CHINICT 2010: Borqs

In brief: Pat Chan, President & CEO at Borqs, talked about the oPhone OS & more & the China mobile revolution, and was interviewed by Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei.

This is a summary of tweets sent during the interview.

• Canadian, also from HK: BORQS Ophone OS & more & the China mobile revolution; Pat Chan, Borqs President & CEO.

• Mentions iPhone, Google Phone. Smartphones. Lots of folks like Android as it’s open.
• Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile — 3 mobile systems; real open system is only Android.
• Customize Android for mobile operators, handset makers.
• Relationship with China Mobile. Pat is interviewed by @goldkorn.
• Competitors? Mentions WinRiver.
• BORQS is only company that has done significant Android customization.
• Venture market is global.
• 5% revenues is international.
• Difference between CN mobile scene and those in US? Mentions Mobile TV in China.
• Android needs to be modified to support Mobile TV.
• Another issue: handwriting. Localization in Chinese use.
• Company in 5 years’ time? Mentions oPhone, sync. Providing more meaningful app services for oPhone, worldwide.
• Sees US, India as most interesting. Has working experience in India.
• Numbers comparing China, India re: 3G? Too early to say. India just has “a bit” in 3G. China, India growing big in mobile biz.
• Advice? CN is a bit different from int’l customers. In CN you need relationships, understanding how to do stuff.
• Good technology is only a proportion of your success. You must understand what customers need macroscopically.
• Difficult for foreigners to get in? More about a local presence. Understanding the need.
• Sending in delegates and stationing them just to sell stuff probably won’t work.

CHINICT 2010: Exmart

In brief: Alan Tawil-Kummarman, Chariman, Exmart, talked about taking mobile application development to the next level, and was interviewed by Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei.

This is a summary of tweets posted during the interview.

Alan Tawil-Kummerman, Exmart Chairman, now interviewed by @goldkorn.
• Exmart primarily an outsourcing company; in this form since 2 years ago. Active segment: telco.
• Specializing in iPhone, cross-platform too: Android, Blackberry.
• Customers: looking at smaller segment of edu market; specialized training; single teachers; private courses.
• Goes into a customer case. Having an online complement is useful: remote edu. Gets school to offer continuous teaching.
• Geographically: they want to start first with Beijing, China; then expand out from Beijing.
• Will also do online, social media. Mentions Facebook.
• Big difference re: CN market: when you sell in US it’s amazing how fast you get to right people. In CN quite different.
• You have to be patient here. Not too obsessed about CN market; want to build a global market.
• Mentions language barrier. Chinese appears more reliable… as in committing to deadlines, prices, etc.
• Mentions WizIQ in the US.
• Goldkorn: Do you have a 5-year plan? Alan: Not one we can deliver, but we know where we’re going.
• Alan: Do not need external funding at this moment. But needs exposure.
• Alan: Also finish testing things; then go on to commercializing the service in the Beijing service.
• Alan: Also: then approaching international market.
• Advice giving to biz wanting to come to China: Key thing is there’s a lot of misconceptions is.
• Misconceptions of what China is, its people. Get through this. You’ve got to build trust. Success comes this way.
• Thank you.

CHINICT 2010: Wukong

In brief: Li Sicheng, Vice-President, Wukong, is talking about competing to become the #1 mobile search engine, and was @goldkorn (Jeremy Goldkorn), chief editor, Danwei.

This is a summary of tweets posted during the interview.

• Interviewed by @goldkorn in Chinese. Of Danwei fame. Talks about wireless Net companies in China.

• Wireless Web is not developing as fast as some folks might think.
• By wireless we’re more about mobile.
• No, or very few, mobile content companies have made it listed.
• Li joined in 2002. Has a lot of competitors in the mobile market. Baidu, Google.
• Li: if we just focused on content search we’d have no way out. They’ve more users, cash.
• If we did what they were doing — it wouldn’t work: Li.
• Going into a new generation of mobile search. The Web is all around us. Do users know what they want to see? Nah…
• They’re going into push. Based on “guesswork” they’re hoping users will like it. “Third-gen” of mobile search.
• Goldkorn mentions the iPhone. Li: Chinese mobile web mainly on GPRS. 1/5th of theoretical speed limit used.
• Li: Client apps — another “CN special”: 70% of mobile phones will only do WAP 1.2 (some do 2.0); none for Flash, HTML.
• Goldkorn on iPhone, Android, will it work in China? Li: We’ve to support all. Not a real question for us.
• Li: Has to cover 98% of the whole market.
• Li: Hopes to go listed in next 5 years.
• Thank you Li.

CHINICT 2010: Aigo

In brief: Feng Jun, Founder & CEO at Borqs, is talking about his way of building the #1 Chinese consumer electronics brand, and was interviewed by CHINICT President Franck Nazikian.

This is a summary of tweets sent during the interview.

• Aigo: #1 consumer electronics maker in China (in world soon?). Who is Aigo?

• Feng Jun created that 18 years ago out of Tsinghua (China’s MIT). Started CNY 220 (USD 26).
• So how did he turn that into a billion-dollar company? Mentions Deng visit of 1992, South China.
• Majored in civil engineering, not IT. But still sees that many things will change. Went to Zhongguancun then.
• Wanted to be a hero. Do good things. Create value. Stay away from the illegal.
• There were other players in Zhongguancun back in the day but there were smugglers. Those who win are king.
• Feng Jun: We win with partners. Franck: 1+1=11?
• IT can create new value for you and me. Why IT growing this quick? Creating a lot of new value.
• Feng Jun: 1+1=-1 if two folks aren’t adding up, or it’s 1+1=0. Two partners with same direction: 1+1=1.
• Same direction, different positions: 1+1=11. Very insightful.
• French President Sarkozy: “Everything is possible.”
• Aigo started building keyboards of very high quality. Had only USD 26 to start with. What to start with?
• Big contestant: Stone (四通). Feng Jun born in Xi’an, without relationships. Wanted to rely on hard work, not relations.
• Feng Jun: Mum and dad: never do illegal things. Don’t get into smuggling. What should I do?
• Delivery of products on tricycles!
• Tsinghua students on bikes! Lots of such fame in the media.
• With direct delivery on bikes, Feng Jun sees the customers, know what they need. Personal touch.
• “King of the keyboards”… after that in 1999, he started going into keyboards.
• They understand the market. They know what’s the need. (Just knowing about R&D apparently won’t do.)
• We must know what’s demand. Understand demand. Go out and understand the customer to get R&D straight.
• USB in 1999. Then it’s MP3 in 2002.
• Mentions the 1.44 MB floppy. MO. Zip. But USB — as of 1999 all computers have USB ports.
• MP3 flash memory + MP3 player = combined. Convenience for consumers. Direct PC connection. No drivers.
• Back in the day, all MP3 players were from South Korea. iRiver, Samsung, everything.
• Aigo is young. They can create new value. Doesn’t matter who those competitors there are.
• Moonlight and “romantic brands”. That worked in China. Romantic MP3s.
• With that Aigo beat Samsung in 8 months. This was back in 2003. MP3 #1 in China.
• Folks turned out surprised. “Samsung is a great company”, as it was supposed to be.
• 2005: R&D in digital camera. Feng Jun’s friends: He’s nuts. In 2005 digicams were all manufactured (mainly) by JP brands.
• Japanese brands were united, did very well. Feng Jun: Let’s create some value there!
• MP6? Lots of patents there. Accessible to all, old and new. Use MP6 to enjoy legal music. “Very convenient”. Use stylus.
• Use Aigo Pen, broadband, let folks enjoy LEGAL music. Wait. MP7 is coming soon in 6 months. TV series.
• Consumer buys book and points to a film he’d likes to see. Boom. It’s there. License paid in the form of the book.
• Had a good look at Aigo from the start, from keyboards to consumer electronics. Very insightful.
• Franck: What’s next for Aigo in terms of global strategy? (You’re key in China. What’s next outside?)
• Globalization of Aigo? Feng Jun: Lots of new R&D in China, but outside China, nobody knows.
• More and more folks on China + R&D. “Made in China” used to = piracy, bad quality. No longer.
• “No service = nothing”. Good brand needs good quality, good R&D, good service.
• Thank you Feng Jun.

CHINICT 2010: Start of Day 1

In brief: Welcome to techblog86’s coverage of CHINICT 2010! The event has just gotten underway.

Kicking off the morning are these speakers:

• Franck Nazikian, CHINICT Founder & President

• Senator Michel Guerry, CHINICT President of honour
• Jing Rui, Zhongguancun Science Park Project Officer
• Jerome Broche, EU Trade Counselor (ICT ) to China & Mongolia
• John Chiang, US IT Organization – USITO – President

This is a summary of tweets sent during the interview.

Franck Nazikian:

• 6th edition of CHINICT. 7th edition May 26-27, 2011, that’s next year.

• Thanks Chinese government and other governments taking part, thanks sponsors.
• This year is a turning point for CN tech innovation and entrepreneurship. China a hotbed for tech innovation of world impact.
• 2 of most powerful voices in tech business — livestreaming. TechCrunch is live-streaming this.
• Chin-ization of tech innovation is now gaining momentum. TechCrunch announcement of #CHINICT streaming one of most retweeted article.
• Era of copy-and-paste model (if there was ever one) is over; CN on way to becoming leading superpower.
• Wishing all a great #CHINICT conference whether live or online. Thanks Franck!

Senator Michel Guerry, CHINICT President of honor
(Sorry, pic missing…)

• A great honour to attend #CHINICT for the third time. French senator but not always into politics. Worked for a long time as an engineer.

• Got involved with Bob Noise! (Intel started small but after 40 years, Moore’s Law verified.)
• Explosion, first in Silicon Valley, now in China. China experiencing that in past 30 years.
• Stresses importance of cooperation, cultural and otherwise, between two countries (France, China).
• CN, FR governments cooperate well together.

Jing Rui, Zhongguancun Science Park Project Officer

• Ms Jing Rui now speaking. For those well-versed in the whole thing, it is a Chinese-ish speech in English

• Usual, customary greetings the Chinese way. Giving a quick intro to Zhongguancun (ZGC) Science Park. March 2009: CN gov — ZGC Science Park to become National Innovation Park.
• Over 200,000 hi-tech companies are in ZGC Science Park; more than half do IT. Lenovo, Aigo, Baidu, amongst them.
• 70+ R&D sectors, multinationally funded (by those in the Fortune 500); we’re talking about Microsoft, Oracle, France Telecom.
• Growth rate over 20%. 150 listed companies (60 listed overseas, 90 listed locally).

Jerome Broche, EU Trade Counselor (ICT) to China & Mongolia

• In 2000, China had only 9M Internet users. We’re now at 400M.

• More online chatters in China than in other markets.
• EU: 93% citizens are covered by content, but only a half are connected. Digital divide.
• EU adopted Europe 2020 strategy. ICT part: Digital Agenda for Europe.
• EU now competing against companies with a Web access speed 100x faster. Wow.
• EU: Vibrant digital single market. Need better standards. Greater trust and security.
• EU: Faster networks. Model social safety net. ICTs that spread wider social benefits.
• EU: 7th and last: bigger, smarter investments; invest more in R&D.
• These 7 tell why Europe believes ICTs are big. Wishing conference the best.

John Chiang, US IT Organization – USITO – President

• An honour to attend this annual session. Mentions sponsors — some are members at USITO.

• Innovation does not have an economic element; innovation is becoming increasingly important.
• China is a hub of global innovation, Nazikian. Every gov wants to promote innovation.
• Mentions 17th CCP session: “自主创新” (or innovate on one’s own.)
• We are seeing CN companies play increasingly important roles in the global arena.
• Sends congratulations to the event.

CHINICT 2010: Stay with techblog86

Thanks for tuning into techblog86 for our coverage of CHINICT! We’ve got you covered and will be live throughout the day. It’s @DavidFeng doing the tweeting, both text and pictures.

This year’s CHINICT is going to be a rockstar. We’ll have not only the rockstar of the Jing from the years past, Kaiser Kuo (@kaiserkuo) himself, but bigger rockstars. Kai-Fu Lee? He’s there. TechCrunch? They’re streaming away. It’ll be too wrong of us to twiddle our thumbs away and miss out.

To be first with the news, we’ve come up with this “interesting” way of sending out updates on this blog at regular interviews. They will at first be “boilerplates” which will then be filled with tweets as they are coming out. Finally, pictures will be added later.

Here’s how to stay tuned:

• The main streams are coming out from @DavidFeng and @DavidFengTwo on Twitter. (Twitter does have a practice of throwing people who tweet too much into Twitter jail, so be sure you’re following both!)

• Follow @techblog86 for summaries, mainly retweeted from @DavidFeng (for the first time we’ll be using the Twitter Retweet)
• Follow hashtag #CHINICT for the whole event with all tweets bearing that hashtag, or alternatively follow @CHINICT for tweets from the official account.

We’re going to be updating this list with other folks who are actively tweeting about CHINICT. Stay tuned!

Official People’s Daily: We Need Differing Points of Views

The word “democracy” and “freedom of speech” (especially when applied to China) are now so charged that although they’re part of the PRC’s constitution, the Web inside PRC borders are anything but. We’ve seen it all: all-you-can-take censorship, with Twitter, Facebook and even the Scobleizer and — get this — I Can Haz Cheezeburger blocked.

So it’s a bit surprising, then, when the May 25, 2010 of the predictably official mouthpiece paper, the People’s Daily, published in its Page 4 “People’s Forum” column, this bit from Yuan Minjie about allowing differing points of views. It’s basically an endorsement of plurality as seen in democracies — but the two characters for “democracy” (民主) are totally absent from the column. That’s right. The D-word is pretty much in Charged Lingo Territory.

Bits and bobs from the article (surprisingly not in 100% officialspeak):

• As of late there’s been cases where different voices have been blocked (especially on the Web): this is not a usual phenomenon.

• It’s impossible to let everyone have exactly the same points of views on any one matter. In a pluralistic society, we have to respect different ideas, voices, and views. The citizenry must be allowed to use its freedom of speech. [Ed: this slipped in: "freedom of speech".]
• Those in government (especially leaders) must allow different points of views to exist; this is especially needed if we’re to achieve an objective view of a situation.
• If all that’s accepted is “good news” or “good views” (or if they’re blown out of proportions), that’s dangerous as those in government could lose track and be used.
• What’s happening in some places — the total lack of tolerance in regards to different points of views to the extent that those who dare express them are convicted of random offences and are arrested — is extremely wrong. This has a bad impact on the relations between the government and the party.
• You are allowed to not agree with someone else’s points of views, but you’re supposed to respect the rights of others to express themselves freely.

Your tech blogger has to say: this is amongst one of the most libre commentaries as of late. Especially when you take into account that this appeared in the top communist party mouthpiece. Printed black on white. Distributed to the whole readership base. The nation over.

While not being overly optimistic, let’s just hope that this has an un-chilling effect on Web rhetoric… it’s been getting pretty narrow on the Interwebs as of late…

techblog86 is a Media Partner at CHINICT

Apparently, the mass CHINICT tweeting from last year just won’t ever end.

You’ve heard of the tale: there are three big continents. To the west, there’s the Americas. In the middle, there’s Europe. (Er-hmm. “The Europe” would sound a bit Chinglish with Brussels characteristics.) And way out far east, there’s Asia.

You’ve also heard of the two tech events on the first two. TechCrunch seems to have it all, State-side. @loic and Co have their own baby in the making in the meantime chez Le Web. But what about that vast emptiness far out east in the People’s Republic of China? Enter CHINICT. Forget the “with Chinese characteristics” bit: this is a market that’s becoming the next startup eldorado. The next “big”.

To be a media partner in the biggest tech meetup in the biggest market in the most populous nation on the planet (jeez, that was a bit too much Steve Jobs hyperbolism as of late) is an honour and a privilege, both for David, who runs techblog86, and more importantly — for you all out there. techblog86 won’t just be happily tweeting away; there’s also the pics and live blogging to come as well. We’re using new technology this year to show you a CHINICT you probably haven’t seen before.

The tweetcast is going to be quintessential. Here’s a collection of links to follow:

• Follow both @DavidFeng and @DavidFengTwo (as the former will outtweet Twitter; yes, you can be arrested for tweeting too much)

• Follow @techblog86 for summaries, mainly retweeted from @DavidFeng (for the first time we’ll be using the Twitter Retweet)
• Follow hashtag #CHINICT for the whole shebang, or @CHINICT for tweets from the official account.

Please get ready for your arrival May 27 and 28, 2010. Seriously, we can’t wait.

Geeks on a Pl… wait… Subway?

The fact that your tech blogger is Beijing’s biggest Subway fanboy is no State secret. He has flooded his timeline with tweets about the up-and-coming Beijing Subway Line 4 (Daxing) so much that about ten folks left the Subway maniac. Oh well, that’s life.

Apparently @gabyu warned your blogger that… @davemcclure and gang seem to have gotten Subway mania as well. This pic captures just some of the #goap (Geeks on a Plane) folk in the Shanghai Metro…

Yes, it’s Geeks on a Plane Subway. Please get ready for your arrival.

Geeks on a Plane is made up of Dave McClure, George Godula, Benjamin Joffe, Dan Gould, Elliott Ng, Jeremiah Owyang, Kris Klug, Christine Lu, William Bao Bean, and a fair bit more.

#GFW Update: Pakistan Mimics China; More

It’s time for another one of these #GFW (Great Firewall, Internet censorship) updates we wish we wouldn’t push out.

• Pakistan Blocks Wikipedia, Flickr: @guccihomme tweets: Pakistan is learning from China in blocking more and more of the Interwebs. With YouTube and Facebook blocked, the Pakistani censors now have their sights set on Wikipedia and flickr — and it appears even the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) is now invisible from Pakistan.

• Despite Twitter Being Harmonized In China, Dalai Lama Will Tweet: To hell with the Great Firewall! The Dalai Lama, one of these people Beijing has a passion on bashing, is on Twitter (despite a previous “incarnation” being proven as a fake), and he’s going to be tweeting with tweeps, notably those based in China. By the way, this bit of news, by way of Channel News Asia (thanks to a tweet by @imagethief), has estimates on the size of Twitter: 150,000 Chinese tweeting; up to 100,000 of them living in the Chinese mainland. This is no small crowd and has come a long way since early 2008, when the population was more in three-digit territory.