The Thai mobile market continues to grow. By mid-2009 there were 64 million mobile subscribers in the country and penetration was around the 100% mark. The subscriber numbers were up from 30 million in 2005.

With the arrival of two additional players in the mobile market – TA Orange (later called True Move) and Hutchison CAT – almost a decade ago, the powerful duopoly of AIS and DTAC was fundamentally challenged as competition began heating up. There was also the launch of Thai Mobile, the TOT/CAT mobile joint venture, over this period.

Thailand Mobile Operator Forecast, 2010 – 2014: Thailand to have 72.5 million mobile subscriber connections in 2014

The market is now in need of some rationalisation; regulatory changes will continue to be a big factor in shaping the future market. This means that much will depend on the government and the regulator to make the necessary changes. The commercial rollout of 3G networks will also be watched with great interest. This report presents an overview of the Thai mobile market, including some pertinent statistics.

From

4Q10 Thailand Mobile Operator Forecast, 2010 – 2014: Thailand to have 72.5 million mobile subscriber connections in 2014

Mobile Operator Forecast on Thailand provides over 50 operational and financial metrics for Thailand’s wireless market and is one of the best forecasts in the industry. We provide five-year forecasts at the operator level going out to 2014.

We also provide quarterly historical and forecast data starting in 1Q2003 and ending in 2Q2012. Mobile network operators covered for Thailand include: AIS (Advanced Info Service Public Company Limited), DTAC (Total Access Communication Public Company Limited), True Move (True Corporation Public Company Limited), Hutch Thailand (Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited), TOT Public Company Limited (Thai Mobile), and CAT Telecom Public Company Limited. Our Mobile Operator Forecasts are updated quarterly and are available for one-time delivery or through regular updates.

Global Mobile Operator Forecast covers 50+ metrics on 800+ mobile operators in 200+ countries. Our forecasts are based on our proprietary, country-specific forecasting models. These models deploy multiple regression analysis and cross-impact matrices that estimate relationships between subscriber data, technology use and deployment data, overall economic and demographic changes expected in a particular country; and relate these to company operational and financial metrics.

http://thailand-business-news.com/markets/29741-thailand-has-64-million-mobile-subscribers

VMware to integrate performance, capacity and configuration analytics to streamline management of intelligent virtual infrastructure

VMware announced a strategy and a new solution to simplify and automate how IT organizations manage services in dynamic virtual and cloud environments. VMware vCenter ™ Operations will help customers transform IT operations to achieve the agility and economics of cloud computing.

Cloud computing represents a fundamentally different approach to IT where resources are pooled across multiple sources, provisioning and capacity are highly dynamic, and configurations are fluid. Traditional management tools and processes, which were designed to handle discrete processes across static computing stacks, cannot keep pace with the velocity of these new, intelligent virtual environments.

“For opportunistic organizations, the move to cloud computing may enable the ‘breaking’ of the traditional IT management model,” said Cameron Haight, research vice president, Gartner. “Decades of investment in complex infrastructures, processes and management tools have contributed to high IT operations and service delivery costs. Cloud computing, or more specifically, the cloud operating model, represents a real opportunity for enterprise IT to overcome the complexity that has been dragging down overall IT efficiency and agility. But to do this, we need to completely reassess the conventional wisdom of the role of management in relation to the build-out of these emerging cloud environments.”

VMware vSphere ® has helped thousands of companies transform their datacenters, simplifying many core systems management functions, such as resource allocation and load balancing, by building them into the virtualization platform. VMware’s management strategy is to further simplify IT by integrating performance, capacity and configuration management and applying analytics to help customers achieve the degree of automation required to operate a cloud environment.

“IT management is being turned on its head as enterprises expand their virtual infrastructures to achieve improved efficiencies and responsiveness,” said Ramin Sayar, vice president product strategy, enterprise management, VMware. “Increasingly, our customers are realizing that a management model designed for yesterday’s IT systems is making it difficult to keep up with the demands of today’s business environment. We believe that vCenter Operations will help our customers modernize their operations and take the next step in the journey towards a more simplified, agile approach to IT.”

Visibility, Analytics and Actionable Intelligence Drive New IT Management Approach

vCenter Operations will be tightly integrated with VMware vSphere, understand its advanced infrastructure management functionality and able to collect data from its underlying physical components (servers, storage, network) as well as other management tools within the enterprise. It will then analyze the millions of data points these systems produce in real-time to get to the information that matters and visually present it in a simple, actionable way through dashboards. This means infrastructure and operations teams will have the intelligence they need to make fast, informed operational decisions in order to:

· Proactively ensure service levels in dynamic cloud environments

Real-time performance dashboards with patented analytics and powerful visualization of the health of the environment will allow IT to proactively pinpoint performance issues and risks before they become problems and impact SLAs.

· Get to the root cause of performance problems faster

The combination of patented analytics and infrastructure-awareness will allow vCenter Operations to more accurately and rapidly determine symptoms so that infrastructure and operations teams quickly get to the root cause of performance problems. By enabling a more collaborative approach, vCenter Operations can speed problem resolution and change management cycles and reduce manual efforts by 40%.

· Optimize deployments in “real time” to enable self-service provisioning

vCenter Operations will provide real-time analysis of performance and capacity to help teams make fast, informed decisions on deployment. This capability will be critical to enabling rapid and reliable provisioning needed in self-service environments.

· Maintain compliance in the face of constant change

Automated provisioning and configuration analysis will ensure optimal configuration by automatically detecting configuration changes and enabling rollback to help IT maintain continuous compliance with operational best practices and industry or regulatory compliance requirements.

“To us, cloud computing means dynamic resources that are self-provisioning, and vCenter Operations is purpose-built to support this type of environment,” said Brian Alexander, systems architect, information technology, Mentor Graphics Corporation. “Two things set vCenter Operations apart: the hooks into vSphere that give it broad understanding of the system – storage, network, VM performance – and the analytics that will transform the data it gleans into actionable information.”

vCenter Operations Pricing and Availability

vCenter Operations is designed as a set of products and solutions that will bring together the performance, capacity and configuration management capabilities VMware has developed and acquired, including VMware vCenter Capacity IQ™, VMware vCenter Configuration Manager and Integrien Alive™. vCenter Operations will be available in three editions to meet the needs of customers managing both VMware vSphere-virtualized and physical environments.

· vCenter Operations Standard offers performance management with capacity and change awareness for VMware vSphere-virtualized and cloud environments.

· vCenter Operations Advanced adds more advanced capacity analytics and planning to vCenter Operations Standard’s performance management for VMware vSphere-virtualized and cloud environments.

· vCenter Operations Enterprise offers performance, capacity and configuration management capabilities for both virtual and physical environments and includes customizable dashboards, smart alerting and application awareness.

The first versions of these editions will be available in late Q1 with prices starting at US$50 per VM. vCenter Operations will be available through VMware sales and via VMware’s more than 25,000 channel partners.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/03/10/technology/VMware-Delivers-New-Operations-Model-for-Cloud-Env-30150549.html

Facebook has become one of the most popular channels for online marketing, to create awareness, customer engagement, or sales. Its popularity has led various companies to jump into Facebook business with the main goal of increasing the number of Facebook “fans”.

The concern then becomes: what we can do with our huge number of fans? How we can use these fans to boost our sales volume?

The following may provide some answers.

Daily “update” talks on Facebook

Communicating by regularly (daily) talking is a way to create a dynamic page. However, the art of talking on Facebook concerns some people. Importantly, speaking without listening should be avoided.

There are three points that outline the rules of the “art”. Firstly, conversations should not be sharply focused on sales. Secondly, talk should involve updates of news or any talk-of-the-town issue, but with the right timing. Thirdly – as I have already said – the conversation must flow both ways. In fact, the word “talk” should more properly be “discussion”. For example, we must make an effort to support or encourage our fans. We may ask our customers some questions about our services and perceptions of product quality.

Unlimited recall of fans and customers

Our members or fans on Facebook may or may not return to the home page every day. The simple way to make sure you connect with them is the messenger service. It will pass information directly to all or a selection of fans via the Facebook page. The information will be stored in the Message section of each receiver. This is very similar to “blast” e-mail marketing to members of a group. The advantage of this is that it guarantees the delivery of information to a targeted group.

Encourage members to review products positively

A good review of a product or service on Facebook encourages others who have never used the product to give it a try. People believe and trust users’ reviews more than they do advertising. A positive comment about a product will be displayed on the reviewer’s profile page as well as on our Facebook page. The impression this creates is one of an opportunity for friends and followers to click and purchase as a final destination. On the other hand, negative reviews may happen on Facebook. This means the business needs closer communication with its fans.

Create more games, create more sales

Games on Facebook encourage customers’ participation and familiarity with brands. The simplest and easiest games offer prizes for accumulated correct answers to questions designed to identify desired respondents. This constantly attracts people to come and play. Moreover, they may play for free gifts or coupons offering 10- to 60-per-cent discounts, which will draw more traffic from Facebook (online) to the offline or online store front.

Linking to your e-commerce products

It’s not enough to display information about your products and services on Facebook, even if we start with basic product information, strongest points and advertising messages. The most important thing is that when you are talking on Facebook about your products, there must be links to those items allowing customers to gain more information. This way, customers can purchase immediately. However, your website needs to support online shopping. An example can be found athttp://apps.facebook.com/taraddotcom

Advertising on Facebook

If you don’t have many fans or members, advertising on Facebook seems to be an easy and fast way to gather customers. However, costs will be incurred once you start. You will be charged on a CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per impression) basis. The cost can be controlled per day by starting with US$1 (Bt30) via credit card. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/ads

Effective measurement

It is important to be able to measure whether your marketing efforts via the Facebook interface are effective. The easiest way is to install a statistics-collection and information system such as Google Analytics on your website and measure how many visitors come from Facebook. Additionally, how much have sales increased from you website via Facebook? Moreover, you can also ask random purchasers to respond to a questionnaire about where they first saw your products.

All of these methods can help businesses to expand their sales. As can be seen, the more fans you have, the greater your chance of reaching your target group and selling products.

However, when talking with fans, you must avoid too much emphasis on sales. It should be done step by step, tenderly, as friends telling friends, to have any chance of success.

Now that you have read this, it’s time to start your business. Good luck, and please let us know your results.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/03/29/technology/Increasing-sales-with-Facebook-30152022.html

It’s a magazine, but not as you know it

The format and content of true digital magazines does not resemble the magazine in its paper version.

The dramatic growth of digital technology and mobile devices, especially the rapid increase in the number of iPads, has led to more and more publishers entering the electronic world.

However, an IT expert says creating a digital magazine is not just converting the existing content into a PDF file and making it available for a tablet device.

Different publishing files and file types are required for distinctive forms and formats, according to Kajorn Bhirakit, Adobe Community Professional and manager of Thai Adobe User Group.

He pointed out that while e-books and e-magazines are often in generic electronic files or formats, the digital magazine is an application.

“Many publishers misunderstand the concept and simply jump into the electronic version by putting the same content as the paper version on a PDF file for tablets. This is not a digital magazine at all,” said Kajorn.

PDF focuses on presentation, so users cannot change the text size or font, nor resize. E-books and e-publications are reading material in PDF form without an interactive mode, while the digital magazine is interactive.

The preferred format of Kindle and Nook, e-books allow in-line graphics and figures, HTML and CSS-based templates, while layout control is nonexistent.

The form and format of digital magazines, on the contrary, are solely for iPads and tablet PCs, offering a media-rich format, touch interface (swipe, pinch, flick) and separate horizontal and vertical layouts for device rotation. The format of the future, the digital magazine requires Adobe’s Indesign CS5 program.

In Thailand, there are only a small number of publishers who actually produce digital magazines, such as Mars, Bazzar and travel magazine Andaman.

Kajorn said that each month, Adobe in the US researches what people do with their iPhones and iPads. For iPad download behaviour, they found that 5% downloaded only free apps, 32% did not download an app, and 63% downloaded a paid app. But such research has never been conducted in Thailand.

Patchara Samudavanija, editor-in-chief of Mars magazine, said the revenue from digital magazines is primarily from advertising because the platform can automatically find out how many users there are and which sections they read, and who the target group is.

“Advertising in digital magazines goes beyond the ads on websites in which readers can click ‘like’ or shop on those interactive ads,” Patchara said.

Unlike e-books, digital magazines target for advertising rather than the unit volume of magazines.

Patchara said that in Mars magazine the content is presented as text and video and the readers can interact with the magazine directly. He cited the example of an interview with a musician in which readers can read the text on the iPad as well as click on the video to listen to the music that the artist plays.

There are about 50,000 tablet users in Thailand, which is quite a significant figure. “However, Thais rarely use tablets for reading. Most are for playing games, so we get revenue from digital applications, especially games,” he said.

Kajorn said the digital magazine is not just about clicking and then going to the internet; rather readers must be able to interact with the content. The essence is that the publishers can know how many times each page in the magazine was clicked, so that they can plan the marketing more minutely. Advertising should also be interactive; once the readers click, they can compare or order the products.

Analytic data allows publishers to know which articles are the most read and so the advertising can capture the right target group.

For consumers, the advantages of e-publications over printed ones are searchable content, choice of devices, instant availability, convenience, interaction with content and adaptive content. For publishers, the benefits include easier market deployment, lower overheads, faster delivery, instant correction and updates, dynamic content and click-tracking. However, the downsides of e-publication compared to print are market flooding, software piracy, a disposable product and, with some formats, loss of presentation control.

“But if you do the right thing, there is money in e-magazines. Publishers must stop thinking that e-paper is ink on screen, stop charging paper costs to e-consumers and follow e-book and app market pricing models. Sell advertisers on media-rich adverts and interactive experience branding buys, and learn to turn a profit from micropayments”.

Print is not dead, according to Kajorn, who noted that 85% of consumers prefer printed material at least some of the time, The Wall Street Journal, for instance, offers printed, iPad, web and mobile versions, all with differing content, which are all widely read. Even tablets cannot be everywhere all the time. But print-only publications will be dead by the decade’s end, he said.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/gadget/229129/publishers-take-the-digital-route-to-profits

Dedicated readers of English-language books can now enjoy carrying a well-stocked bookstore with them wherever they go, following the launch of Asia Books’ e-book store.

The 42-year-old bookstore chain and distributor of English-language books in Thailand has opened the e-book-store service for its 150,000 existing members and newcomers.

It aims to become the e-book centre for Thailand and Southeast Asia, since Asia Books’ e-book store - www.asiabooks.com – is already the biggest repository of digital content in Thailand and its neighbouring countries.

Readers wishing to buy e-books must first register as members ofwww.asiabooks.com, where there are currently 500,000 titles available for download. The company plans to double that number of e-book titles to 1 million by the end of this year.

The online bookstore has been redesigned over the past six months. Following its relaunch, it has attracted many more readers. At present the website receives about 2,000 visitors per hour, and about 95 per cent of them make a purchase.

Asia Books’ managing director Sirote Jiraprayon said the redesigned e-book store aimed mainly to give readers the convenience of not having to carry heavy books with them. The launch of the e-book store is part of Asia Books’ strategy to cope with a global trend in reading behaviour. Research has shown that people are likely to read more books in electronic format, he said. In the United States, the e-book market has been growing continuously, and reached a value of more than US$340 million (Bt10.31 billion) last year, or about 8 per cent of the total book market.

“The US and the UK are the two countries with the greatest proportion of e-books. In the US it is around 8 per cent of the market, while in the UK it is around 5 per cent. In Thailand, it is now less than 1 per cent, but we have to pave the way right now by introducing the e-book-store service. We foresee a trend in which more people will read books in electronic format because of the convenience,” Sirote said.

The total global e-book market is expected to grow by more than 100 per cent this year, while the world market for conventional books is expected to expand by just 10 per cent. A key factor in e-book growth is the burgeoning popularity of tablet devices, which can be used as mobile readers. The number of tablets in use is expected to reach about 40 million in the next couple of years. Another trend leading to growth in e-book readership is the expectation that there will soon be more than 2 billion people connected wirelessly to the Internet.

Sirote said that in Thailand there were about 22 million Internet users, and books were the leading product purchased online. There is therefore a lot of potential for selling e-books in Thailand.

Asia Books’ e-book-store service is designed to make purchases easy and convenient. Currently, it allows readers to make three downloads of e-books purchased via any devices, including PCs, smart phones or tablets.

The service also offers many payment choices, including Paypal, credit card, bank transfer, a pay-at-the-counter service and payment at an Asia Books’ shop. There are about 70 branches of Asia Books and Bookazine throughout the country.

“We now have 10 kiosks in shops, where readers can both download e-books and make payments. We plan to increase the number of these kiosks in the future,” Sirote said.

He said Asia Books had spent about Bt10 million on developing the back-end system for the e-book store, especially the system for digital-rights management. It will spend less on marketing as it intends to promote the e-book-store service online, via its website and Facebook, where Asia Books has more than 5,000 fans.

E-books purchased from Asia Books are currently all in e-book file format. However, in August this year the company plans to launch its e-book service as an application on the iOS and Android platforms for smart phones and other devices. This will enable the service to reach many more readers.

Asia Books is also planning to launch an e-publisher service in August. Writers wanting to sell their books online in e-book format will be able to join Asia Books, Sirote said. The publisher and writer will share any revenue on a 70:30 basis – the same as for other download models.

“We hope to be able to offer more e-books in the future, as there are normally around 1 million new titles launched globally every year,” he said.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/03/29/technology/Big-e-book-push-from-Asia-Books-30152020.html