The Royal Thai Police are working to establish a High-Tech Crime Suppression Division, to oversee the fight against technology-related crime.
The new division, with a dedicated budget and 200 to 300 well-trained police, is expected to be operating officially by October this year.
High-Tech Crime Centre deputy commander Pisit Paoin said the creation of the new division would see his centre's authority increased, to enforce computer-crime laws more efficiently with a one-stop service aimed at suppressing technology-related crime.
Pisit said there were two main forms of computer crime: computer-as-a-target crime, such as information system hacking and data destruction, and computer-as-an-instrument crime, such as using a computer to defame a person or to carry out online cheating.
About 90 per cent of computer crime involves a criminal using a computer as a tool to attack his victims. Investigating this kind of crime requires collaboration and integration of resources among several related organisations. At present, the High-tech Crime Centre has insufficient resources to handle the increasing number of computer crimes, he said.
The new High-Tech Crime Suppression Division will still collaborate with the Metropolitan Police Bureau and Provincial Police regions in investing technology-related crimes, but the division will become the host.
"Our plans include the setting up of High-Tech Crime Suppression teams - with about 10 police in each - embedded in each Provincial Police region. These police will be trained in high-tech crime investigation. We will also provide equipment and tools for them to use in investigations," Pisit said.
High-tech crime investigation courses have been introduced at the Royal Police Cadet Academy, and police personnel throughout the country are also undergoing training.
"We expected that in the near future we will have many more police experts in high-tech crime and investigation," he said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30099267/Royal-Thai-Police-create-new-division
Thailand's biggest mobile operator, Advance Info Services (AIS) has announced a link-up with an Indian company, Mobien Technology, to provide mobile-based sales-force solutions for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Mobien Technologies is a software company based in Pune, India, that provides enterprise mobile solutions on handheld devices and mobile phones.
The move aims to encourage Thai SMEs in all industries to use mobile solutions to enhance their business performance in a time of tough competition.
AIS's vice president and head of corporate business Hon Mun Yip said mobility was an essential requirement for businesses and sales-force solutions, allowing companies to maintain real-time contact with their salespeople, were an important aspect of mobility, allowing SME's to reduce their headcount while improving efficiency by reducing time and errors.
"We want to make mobile solutions easily available to SMEs in any mobile devices. In the past, our solution partners have been keen on certain technology platforms, and this has made our expansion in mobile solutions quite slow. But Mobien Technologies is keen on solutions that apply across devices and technology platforms," Yip said.
The two partners are aiming at 15 industry segments, including tourism, trading, manufacturing, retailing, services, construction and consumer goods.
Mobien Technologies' chief executive officer Ajit Gokhale said his company's flagship product, called iNotify, was a mobile application framework enabling organisations to connect with their sales teams, dispatch, field teams and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in real time.
"We saw huge market opportunities in Thailand because its market for mobility solutions is one of the fastest-growing in Asia, following India and China," he said.
Gokhale said the iNotify framework was unique in offering 'the last mile' connectivity to all remote users, across devices such as Nokia and Motorola mobile phones, Windows Mobile smart phones and personal digital assistants. The solution will help Thai companies to reduce operational costs as well as increasing their business performance.
He said Mobien Technologies would work with AIS through Spacove, its Thailand marketing arm.
"Joining with the largest mobile operator and having a local marketing company to offer our mobility solutions is the model we have deployed on entering each new market. In Thailand, we will work with AIS and Spacove," Gokhale said.
Spacove's director Kottaram V Ramesh said his company provided two main approaches for customers: device independent, with which it does not matter whether the mobile devises are Blackberry, Windows Mobile-based devices, personal digital assistants, Symbien-based or Java-platform devices; and platform independent, operating successfully with SAP, Oracle and MS SQL.
The company aims to attract at least 10 customers this year.
"The strong point of iNotify is that it requires only 10 per cent customisation; 90 per cent of customers can use their existing systems. Our reference is Property Care Services (Thailand) or PCS - Thailand's leading integrated property-support service company. The iNotify solution has been serving its business with a staff of 35,000," Ramesh said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30099266/Indian-company-joins-AIS-in-mobile-drive
Bangkok-based systems integration company Datapro Computer Systems (DCS), which has been a part of Thailand's information technology industry for 23 years, has diversified its business and will focus on providing IT-outsourcing services.
The company says the past two decades have seen a continuous transformation in which it changed from providing systems integration services and solution customisation to offering total IT-solution services and finally to providing software services under a new model.
Managing director Viwat Phongsathorn said IT-outsourcing services generated one-third of the company's total revenue of more than Bt1.5 billion last year, with growth of 23 per cent.
"Our goal is to pursue growth in IT-outsourcing services so that this contributes most of the company's profits, and we will be able to grow continuously and sustainably in the long term," he said.
The company's IT-outsourcing services include hosting, co-location, service desk support, disaster recovery, professional services and software-as-a-service.
Viwat said global analysis firm International Data Corporation (IDC) had forecast that Thailand's total IT-service market this year would be worth about Bt30 billion, of which about 27 per cent represented the IT-outsourcing-service market. He said DCS was expected to grow at the same rate as the industry.
DCS has more than 10 years' experience in providing IT-outsourcing services, having served 20 large-sized companies of its parent, the Premier Group. The company has now expanded its services and expertise to outside customers.
Currently, its IT-outsourcing service customers include about 20 medium- to large-sized companies in several industries, including finance, banking, insurance and telecommunication.
It has attracted its present customers by - among other things - achieving the international ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 standard for IT service management in 2008. This standard applies to the company's three main service areas - disaster recovery, data centre and hosting service, and service help support.
Its two data centres, one a 90-square-metre facility and the second covering 300 square metres, have been certified as achieving ISO/IEC 20000:2005 (ITS) standard.
"This standard is to guarantee DCS's IT-outsourcing services and to generate customer confidence. We want them to feel confident that a Thai company can provide IT-outsourcing services up to the same standard as international players," Viwat said.
DCS plans to set up a third data centre in its 300-square-metre facility later this year, to increase its data-centre capacity.
The company will also provide IT-outsourcing services according to a new model, through the concept of software-as-a-service (SaaS), to allow its customers to enjoy lower IT costs.
"Customers in Thailand are showing more and more acceptance of IT-outsourcing services because their experience tells them that these services help them to achieve a better return on investment and total cost of ownership. There are huge opportunities in Thailand's IT-outsourcing market, especially for local service providers," Viwat said.
DCS has seven business divisions, of which IT service is one. The other six divisions are enterprise system infrastructure, enterprise business applications, enterprise business intelligence, enterprise documentary management, digital content innovation and professional multimedia solutions.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30099268/Datapro-to-focus-on-outsourcing
General Electrical International Operations has set up a local company called Smart Home Systems to distribute GE Security Simon 3 series wireless security systems, including wireless alarms and home security, in Thailand.
Smart Home Systems' managing director Suphaporn Chittmittraapap said the company would distribute the GE Simon 3 systems to dealers and end buyers. At present, the firm has 9 dealers and expects to set up at least 20 to cover the Bangkok and upcountry markets.
The company has divided the GE Simon 3 products into four categories: security systems, automation and lifestyle, audio virtual control systems and lighting fixtures and accessories supply. It expects to set up hotline services to provide information to support dealers and customers in the second half of this year and aims to sell between 2,000 and 3,000 units before the end of this year.
The price of a standard wireless security system starts at Bt28,000, plus installation.
"We aim to provide and distribute smart home solutions by trading business to business and business to customer," Suphaporn said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098895/GE-markets-wireless-security-systems
Fresh food giant Betagro is to allow international importers and local consumers to track the origins of its food products and the processes through which they pass by Internet before the end of this year.
As well as creating a website for the e-traceability system, the company is to provide what it calls Spy on Me kiosks at 14 Betagro shops around the country, allowing consumers to trace food products from source.
The director of Betagro's Food Safety and Quality Assurance Office, Sahas Ratanasoponchai, said the website aimed to give international suppliers who import Betagro's cooked chicken and pork products the ability to trace them back to origin. Local consumers of the company's fresh chicken and pork retail packs will also be able to trace the products back to origin via the Internet or at Spy on Me kiosks, to confirm food safety.
"We don't think that our investment in the e-traceability system will lift the cost of our products, but we think the system will help our business to create an image of confidence and satisfaction for our customers. The company will also be able to trace its products back through the production chain to the original source within a couple minutes," Sahas said.
He said Betagro was the first food company in Thailand to launch an e-traceability system via the Internet. Its software tracks the origin of raw materials and follows products through production processes. The e-traceability system has three parts: raw materials received, production processes, and product shipments.
At present, the company enables customers who buy its fresh chicken and pork products from supermarket shelves at 11 stores in The Mall Supermarket chain to trace the products, he said. They can discover where the products came from, the standard farm and production processes through which they passed, the type of goods, farm name and location, age, gender, standard certification, veterinarian, production date and expiry date. All this from existing Spy on Me kiosks set up to make customers more confident about the quality and safety of the food.
Betagro now plans to set up 14 more Spy on Me kiosks at its own shops around the country within the next few years.
It also plans to extend its e-traceability system to cover egg and sausage supply chains within several years, and eventually it aims to provide e-traceability for all of its product lines.
"We have spent about Bt10 million on internal development of the e-traceability system since 2002. It is now fully implemented in both poultry and swine businesses for transparency and to achieve confidence among buyers and consumers," Sahas said.
At present, the company produces 5,600 tonnes of chicken and 400 tonnes of pork per month, and exports 4,000 tonnes of chicken and 280 tonnes of pork in the same period. Fifty per cent of its exports go to Europe, 45 per cent to Japan and 5 per cent to other countries including Canada, Singapore and Korea.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098894/Betagro-launches-e-traceability-website
New IT system to control production, quality and global marketingChulalongkorn University's Halal Science Centre has joined regional company Halal Global Services to develop a Halal Super Highway to promote Halal foods and products in both domestic and global markets.
As a result, Thailand is expected to become a Halal logistics hub - or so-called Hogistics Hub - for the Southeast Asia region before the end of next year.
Winai Dahlan, director of the Halal Science Centre, said the super highway would use information technology to administer and manage product quality control from farm to table in order to create consumer confidence and reduce the cost of logistics. It would also increase productivity of Halal foods and products.
He said the super highway would be a one-stop service to facilitate the production and marketing of qualified Halal goods. A high-speed Internet database will be used to manage and control production processes to a high standard of quality, safety and accuracy. International standards and marketing demands will be applied from
the sourcing of raw materials through production, storage, packaging and transportation to delivery, and every stage will be checkable.
The new super highway is expected to become a logistics centre for Halal foods and products within next year, making Thailand a hub for exports and imports of Halal products between Asean countries and the rest of the world.
"The Halal Super Highway and Hogistics Centre will have benefits for Thailand by reducing the cost of logistics. We will be able to use IT to support the supply and value chains from raw materials through production processes to consumers, and this will increase Thailand's competitive advantage," Winai said.
Halal Global Services' managing director Supachai Keowsiri said his company would develop an information infrastructure to support and promote Hal-Q accredited Halal foods and products on both domestic and global markets. Hal-Q stands for hygiene, assurance, liability and quality of Halal food. It comes with Halal-GMP (Halal - good manufacturing practices) and Halal-HACCP (Halal - hazard analysis critical control point). The standards and food safety systems guarantee hygienic Halal food for Islamic consumers.
The company also has a role as a distribution channel for Thai Halal foods and products via e-business transactions or e-commerce, inviting orders from consumers around the world via the Internet.
"I think the Hogistics hub will have an important role in new business transactions because it will welcome more than 1.8 billion Muslims from 50 countries, allowing customers to order Thai Halal foods and products with high quality standards in a worldwide e-trade environment. Consumers and suppliers will also be able to check on their purchases and track information," he said.
The global Halal market for products and services is worth more than US$330 billion (Bt11.67 trillion) per year, and includes major components in the EU and US. At present, Thailand has less than a 1 per cent share of this market, so it will benefit from becoming a Halal logistics hub for Southeast Asia, distributing Thai Halal foods and products to global markets, Supachai said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098896/Thailand-expected-to-become-'Halal-hub'
To promote and boost the Thai digital content industry, the Department of Export Promotion and the Software Industry Promotion Agency have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange to outsource Thai software developers for the development and production of digital content for international buyers.
The department's director-general Rachane Potjanasuntorn said cooperation between Korea and Thailand would concentrate on finding trading partners, exchanging information and developing people to support expansion of the software and digital-content industries in the future.
The cooperation will help to encourage a doubling of the value of the Thai entertainment and digital content industries, which were worth about Bt166 billion in 2007, he said.
The Department of Export Promotion will support software businesses and developers to export Thai content products and services to increase their share of the international market. It is also creating and building government and private-sector networks in the region, including countries such as Korea, Japan and Taiwan, he said.
The director-general of the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, Gil Soo-jeong, said the memorandum of understanding would be a starting point to increase cultural exchange and cooperation in cultural industries. The outstanding cultural traditions and heritage of Asian countries would help to establish various cultural-content events in both countries.
Software Industry Promotion Agency president Rungruang Limchoopatipa said the agreement would enhance cooperation between the two countries, such as training in digital content in exchange for experience and technology transfer from Korea to Thai software developers, and co-production of movies, animation and online games.
He said SIPA and the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange planned to set up a network between Korean and Thai partners to participate in knowledge transfer and business matching.
"I think the cooperation will create the opportunity for Thai digital content and software industries to step forward to expand their businesses based on the global market," Rungruang said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098897/Digital-content-industry-gets-Korean-boost
Good support from the government and the high quality of local software developers are the main reasons French entrepreneur Fabrice Alizon was attracted to Thailand to set up a software-outsourcing business here.
Alizon had been working in France for the world's fourth-largest auto-maker when he decided in 2007 to establish his own companies in Asia. He chose Thailand as the location for his software development centre and head office.
The company, Strategic Software Solutions (S-Cube), is located in the Software Park Building and specialises in offshore software-outsourcing services for customers in Europe.
Alizon said the Thai government paid a lot of attention to the software industry and had many attractive support programmes for foreign software businesses. For example, his company receives investment privileges, including eight years of exemption from taxes, from the Board of Investment. It also receives advice, promotional support and coordination and rental space from Software Park Thailand.
The company's core enterprises are business solutions and software development using two main technologies: Java and .Net platforms. Therefore, as well as government support, the availability of software developers who are skilled in Java and .Net technologies was another factor that attracted him to Thailand. Most importantly though, the cost of software engineers in Thailand is 30 per cent less than that in India.
"There are good numbers of quality software engineers in Thailand and importantly they are cheaper than in India. Currently, the company employs 10 software developers and all of them are Thais," Alizon said.
S-Cube's business solutions include business intelligence, web applications and services, and engineering and supply chain systems. Its software developments include platform and customised systems, ad-hoc applications and e-solutions.
The company provides complete transparency throughout its outsourcing services with five steps of software development, from understanding the key aspects of a customer's requirements through specific questioning, to pre-planning, development, testing and reporting.
"With our result-driven approach, customers can follow each phase of the development online. We also provide internal testing to ensure we achieve the required quality. Each step of development is discussed and validated with our customers," Alizon said.
Thailand's broadband Internet infrastructure is of sufficient quality to support S-Cube's offshore software-outsourcing activities. All software solutions developed by the company are sold in Europe, especially in France and England, to four main categories of customers, in the banking, insurance, financial and telecommunications industries.
The company is planning to expand its business to the United States in the future and is seeking customers - especially multinational companies - in Thailand.
Expanding its business markets brings the concern of finding more highly qualified software engineers. At present, Thailand has between 4,000 and 5,000 professional software programmers and it's hoped that the number will reach 10,000 within five years.
Alizon admitted that the availability of skillful software engineers in the Java and .Net technologies in Thailand was a concern, even though there were many of them. The challenge of an offshore-service business, he said, was to balance the number of good software engineers and the number of outsourcing jobs.
Thailand's universities produce many thousands of software engineering graduates. Moreover, many local software companies are now adopting the international CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) certification, and this is a vital factor in advancing not only the experience of local software engineers, but their familiarity with effective software-process improvement and development, he said.
"Thailand is a good destination for software businesses in terms of cost and the availability of skilled software engineers. There is no disappointment involved in setting up a business presence here to provide offshore software-outsourcing services to customers around the world," Alizon said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098692/Local-support,-expertise-pay-off-for-French-developer
Thailand's oldest and largest public hospital, Siriraj, has invested Bt200 million in a hospital information system in a bid to improve overall management and enhance the efficiency of its healthcare services. Ads by Google
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"It is the first major software investment by Siriraj Hospital in the past 10 years, as the hospital had been developing solutions by itself system by system, leading to problems in managing the hospital's information," said Viroje Chongkolwatana, deputy dean of information technology at Siriraj Hospital's Faculty of Medicine and project manager.
"Normally, we don't have a specific software investment budget as we do in-house development. This [new] investment is outside Siriraj's annual IT investment budget [hardware, networking and security] of about Bt150 million to Bt200 million," said Viroje.
The new investment covers implementation of the Enterprise Healthcare Information System (EHIS) provided by the Australian-based IBA Health Group's iSOFT Thailand. Full implementation is scheduled to take one year.
The EHIS at the 121-year-old hospital comprises five main modules: patient administration system (PAS) and billing, pharmacy, clinical and maternity, blood bank and dental.
These modules have been divided into three phases.
The first is the PAS and blood bank, which was implemented last month.
The second - covering clinical and maternity, and dental - is scheduled to go live in September.
The billing system will be implemented by year-end in the final phase.
"The project will completely go live early next year after the entire project's implementation is completed by the end of this year," said Viroje.
The EHIS will encourage the hospital to develop further electronic systems, such as e-medicine ordering and e-patient records, and provide better healthcare services to patients with greater accuracy.
Viroje said Siriraj's hospital information system was very large scale, as it had to cover 3 million outpatients and 80,000 inpatients per year and an average daily workload of 10,000 outpatients. The system also involves 1,200 doctors and 12,000 hospital staff.
Siriraj's current databases are located separately and not linked, slowing the hospital down when it comes to disbursement through funds like the Social Security Office, the National Health Security Office and the Comptroller-General's Department.
"iSOFT's EHIS will make overall management easier for us, because it is a Web-based system supporting the large scale of concurrent use and supporting integration with other organisations. If we perform better, our patients will benefit and receive better services that are 30-40-per-cent faster," said Viroje.
iSOFT Asia president and CEO Wim Botermans said landing the largest hospital as its first customer in Thailand had led the company to establish a representative office - iSOFT Thailand - in Bangkok, with 50 local staff. This is its second-largest operation in Asia after Malaysia, which employs 220 people.
"We have been here three years, but were known as IBA Health (Thailand). Australia's IBA Heath Group acquired UK-based iSOFT in October 2007, and we come back to Thailand now with our first large deal, with Siriraj Hospital," said Botermans.
He said the global economic crisis had had little effect on the healthcare industry, especially regarding the government's healthcare budget.
Research firm Gartner said Asia's healthcare industry was expected to grow by 5-10 per cent this year, with the industry's IT spending normally 10-15 per cent of its overall investment budget per year.
"Asia is the important market for us, with around 60 per cent of the world's population. More people means a greater need for healthcare," said Botermans.
He said the company planned to win contracts with one or two more large Thai public hospitals this year for a similar level of investment to that of Siriraj Hospital.
Normally, 80-90 per cent of company revenue in Asia is from public hospitals, with 10-20 per cent coming from private operators.
(Published on March 20, 2009 in The Nation Newspaper)
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098700/Siriraj-spends-Bt200m-on-hospital-Info-system
The Technology Management Centre and Software Park Thailand have launched a Personal Software Process (PSP) Initiative Programme to increase the country's capabilities and opportunities in global software outsourcing.
The Technology Management Centre (TMC)'s director, Chatchanart Theptharanon, said the programme aimed to give the local software industry more competitiveness and greater opportunities in global software outsourcing by offering grants and specialised training for local software engineers wishing to attain PSP certification.
The project's goal is to produce about 100 PSP-certified developers by the end of this year.
PSP certification is a subset of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) processes and a part of the software process programme at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburg, USA. The PSP is a quantified method that aims to improve the quality and productivity of the personal work of individual software engineers.
"Recently, there were only 333 certified PSP developers in the world, so if we achieve the goal of having 100 certified PSP developers by the end of this year, Thailand will become a software country with a significant number of qualified developers. That will lead the country to the forefront of software outsourcing," Chatchanart said.
She said the plan provided for the development of 20 authorised PSP instructors by next year, and about 10,000 developers would then be encouraged to undertake PSP training courses at universities over the next five years.
"Today, we have only one authorised PSP instructor, Suchat Muangkaew, a lecturer at Naresuan University. He will train 100 developers under this programme. Software Park Thailand will also collaborate with universities throughout the country to train 30 lecturers from 16 universities this year to encourage them to become authorised PSP instructors next year," Chatchanart said.
Certified PSP developers will give local software companies more competitiveness and help them to achieve the trust of prospective foreign customers. Along with the increasing number of CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration)-certified companies in Thailand - about 27 companies at present - Thailand will have a greater chance of attracting offshore outsourcing work, she said.
Under the programme, the centre will provide an initial budget of Bt8 million for training and certification examination - costing about US$250 (Bt8,834) each - for all 100 candidates, said TMC's assistant director Supat Poopaka.
There are two options: companies that send only one developer to join the programme will receive 50 per cent of the cost of the training and certifying process, but companies that send two developers will receive 70 per cent of costs.
"They will get the money back when their developers pass the PSP certification examination," Supat said. "They have to advance by themselves first."
He said the programme aimed to increase the revenue portion gained from software exports. Last year, this was only Bt4 billion out of total value of Bt60 billion.
"Certified companies' software processes alone are not enough. We want to help to accelerate the revenue benefits to individual software houses through PSP certification. Then, we will see significant growth in the software industry in the future, especially in the export and global-outsourcing markets," he said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098693/Competitive-edge-for-local-software-industry
The Information and Communications Technology Ministry is soon to begin pilot operations of a Single Window Entry project, aimed at simplifying import and export documentation, including customs and logistics requirements.
The project will support the National Single Window scheme and pave the way for an Asean Single Window, establishment of which is part of the Asean Free Trade Area agreement.
It aims to allow exporters, importers, customs brokers and agencies to exchange shipment information via a Single Window Entry [a single electronic document] without the need for duplicating the data and raising the risk of data inconsistency.
A ministry adviser on Thailand's Single Window e-Logistics Project, Somnuk Keretho, said the pilot Single Window Entry project would begin in the first half of this year.
It will relate electronic documents and business transactions via an online business process developed using open-source software. In its pilot stage, the project will focus on sugar and jasmine rice transactions from Thailand to a country such as The Philippines, and on Crocodile theatre products, which are imported from the United States and re-exported to Switzerland, therefore involving both import and export transactions.
The one-year pilot project will be a case study or prototype involving business transactions between government agencies and private businesses via an online network. These will include government to business, government to government, business to business and business to government transactions. The aim is to create cost efficiency, reduce time and create productivity through business processes and transactions.
The pilot will operate via an online network under the National Single Window Scheme or the National Single Window Exchange Scheme before the Single Window Entry scheme for general products is officially introduced in the next couple years.
"The pilot project will help to reduce logistics costs and increase responsiveness, reliability and security for business as a whole. It will also create additional value for the logistics industry and related businesses under National Single Window e-Logistics," Somnuk said.
He said Thailand aimed to reduce logistics costs in trade transactions from 19 per cent in 2007 to 14 per cent by 2011. By the end of this year, the government plans to provide customs paperless services and enable other government agencies to exchange e-documents such as e-permits and requesting forms through a National Single Window with customs.
The Customs Department will spend Bt300 million this year to develop an electronic documents exchange hub to operate with the National Single Window scheme. The hub will be a data exchange centre for e-document exchange, data harmonization and interoperability of e-documents between government agencies related to import and export products, he said.
The government will also set up and develop a National Root Certification Authority this year to support e-Signatures from both domestic and international sources.
"The government will connect all government agencies related to import and export via the National Single Window, which will reduce the time needed to manage the document process and reduce the number of days required for exporting from the current 24 days to 15 by 2010, which will help to increase productivity and create advantages for the country," Somnuk said.
He said Thailand would also establish a data exchange with other countries before 2015. The exchange will connect with 10 countries in Southeast Asia using the Asean Single Window and with 21 Asia-Pacific countries under the APEC Single Window.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098306/Government-cranks-up-Single-Window-scheme
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) is soon to begin using a video-conference system to link up with the Criminal Court to seek subpoenas and search warrants.
It is the first step in a DSI plan to make much wider use of information technology, particularly video-conference systems, in its investigative processes.
The director of the DSI's Bureau of Technology and Information Systems Centre Surasak Na Lampang said official use of the new system, using video-conference broadcasts, would begin next year.
He said the DSI's caseload had risen to the point where inspectors and investigators needed many more subpoenas [writs ordering people to appear in court] and search warrants, which needed court approval. The video-conference link between the DSI and the Criminal Court will save time and hasten the progress of special cases and investigations.
However, the video-conference link with the Criminal Court is no more than a first step.
Later, a mobile video-conference system will be introduced which will enable direct links between the DSI's headquarters and crime scenes or the interrogation of witnesses.
Surasak said the video-conference system would provide live real-time broadcasts from crime scenes to the Criminal Court and the DSI. As an example, he mentioned cases of forest encroachment. The DSI now has responsibility for about 200 such cases.
The mobile video-conference system is expected to help the DSI save operational costs and reduce by more than 50 per cent the time taken to summarise cases.
Moreover, the DSI plans to establish a private network between government agencies, linking 11 databases of agencies such as the Criminal Court, the Royal Thai Police, the Interior Ministry and the Consular Affairs Department. This will be set up before the end of this year, giving the department instant access to information to assist its investigations.
The DSI will also create and develop its own database to gather information on such things as the colour of cars, fabric fibres and sizes of shoes.
"Information technology will help us investigate, analyse information and increase the productivity of our staff," Surasak said. "Accessing information from government agencies, instead of taking one month, will be achieved in one minute."
He said the department was also testing a management information system, which aimed to develop office automation, support the investigation process and list suspects in special cases. Investigators and department heads will be able to check the situation of special cases in real time via an online network.
"The DSI now is under acceptance testing of the management information system from a private company that has developed it. The company will later transfer knowledge and train our staff in use of the new system," Surasak said.
The system will involve a numbering arrangement for special cases that will enable examination of case histories back to their origins. The identity of inspectors responsible for various cases will be linked to the cases, giving them authority to access information or input new material. Inspectors will also be able to summarise special cases and the information will be accessible by DSI executives.
"The management information system will not only make it easier to access information on special cases, but will also limit and control the authority of inspectors and DSI executive to access that information so it will be protected and details such as the issue of search warrants, arrest warrants, criminals or suspects and subpoenas in special cases will be kept confidential," Surasak said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098305/Special-investigations-get-technology-boost
The National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) has begun what it admits is the most challenging of its current flagship projects.
It is called "Smart Farm", and its aim is to lift the agricultural sector's contribution to Thailand's gross domestic product (GDP) from the present 9 per cent to a "distinguished and sustainable" figure in the future.
Smart farm is one of the centre's three flagship projects. The others are Digitize Thailand and Smart Health.
Nectec director Pansak Siriruchatapong said the goal of Smart Farm was to develop precision agriculture and the ability to forecast agricultural planning, to help increase the agricultural sector's contribution to GDP.
According to the National Economic and Social Development Board, agriculture is the country's third most important contributor to GDP, after the services sector, which contributes about 52 per cent and the manufacturing sector, which contributes about 39 per cent. In its distant third place, agriculture contributes only 9 per cent of GDP but it has the second-largest number of people employed, at 39 per cent of the country's total. The service sector has the largest number of employees, with 43 per cent and the manufacturing sector, about 18 per cent.
"There is a big gap between the number of labourers and the total contribution of the agriculture sector. The challenge is how to use technologies and knowledge to improve productivity in this sector, in terms of quantity and quality," Pansak said.
In the first three years, the project will aim to increase agricultural productivity by applying knowledge and technology at farm level, since these are the industry's production units. Later, Nectec will turn its focus to the agricultural supply chain and logistics.
"Smart farm is the most challenging of the three flagships as the project involves a lot more people, most of whom are unfamiliar with technology and lack the ability to access information," he said.
Smart Farm will concentrate on four main agricultural products: rice, cassava, rubber and sugar cane. To make these operations into "smart farms", Nectec has two main plans: providing research and development, especially the supply of basic field-level sensors capable of reading pH (soil acidity or alkalinity), humidity and temperature; and developing a database of agricultural knowledge, then providing farmers with access to it.
In supplying equipment to farmers, Nectec will work with its sister centres under the National Science and Technology Development Centre, including Biotec, MTEC, and Nanotec.
Partnerships will also be employed in developing a digital archive of agricultural knowledge and giving access to farmers.
Recently, Nectec signed a memorandum of understanding with the Agricultural Land Reform Office (Alro), which is responsible for about 1 million rai of rice-farming land, or about 10 per cent of Thailand's total rice-production area. Under the agreement, smart-farm initiatives will be introduced to this area through a co-managed project called "Alro Cyber Brain".
One of its main aims will be the development of "trailer-made fertiliser" for each of the farms, with different formulas according to the needs of the soil.
Farmers will be offered sensors to evaluate the status of the main plant nutrients, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), in their farm's soil. They will then be able to send the result by mobile phone short message service to Alro's server and a fertiliser will be formulated specifically for their farm.
"We have begun with rice farms in Ayutthaya province and will expand to other rice farms under Alro's responsibility around the country. We will develop similar partnerships with other organisations and clusters. Although this may seem to be a fragmentary strategy, these fragmented collaborations will eventually be integrated like a jigsaw.
"This flagship project is hard work, requiring a lot of time, effort and collaboration," Pansak said.
It is hoped the development of farm-specific fertilisers will help farmers save up to Bt500 per rai. In the 1 million rai under Alro's responsibility, the "trailer-made fertilisers" will help save Bt500 million per rice crop.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098079/Nectec-takes-technology-to-the-farm
Novaleaf Game Studio has become the first Thai game developer to launch a game on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace, at http://marketplace.xbox.com.
Chief operations officer Tidarat Thanapakpawin said Novaleaf"s business direction was mainly the development of games for Xbox, because this was a market with huge potential. About 28 million Xbox devices have been sold, and Novaleaf's marketing strategy is to sell games online via the Xbox Live community, which currently has 17 million members.
Another reason that the company chose to develop a game on the Xbox platform was Microsoft's provision of a free game engine called XNA to help local firms develop games for Xbox easier, faster, and cheaper. Then it allows game studios to publish games to the huge Xbox worldwide community.
Tidarat said the model was very helpful because investment costs and time spent on Xbox game development were less than developing "box-packaged" games, and the latter were more vulnerable to intellectual property violence.
She said the company's first Xbox release was called "Biology Battle". It took 11 months to develop and was released on Xbox Live Marketplace last November. To play "Biology Battle", gamers need to sign up as Xbox Live Marketplace members and then buy "Microsoft points", or virtual money for buying online games via the marketplace. "Biology Battle" sells for 800 Microsoft points, or about US$10 (Bt360) per download.
"By the end of March, we will know how many downloads of 'Biology Battle' have been made from Xbox Live Marketplace," Tidarat said.
The company has developed a second online game for the Xbox community called "Jason Bomb" - a casual game similar to "Mario". It will be released before the end of this month.
Novaleaf also has three other games in its pipeline that are scheduled for release in the Xbox Live Marketplace this year.
Novaleaf Game Studio is a member of the Thai Game Association and is founder of the Bangkok chapter of the International Game Developers Association.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098081/Local-developer-launches-Xbox-game
Microsoft aims to generate significant online advertising revenue in Thailand this year and expects it business here to grow at an annual rate of 30 to 40 per cent. It will introduce a new platform for online advertising - rich media - and will launch two new channels for online ads.
Microsoft Advertising's Southeast Asia sales director Richard Huggins said Thailand was a vital market with huge potential for rapid growth because online advertising currently amounted to only 1.1 to 1.4 per cent of the country's total advertising spending.
At the same time, Thailand was a number one market in terms of MSN audience brand awareness, which was around 74 per cent of online usage in Thailand.
Currently, Microsoft's main online advertising revenue comes from MSN services, including Hotmail and MSN Messenger. To lift its online advertising revenue from Thailand, with expected growth of 30 to 40 per cent by this year, Huggins said the company planned to launch two new channels: iCafe's online Ads and mobile advertising solutions.
iCafe is Microsoft's Internet cafe programme, which currently has about 4,000 Internet cafe members around Thailand, each equipped with at least 20 PCs. The company will launch online advertising solutions into these Internet cafes via iCafe by next month.
Microsoft will also launch mobile phone advertising in Thailand this year.
Along with the new online advertising channels, Microsoft plans to introduce a new-generation format for online advertising called "rich media".
Huggins said rich media was a new online Ad platform offering high returns on investment because it would generate more audience responses than existing online platforms such as banner Ads or click-to-write Ads.
"From now on, the click is nothing," he said. "The trend of online advertising by banner Ads is declining, but the rich media trend is growing."
According to University of Washington, the term rich media was coined to describe a broad range of digital interactive media. Rich media can be downloadable or may be embedded in a webpage. If downloadable, it can be viewed or used offline with media players such as Real Networks' RealPlayer, Microsoft's Media Player, or Apple's QuickTime, among others.
Recently, Microsoft began what it calls "Rich Media Rock", aimed at educating Thai advertising businesses of the potential of rich media and building a wider awareness.
"With this new platform and the launching of two new channels for online advertising, the company will reach its goal of 30- to 40-per-cent revenue growth this year for sure," he said.
Microsoft's online advertising revenue comes mainly from four successful business segments: telecommunications, finance, fast-moving consumer goods and technology. This year, the company plans to expand into automobile and travel advertising, Huggins said.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30098080/Microsoft-launches-major-advertising-push
