ASIAN consumers are vain andthey like their gadgets small.

These are some of the find-ings from an International DataCorp (IDC) survey conductedlast year.

The survey comprised of3,660 respondents from Aus-tralia, China, Hong Kong,Malaysia, Singapore, SouthKorea and Taiwan.

Respondents cited “stylishlooks” as the first or second fac-tor that influenced their deci-sion to buy a new mobile phone.

About 40 per cent said theywould replace their cell phonesin less than two years.

“This is because Asians view

them as status symbols,” saidMr Bryan Ma — IDC’s associatedirector of Asia-Pacific Person-al Systems Research — at theIDC Asia-Pacific Directions 2006Conference held at the SuntecConvention Centre recently.

Camera phones are morepopular among Asian con-sumers, especially in SouthKorea and the Philippines, com-pared to those in the UnitedStates, Mr Ma said.

In South Korea, 89 per centof the mobile phones shippedlast year were camera-enabled,compared to 41 per cent in theUS.

Bluetooth functionality was

the least important factor mo-bile phone consumers.

IDC also discovered differ-ences in consumer purchase pat-terns when it came to personalcomputers (PCs).

Last year, 58 per cent ofPCs shipped in Singapore werenotebooks, compared to 34 percent in the US during the sameperiod.

“One of the drivers of sucha trend comes from vendors whocome up with attractive pricingdeals for tertiary students in Sin-gapore,” said Mr Ma.

Large-scale purchases bytertiary institutions here alsodrive the notebook market.

When it comes to the sizesof portable PCs, consumers inSingapore and Hong Kong pre-fer notebooks with screen sizessmaller than 14 inches. Buyersin Australia prefer notebookswith screen sizes larger than 15inches.

Asian consumers tend toprefer smaller screens becausesmaller screens are more“flashy”, said Mr Ma.

Smaller devices show thatthey are further ahead of thetechnological curve, explainedMr Ma. —— EELLAAIINNEE NNGG

EELLAAIINNEE NNGGelaine.ng@newstoday.com.sg

TO DRIVE productivity and improvecollaborative work, Microsoft Busi-

ness Division will make significant researchand development investments in unifiedcommunication tools and business intelli-gence technologies.

This was shared by Mr Jeff Raikes —president of Microsoft Business Division —who was in Singapore recently to meetwith government and business leaders.

Mr Raikes told TODAY, in an interview,that the top priority of his division is toenable role-based productivity — ensuringthat each worker does his job to the bestof his ability.

This is in line with Microsoft’s “PeopleReady” vision, which focuses on providinginformation workers with the right toolsand technologies to achieve desired busi-ness outcomes.

Late last year, Microsoft went througha major realignment that resulted in the for-mation of three business divisions.

The Information Worker and MicrosoftBusiness Solutions units were combinedto form Microsoft Business Division, whichfocuses on delivering software and soft-ware-based services that improve workerproductivity.

The Microsoft Platform Products &Services Division comprises Windowsclients, servers and tools as well as MSN.

The Microsoft Entertainment &

Devices Division focuses on digital devices. Part of Microsoft Business Division’s

plan is to enhance its unified communica-tion tools, which includes the expansionof Microsoft Office Live CommunicationsServer — a product aimed at integratingunified communications with business ap-plications.

Microsoft plans to add on rich com-munication capabilities such as presence to

the desktop environment, Mr Raikes said.In addition, Microsoft Office Share-

Point Server 2007 — a server solution thatunifies portal and content management,business insight and business process ca-pabilities — will contain new functionali-ties, including enterprise content man-agement, business intelligence andWeb-based spreadsheet capabilities deliv-ered through Excel Services.

With Excel Services, you can secure,share and manage spreadsheets on theserver and view them on a Web browser ordownload them to the desktop.

Enterprises can look forward to morebusiness intelligence offerings with the Mi-crosoft Office Business Scorecard Manag-er — a server-based business performancemanagement application.

“Business intelligence tools are large-ly expensive, hard to use and inconvenientto access,” Mr Raikes said.

Understanding these concerns, MrRaikes said Microsoft’s business intelli-gence solutions would be more cost-effec-tive and priced 25 to 30 per cent lesserthan that of traditional vendors.

The 2007 Microsoft Office system prod-ucts — which include new and improved suites,applications, servers and services — are ex-pected to be available by the end of the year.

2266 TODAY • Tuesday • May 2, 2006

Infotech solutions for business

SHORTCUTSIINNFFOORR’’SS LLAATTEESSTT DDAATTAASSTTRREEAAMM 77ii EENNAABBLLEESS BBEETTTTEERR DDAATTAA TTRRAANNSSFFEERRInfor has launched the latest version of its enterprise asset managementsolution, Datastream 7i. Manufacturing services companies, public sectororganisations and other service-delivery organisations can benefit from itsnew call centre module, which integrates with existing call centre applica-tions to enable data transfer between applications.

Call centre personnel can generate work orders in Datastream 7i basedon service requests and access a knowledge base of asset information –ranging from repair status to facility locations and service information – tohelp provide prompt and accurate answers to callers’ questions.

Datastream 7i features an enhanced budgeting module that enablesusers to set up a budget calendar and structure, and track costs againstthe budget automatically.

FFLLEEXXIICCAARRDD –– TTHHEE NNEEWW PPRREE--PPAAYY OOPPTTIIOONN FFOORR SSTTAARRHHUUBB SSEERRVVIICCEESSStarHub has introduced a pre-payment option – called FlexiCard – for itspay-as-you-use MaxOnline FlexiSurf 2000 service and Games-On-Demandvalue-added service. These services could only be paid online via creditcard previously.

Available at StarHub shops and partner outlets, FlexiCard comes with astored value of $15 and is valid for three years. To begin using FlexiCard,the customer simply scratches off the security foil to reveal the uniquestring code and enters the code at the sign-up website. Up to five cardscan be combined for a single transaction. Any remaining value on the cardcan be used for the next transaction. Go to www.starhub.com/hubvillagefor more information on FlexiCard.

RRSSAA SSEECCUURRIIDD PPRROOTTEECCTTIIOONN FFOORR DDEESSKKTTOOPPSS NNOOWW AAVVAAIILLAABBLLEE RSA Security has announced the worldwide availability of RSA SecurIDAppliance 2.0 – an authentication solution that enables enterprise cus-tomers to establish the identity of users accessing business resources.

The solution scales to 50,000 users and is pre-loaded with RSAAuthentication Manager 6.1, which delivers 802.1X-based security fororganisations with both wired and wireless environments.

RSA SecurID for Microsoft Windows 2.0 is included and enables cus-tomers to protect Microsoft Windows desktops and networks. RSASecurID Appliance is available in pre-configured bundles for up to 250users. A la carte pricing is offered for enterprises deploying authenticationto more than 250 users.

OOI BOON KEONG

The IT giant plans to enhanceits communication tools tohelp businesses achieve more

Readying info workers the Microsoft way

Size equates to cool for IT consumers in Asia

TThhee ttoopp pprriioorriittyy ooff tthheeddiivviissiioonn iiss ttoo eennaabblleerroollee--bbaasseedd pprroodduuccttiivviittyy–– eennssuurriinngg tthhaatt eeaacchhwwoorrkkeerr ddooeess hhiiss jjoobb ttoohhiiss bbeesstt aabbiilliittyy..

— Mr Jeff Raikes (picture),president of Microsoft BusinessDivision.