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Steps

Monday, August 25th, 2008 | Travelogue | 2 Comments

Bologna 2007. Captured by Yaoyao.

Bookworm

Monday, August 25th, 2008 | Travelogue | No Comments

Valencia, 2007. At our host Paula’s place, captured by Yaoyao.

Diamond User Experience

Monday, August 18th, 2008 | Tech Talk | 2 Comments

I’ve managed to get hold of the stylish HTC Touch Diamond phone. My Sunday was spent mainly playing with this gadget. Some of the features are really cool, amongst them the weather forecast. The weather forecast could be cooler than any iPhone trick, despite getting a wrong weather forecast fo Petaling Jaya.

There general feeling is that it’s a sophisticated phone, much more than an iPhone(not just the price). However, there is also a feeling that too much is being served on the plate. When I pick up an iPhone, it is fairly easy to manouvere the interface, it is more complicated with HTC Touch Diamond.

Reviewers said that it’s the best a phone that is running on Windows Mobile can do. More often that not, Mircrosoft has become the bashing victim. A fault in Windows is always magnified while one in Apple is always downplayed. Windows Mobile is the same. There are desired room for improvement, hence the anticipation for WM7. But overall, WM is fine, but not cute.

Diamond should be made easier to use. And it has managed to so far hide the clunkiness of WM6 with it’s stylish layout. Of course occasionally I still see a windowish messagebox popping up that reminds me that this is a windows machine. Also, diamond’s alarm clock certainly woke me up from my dreams, I spent half a minute trying to figure out how to knock the alarm off.

Smart phone reviews have the preconceived notion of iPhone-is-the-standard. Whenever there is a departure from iPhone standard, it is deemed not cute. A friend who is also using the same phone wonder why the manouvering zoom of Diamond is different, why can’t they just follow Apple by using the strengthing two finers, rather than circiling. I think it’s good to set standard one of them is to have a standard for intuitize usage, despite the word ‘intuitive’. However, I suspect the sliding finger trick might have been patented by Apple. AFAILike Apple, Apple is essentially as closed as Microsoft. Check out the F#!@ing NDA fiasco to understand it.

Smart phone should be an imbodiment of it’s user. It should be cool and fast for a user to manouver. I hope in the coming days or weeks I can get the user experience of Diamond to that level.

Or else, Diamond might have failed me, or I might have failed the Diamond.

Tags: HTC, iphone, mobilephone

Proton’s ‘cage’ needs to be made bigger

Sunday, August 10th, 2008 | General | 1 Comment

Another letter to Malaysiakini, another story about Proton.

Photos from flickr

Asean should integrate into a single economic entity. We know that there are differences in the economies of member countries, but we are taking too leisurely a pace to forge a regional market.

The EU has done so much in economic integration despite the economic levels in member states. We should be stepping up to create a bigger market. Asean, as a whole, is half the market size of China.

Why is the promised 5 percent tax tariff for all founding members not exercised? Since this year is the year when the founding members are supposed to lower their tax tariff for all products to a maximum of 5 percent, why aren’t we seeing an influx of products from our neighbours?

When cheaper products come in, then we have, in a way, lowered inflation. Of course, local manufacturers can go the other way by selling more to the other markets. In all fairness, Afta will be better for us than for the other countries.

Apart from Singapore, our economy is the second most developed in Asean. When taxes are lowered, it helps create a bigger market for more a complex and competitive industry, or for the so- called ‘infant industries’.

As our neigbours sell us more bags of rice, we might sell them more electronic items in return. This way, we are nurturing our electronics industry, and they are cultivating their agricultural industry.

This way, we move ahead with more advanced industries, the stuff that moves us up the value chain. As we might see it now, Afta is stalled hugely because our government is worried that Proton will be knocked out by Thai-assembled foreign cars.

Well, if it can’t compete in a slightly bigger pool with just one or two more foreign brands, then there will never be a time when Proton can really compete. Opening up the door for more competition is just what Proton needs if it were to grow up.

We are not trying to vanquish Proton, but expand its cage into a bigger one called Afta.

We now charge a higher excise tax to make up for the lowered tariff. Therefore, Malaysian consumers are still paying a premium for Toyota models from Thailand. Being all pent up by Malaysia’s action, Thailand is charging a 20 percent levy on Protons.

But hey, hold on a minute. Did you say just 20 percent? As we use excise duty to charge a 100 percent tax on an Asean-manufactured car, they are just charging us 20 percent. That’s a shame, isn’t it?

Now, next time when you go to Thailand, try spotting Proton cars. If Proton can’t survive Afta, then there is surely zero possibility of it surviving in the bigger markets.

The longer Malaysia drags it’s feet, the worse our situation will become. Singapore is going around the world saying it is Afta-compliant. It is gathering more artillery ahead of Afta by telling the big guys to set up branches in Singapore.

And when the Afta is exercised, those big companies with bases in Singapore can flood the Asean market. Malaysia, too, should be doing the same by getting itself Afta-ready, instead of stalling the process.

Don’t make the Afta dream a pipe dream. We need to be competitive. We need to start with Afta.

Tags: AFTA, malaysia, proton

Toyota, too, was once in Proton’s shoes

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 | Thoughts | No Comments

Ha-Joon Chang’s awesome book inspired this published article in MalaysiaKini. I hereby reproduced it. The original article is here.

Sliding shares, substandard quality, and appalling services - these are the all-too-common remarks we hear about our national automaker. Given a choice, every one of us would have settled for other makes - be it German, US, Japanese or Korean. Even with the heavy tariff, some Korean cars come close to Proton’s price.

This means that, domestically, even after heavy taxation, some foreign cars are almost as ‘affordable’ as Proton. Elsewhere, Proton has failed to shine. In the UK, Proton is seen as an outdated car, probably an alternative to the alternatives. Despite the protection blanket given to Proton for more than 20 years, Malaysians feel that Proton has not improved. With free trade looming, Proton can easily be uprooted by other car makers waiting on our shores.

I would like to share a story of another automaker.

Some fifty years ago, an automaker wanted to enter the US market. Its government had given it ample time of protection, allowing it to monopolise the domestic market. Upon entry to the US market, it was so bad that it had to withdraw its cars. Sounds sadder than Proton? It is.

The year was 1958, The country was Japan, and the failing automaker was Toyota. Despite being given more than 20 years of protection, Toyota still failed to make an entry into the American market, much less impress. The ToyoPet model that was sold in US was so badly received that the Japanese had to withdraw their cars.

The Japanese government had given so much protection during Toyota’s nurturing days that our protection of Proton fails in comparison. When Toyota switched from making textiles to making cars, the government gave them a helping hand - by kicking out GM and Ford from it’s domestic market and bailing out Toyota using the money from central bank. Sounds too familiar?

Protection was given to Toyota until it was deemed competitive enough to compete with the big boys.

Had the Japanese government opened up its market in the 1950s, GM and Ford would have gobbled up Toyota, and Toyota today would be a scrap factory, or worse, disappeared.

As consumers, we might moan about buying inferior cars at an inflated price. If our government scraps the tariffs, all of us would be driving better cars. This is true. I’d rather drive a Toyota than a Proton. It has better safety and better designs, not to mention that it is classier to drive a foreign brand.

At the same time, we know that Malaysia should be moving up the value chain. We need to get competitive in bigger industries and one way is by creating a market space for ourselves with domestic monopoly. This sounds awfully wrong, we may think. We might even insinuate that a monopoly is anti-development.

The truth is that the Japanese did it, the Koreans did it, and even the Americans did it. When these countries cultivated their ‘infant industries’- whether it is making cars, building ships or banking, they said ‘thanks but no thanks’ to the notion of a fully open market.

It was only when these industry became mature that they opened the doors to competition.

It might be true that ‘enough it enough’. Proton should die a natural death through competition. If we, Malaysians, feel that there is no way that we can, one day, make a good car as the Japanese, then maybe we should let Proton takes this natural progression.

Perhaps then, I can happily choose my stylish Toyota - the Toyota which was once deemed inferior and wouldn’t have survived without the protection it had and rise up to be the number one car maker that we know of today.

Tags: malaysia, proton, Toyota