted victim’s services. Imagine if you hire college students to find 1 million Coca-Cola bottles with defect items, suddenly it seems that the health ministry table has “defective Coke complaints every few days”, as if Coca-Cola has a lot of problem.
Double Standard 3: Human & Business Errors
One out of millions of transactions everyday, there are users who mistakenly use a service because the user didn’t read the instructions carefully. Maybe a friend or family member uses their phone to do purchases. Like any operators (telcos), any customer issue just inform the service provider, they will quickly investigate and resolve directly with the complainer or even refund without question. The objective is to solve problem and business resume. As long there is business, there will be customer issues and there will be customer support to provide customer services. The bigger the business volume and clientele, the more likely there will be more customer issues. This wonder woman PoK BeH Soo (not, did not mention Oh Bee Soo) who could just inform the service providers to fix issues and business goes on simply suspends service provider’s service code based on her own assumption and judgment. (*service code or short code is like a special 1800xxxx phone number hunting line to run business). The entire Digi technical staff hates her as she gave unnecessary work load to them, so as all other operators (telcos), and even the authority (MCMC) confused with all the issues escalated to their level, which is supposedly none of their business!
PoK BeH Soo’s reaction to Uncle Lim’s stimulation made her conflicting her own theory and shame to Digi as a professional company. (As one of the x worker also feel shame company allow such abuse.) She claims that telcos cannot have 100% bullet proof services, in directly admit that human does create errors unintentionally, but she requires service providers to provide 100% error proof services. If she found 3 times error, the service provider short codes will be suspended (and she made it all the way into her PBS-Guideline, which is a joke to the industry). So by her theory, the 1,500 staff Digi are allowed to have human error, 5 staff service provider cannot have human error? Resource wise is already unjustifiable.
Her mania act made her the perfect target for Uncle Lim to use her as a puppet. Ever since PoK BeH Soo act some sort like fulfilling her psycho satisfaction, surprisingly new complaints pop up at unusual numbers, all perfectly timed and consistently supplied to her! The patent is always end of the week, every 2 weeks, one out of the same group of service providers will get a complaint from PoK BeH Soo, and their services got suspended for no reason. Why she does that? Because at 5pm Friday, service providers don’t have a chance to find out the problem, and when they did, PoK BeH Soo is not in the office with her cellphone at off mode. Surprisingly she is still in good shape, if KAMA really existed, she could have been hit by lighting twice a day.
Dramatic enough, she seems to enjoy herself in the act! Like any child who stimulated by result, Uncle Lim instead of improving his technology (and compete like a man), he increases his effort in pushing the PBS (PoK BeH Soo) easy button. He became brave and starts to hire people to set traps, frame service providers, made up issues, and treat operators (telcos) and authorities as if he has “influence” or “dark forces” behind him, hoping operators (telcos) and the authorities will be afraid (of what?) and kill the competitors using this dirty method. If you read the Coca-Cola assumption in the earlier paragraph, if someone purposely checks millions of Coca-Cola bottles around the country to find a bug or a fly, you can have few Coca-Cola complaints everyday on TV and newspaper, as if Coca-Cola is poisonous and dangerous to general public.
Human error where operators (telcos) themselves also had, such as multiple SMS sent to users, SMS with error message, missing SMS, corrupted SMS, double charging, etc, is very common. Any service industry such as Tenaga, Telekom or Astro TV also have such issues. Under PBS definition, telcos are allowed to have these problems, if happens to service providers they are consider spamming**. When errors happen 3 times, the mother Queen PBS wants to close service provider business. Who set the theory that a Tenaga blackout equals death of a nation, fatal car accident equals serial killer, or flight crash equals terrorist? By volume of errors, shall we crown operators (telcos) the largest loan sharks, biggest spammers, and licensed robbers and gangsters?
Well, like bitchy Britney Spears song, “PBS did it again!”
**errors are unintentional accidents, spam is intentional crime. Spoofing (whatever it is) is intentional, and intentional should be punished with no doubt. Folks, if you are not tech minded enough easily misleaded right? So think before you believe in lie. Differentiate what is truth and what is lie before jumping into conclusion.
Main Course: The Uncle Lim agenda
The drama begins from year 2004 until 2007 when Uncle Lim indirectly stimulated PoK BeH Soo to frame service providers with ridiculous issues, and feed the records to MCMC desk. These issues are usually technology glitches (read the section: Double Standard 1: Myth on 100% Technical Error Proof) and normal business errors (read the section Double Standard 3: Human & Business Errors). Fortunately, most operators (telcos), authorities, even media after being manipulated by Uncle Lim several times knew the actual story behind. Unfortunately there are always new victim media (like the blog sites or street media) who receive issues from one sided information, and judge based on their own assumptions. The most common lie a blogger can do (like I'm doing right now for academy study) is to highlight stuff I wanted to highlight, and buried some true evidence from my blog (cool yeah!). So here comes the blogging fantasy!
Uncle Lim motive is clear, and the agenda is to kill competitors without competing on R&D capability, speed and innovation. Uncle Lim is still the old economy obstacle; he will gain his personal interest at the cost of killing the county future and hope by sacrificing the young talents.
To add some salt in the main course, Uncle Lim some how influenced PoK BeH Soo to set a trap in her PBS-Guideline to frame his competitors. The clause which sounds “any service providers who did not comply or violate the PBS-Guideline will get their service code suspended. Any 3 non-compliance will get all their service codes terminated”. This twisted clause becomes the biggest loop hole for Uncle Lim to abuse and kill his competitors.
At the same period, Uncle Lim earlier effort which created complaints records for the competitors finally put at work. Suddenly MCMC receive a lot of complaints, as if there is a lot of problem (remember the Coca-Cola story above?).Earlier year 2005-2006, it was rumored that Uncle Lim tries to sell some Master Content Provider (MCP) system to Maxis and Celcom but was not entertained. Riding on his effort with the help of PoK BeH Soo, he seems to be laughing to the bank when he plays as Robinhood offering “central filtering system” to operators (telcos) in need, or made-to-believe that they are in need of such system. Again, many unfortunate events happen to this old man, and some better capable competitor squeeze into the operator (telco) bedroom to provide some “preventive system” and took the projects from Maxis and Celcom quietly. Even some of the system experts like NASDAQ based Sybase365 didn’t even got invited for the bidding. Walla! Here goes the Mont Fuji volcano explosion! Many ugly lie and shit flooded the industry.
Surprisingly, no competitor ever do the same dirty tricks to Uncle Lim by trapping and tapping all his services and create complaints to telcos, MCMC, police, consumer associations or any other third parties come handy. Maybe there is no competitor willing to do the lame and low IQ dirty work like he did. Competitors did not trap his services doesn’t mean that they can’t do it. If you like the part of the Wild West Story, there are hundreds of cases and complains awaits Uncle Lim company, just that adding more salt to MCMC plate will only complicate the misunderstanding, it doesn’t help solve the problem.
Maybe Uncle Lim is so behind the technology he can’t compete locally, he ends up focus on doing his dirty work killing competitors in Malaysia, while selling sex content in other country (see the reference: AKN Mtech
Technology Reality
It does not take a tech savvy person to understand that there is no 100% guarantee of service perfection. Technology runs on machines, and machines are beyond human control 100% of the time, or to think like a human. In fact, not just technology but any business will have their own challenges. Take a look at the reality.
Microsoft Windows with thousands of top programmers atwork also has error and bugs, and put clearly in their terms and conditions they can’t provide 100% guarantee of any defective damage caused. Who are you a psycho Chinese lady PoK BeH Soo to judge and punish young and fragile technology companies which just learn how to walk Death Penalty because of unintentional technical errors? Some of the companies are even her own Chinese breed.
MAS being named “Mana Ada System” because the multi-billion dollar company runs on ticketing system which faces system crash – service mismatch, flight delay, ticket printing error, etc, almost every few days. Don’t believe it? Go to KLIA and sit in front of MAS ticket office. Close down MAS and give business to AirAsia?
Tenaga National, which faces black out issues, is another multi-billion dollar company. Their servers can’t even secure 100% up time on all location, so close down Tenaga? Almost all Malaysia experience billing errors in the past from Tenaga, you can call Tenaga the largest licensed robber of the country. Kill Tenaga by suspending all their power stations?
Telekom Malaysia, besides stolen phone line, system hacking and service interruption issues everyday, this 30,000 employee company can’t even install stream-X on time. Close their service also? The mysterious phone charges every month, they could be named the largest loan shark of Malaysia.
Banks teller machine, half way processing your cash withdrawals the “system error” screen pops up and requires technical fixing. Your card could even be stuck within the machine. Ask Bank Negara to close the bank?
Look some where closer to the industry. Digi, Maxis and Celcom RBT services, which pushes bulk SMS to lure users to opt-in the subscription services. The $3 per month charged to millions of users, especially pre-paid users, with all the users complaint would MCMC shut down all telcos?
Human being can only minimize, and solve problems when it occurs. There is no need for any preventive system or special attention, there is only getting rid of twisted loopholes, fix better guidelines with balance between business and consumer interest, and business goes on with the support of government to bring talents oversea and export our technologies worldwide.
Summary
The academy study suggest that: AKN Mtech’s Uncle Lim being failed in catching up with the technology, R&D and innovation, and influence Digi's PoK BeH Soo to constrain and kill his competitors by highlighting generally allowed normal business errors including technical glitches, marketing strategies and human error. The percentage of such error is normal in any industry, and could easily resolved by informing the service providers to fix it without affect any business flow. However, if purposely highlighted by tracking, trapping and framing the competitor’s services, and hire people to disguise as complainers to magnify the issues, will be misleadingly perceived by MCMC as if there are many problems.
By creating the false urgency to resolve issues, AKN Mtech’s Uncle Lim 2 years plan to manipulate the Telcos, MCMC, the media and general public has finally paid off. MCMC under repeatedly bombarded with false alarms, decided to request the telcos to improve their services including implement some sort of preventive system. What AKN Mtech’s Uncle Lim didn’t anticipated is one of his competitor already won the project from Maxis and Celcom. Loosing his cheese, Uncle Lim is shocked, angry and jumps like a mad dog. With the telcos, MCMC, media and people he misleaded finally knew about his dirty business agenda, Uncle Lim has no choice but to increases his abusive attack on that competitor by manipulating the Internet Blog space, and the UFO story started to become bed time jokes among bloggers.
The moral of the story is, Internet could only be used for entertainment purpose only. When you are reading this wonderful story up to this sentence, you may have read a X-operator (telco) staff's personal point of view and story inside the industry. How true it is, as you can read from Jeff Ooi’s blog and compare the evidence. Jeff got spoon feed with exactly the AKN Mtech’s Uncle Lim information and perception, which trying to highlight general business issues as if except AKN MTech is the god father, all competitors and related parties including telcos, MCMC and general public are evil. Jeff may not know that the made up complaints and issues compared to the telcos own problem is just a small scratch of the iceberg. Nobody did the lame tracking and made up complaints dirty work to trap Uncle Lim, doesn’t mean AKN Mtech is better than MAS, Tenaga, Telekom, Maxis, Digi and Celcom. Even Microsoft Windows has error, who is AKN Mtech?
As the academy study up-to-date, here are the key events gathered that AKN Mtech’s Uncle Lim did from 2004 until 2007 for your reading pleasure:
Evidence believed that using hired complainers outside, AKN Mtech starts to create cases for competitors, to make up urgency scenario.
- Push Digi’s PoK BeH Soo to work for him. She’s spoon feed with cases accusing AKN Mtech’s competitors. The PBS-Guideline was born. (bingo!)
- AKN Mtech’s Uncle Lim pressures MCMC by asking a clerk at ministry level to issue letter to MCMC officer to look into the issues. Like any officers, an unofficial letter was issued, and made us (telcos) perceive as if there is real urgency.
- AKN Mtech’s Uncle Lim didn’t stop his dirty work. He alerted MCMC staff to issue letter to telcos to take action on his competitors by highlighting normal business issues as if it’s evil and serious. Like any half understood officers, MCMC just ask telcos to check on the issues.
- Telco’s low rank officers simply act on whatever MCMC suggest, although they knew it was AKN Mtech’s dirty work they don’t know how to react. What Telco did not know that AKN Mtech agenda is to made up those cases to full-fill the loophole created by PoK BeH Soo. Pity PoK BeH Soo she may not even know that she has been used by AKN for his personal agenda, so as the MCMC officers.
- The AKN Mtech agenda to make up problems and hope that telco will take their MCP system turn sour when one of the competitors was rumored taken both the preventive system from Maxis and Celcom.
- This has trigger AKN Mtech to turn mad and attack the competitor more aggressively by abusing the internet. Again, the internet blogger Jeff Ooi may not know the agenda either, and being manipulated once more like the others.
- It’s time someone stop the nonsense and obstacles created by this old economy left over rubbish, and let the demand and supply decide naturally by itself. Here are the solutions:
Change the twisted loophole in PBS-Guideline. Change to: Any issue just follow this steps: Found issues > forward to service providers > given 72 hours to solve > done. Issue sent to telco or MCMC or anybody, just follow this step. If cannot be resolved, telco can suspend the affected short code until resolved. Fix this and 99% of the issues are resolved. - With above loophole closed, nobody can attack competitor by highlighting normal business issues, such as technical errors, marketing strategies and human errors, in hope the competitor will get suspended. There is no need for any preventive systems which will cause even more issues and confusion.
- Educating the end consumer in the long run is more effective than any system.
- Lowering the telcos greedy profit sharing percentage (to 15%) will definitely increase the mobile data revenue. Service providers will re-invest more money into product development, and charges consumers at lower cost. (read paragraph: Root Cause of the problem : Greedy Telcos).
Root Cause of the problem : Greedy Telcos
The mobile data industry where telcos relies on service providers to aggregate and access to thousands of services, which is impossible for telcos to run everything by themselves. However Malaysia telcos are too greedy and kill the service providers. If nobody can make money, there is not enough money paid back to service providers to reinvest into R&D and improve better services. It will also force service providers to charge higher fees to end consumers, escalated lower consumer confidences and increases complaints. Telcos in Malaysia is taking 30%-50% of the revenue plus hidden charges charging $0.07-$0.11 per transaction to the service providers, ended up actually taking 40%-60% of the cheese. Industry standard is telco should be taking 10%-15% (like Japan and South Korea) and free delivery cost. This will cut down consumer complaints by 90% and increase overall revenue by 1,000% because more affordable services could be offered to more users. This is the only ultimate route, if not now, when?
Even more unfortunate, thanks to Uncle Lim, a flexible and maturing mobile data market was artificially made to believe there are many issues, created the opportunity for a service provider Macrokiosk to propose a Content Management System and Preventive System believing that this will solve the issue. In actual fact, there is NO NEED for any system as long Uncle Lim don't made up issues (by taking away the "suspend service code" loophole in PBS-Guideline) and let the market demand and supply do the natural work. What Uncle Lim or Telcos don't know is the problem is the telco percentage taken which kills the industry, no one else. Worst if Telco (Maxis in particularly) taking the "opportunity" to take even further few % for the unnecessary system. The shirting of services using the the unproven system will cause service providers to lost business, ended up killing entire industry.
The entire mobile technology industry is going on the critical evolution period, where phones are getting cheaper and users started to adopt 3G services. Tens of million of dollars invested by CPs in latest technology are getting ready for another tech boom, and it makes perfect sense someone to clean the old economy obstacle and slim down telcos fat percentage (or shall we call the mother of all sharks) for the benefit of the content industry.
Funny thing is, why does Malaysian needs to go through this ridiculous process while the direction is crystal clear and easy to achieve? Did we ever learn from kampong king mistakes and shall we start nurturing young companies to go International. When can we feel secure working for a local technology company instead of working for the foreigners and watch the locals self-stabbing drama goes on?
Just my two cents*
Miss Mobile Lim
*Terms and Conditions apply, read for academy study and entertainment purpose only. Any similarity of names, companies or storyline are just coincident. Have fun reading story from the bloggerland!
Here are some of the players in Mobile Data Service Industry.
Mobile Service Providers:
---------------------------------
(I just put all together. Some email feedback they are gateway, aggregator, this and that. Even if I work from the other side, I can't differentiate much since many overlaps. I just put all together then.)
AKN Mtech (AKN Mtech, aka M3 TECHNOLOGIES (ASIA) BERHAD)(THE PROBLEM MAKER WHO STARTED THE MESS)
Macrokiosk (THE OPPORTUNITY TAKER WHO MAY KILL THE INDUSTRY)
Mobile365 (Sybase365)
Nextnation
Mtouche
Zingmobile
Funmobile
Iguanamobile
MNC
MMode
Astromobile
Zed
Powercom
Glomobi
infusio
Articulate
Radius-Ed
Operators :
---------------------------------
Maxis
Digi
Celcom
Mobile Industry Study * :
(note: I left like sometime ago, but the data should be about the same. Sorry, can't get latest info.)
---------------------------------
Operator (telco) Revenue:
Voice services 60%-70%, Subscription services: 15%-20%, Text services: 10%-25%.
Operator (telco) Subscription Services :
Ring Back Tone, 3G packages, Music and Content subscription services, Mobile TV subscription services (wow?!).
References about Jeff & his records:
http://www.jeffooi.com/2007/05/sms_scam_5_the_copy_paste_vers.php
http://www.machai.net/weblog/machai.net/2006/07/screening_your_shots_jeff.html
http://www.photomalaysia.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-20587.html
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