‘Panther 911’ : Digistar is bullish on new central monitoring system (CMS)

Digistar chairman Tan Sri Mohd Zaman Khan (left), Inspector -Gener al of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar and Lee during Pan ther 911’s official launching on April 25, 2014.

Information and communications technology (ICT) and property company Digistar Corp Bhd is bullish about the prospects of its newly-launched central monitoring system (CMS) called ‘Panther 911’.

Chief executive officer Datuk Wira Lee Wah Chong says the company targets 100,000 users for its hi-tech product in the first year.

A CMS is security-based system that includes aspects such as CCTV monitoring and alarms.

Digistar’s medium term goal is to secure a subscription base of 500,000 for its CMS in five years.

“The margins are good, about 20% to 30%. And this would be reflected from our current financial year (ending September 30, 2014) onwards,” he tells StarBizWeek.

“The first year may be slower than what we target but once our CMS gains visibility in the market, we expect a jump in take-up rate among business owners and individuals,” Lee says.

Digistar had spent RM5mil over the past two years to develop the CMS.

The company intends to use a multi-level marketing strategy to push the product into the market. “To incentivise the sales staff, they will get monthly a commission of 5% from the subscriptions they secure.”

In addition, the police force is also looking at the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras at resorts and islands off Sabah’s east coast.

Last week, the police was reported to have asked Digistar to send them a proposal on installing the ‘Panther 911’ security system in Sabah.

The Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said to have the system linked directly to police stations would help security forces respond faster.

Khalid said the Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) was planning to place security teams at 11 private resorts and islands that were the furthest away from Semporna and Lahad Datu. This was in light of recent killing and kidnapping events highlighted in the news.

If successful in this tie-up with the police, it would be Digistar’s first collaboration with the public sector for its CMS business. Right now, its target is on the mass market and commercial buildings.

Entering the Sabah market would not come as a surprise as Lee has always wanted to expand into Sabah and Sarawak.

That would be the second phase of Digistar’s security system business and the company estimates another RM5mil of investments for the expansion in the next two years. However, Lee notes that there needs to be better Internet connectivity in order for Internet-based surveillance systems to thrive in the country.

Digistar has a few competitors in the local CMS space.

But it seeks to differentiate itself by the attractive features of its system.

Digistar’s Panther 911 CMS system offers 24-hour monitoring services via an internet protocol-based platform. It can switch to run on 3G, 4G and LTE networks during power disruptions.

Banking on property sector

Lee says the company has plans to be among the top 100 companies in Malaysia in terms of market capitalisation in the next five years.

To do that, Lee says the company needs to further expand its property business. For Lee, property is Digistar’s next phase of growth as he opined that the growth trajectory for an ICT company has its boundaries.

“We are still focused on our ICT business but to achieve bigger goals, we will expand our property division,” he says. “We are looking for pockets of land around the Klang Valley now for small scale projects.”

Digistar already has a serviced apartment project in Malacca called The Heritage, with a gross development value of RM150mil. It is already 70% sold and is targeted to be opened this November.

Lee says the company intends to rent out the remaining 30% of apartments for recurring income.

“We plan to rent out like a hotel.

“The project will be a ‘condotel’, a combination of condominium and hotel,” he says.

Digistar is already speaking to hospitality partners to rope in for the management of the hotel component at The Heritage.

The company has also a 15-year concession for the construction and asset management of the Malaysian National Technology Advancement Centre in Alor Gajah, Malacca.

The project is a tie-up with the Works Ministry for the minstry to carry out training programmes for engineers and architects.

Its concession consists of RM174mil for the construction of facilities and infrastructure, and RM66mil for the provision of ICT and lab equipment.

Lee says the margins for this project would likely be in the double-digit range as well.

Digistar is also in talks to develop its telecommunications segment as it owns three individual licenses from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to provide network and facilities services for five years.

Lee says discussions are on-going and declined to reveal any details.

All these efforts, says Lee, are aimed at steering the company back into profitability.

For the 2013 financial year (FY13), Digistar made a net loss of RM11mil compared to a profit of RM6mil in FY12.

The company had said that the loss was due to a higher operating cost, commencement of projects where revenue was yet to be recognised as well as the business expansion for its CMS and telecommunications divisions. Lee reckons that Digistar’s CMS as well as other initivatives would help turnaround the company and generate long-term recurring income.

Contributed by Liz Lee The Star/Asia News Network

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Internet Speed in Asia, Telekom Malaysia Not so broadband but a chore !

 Malaysia's Speed is slower than Vietnam and Cambodia

Slow and costly: An internet user waiting for a page to load.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysians may be one of the most globally-connected people but it’s not necessarily at a speed they want.

According to a new global survey, the average broadband speed in Malaysia is slower than Vietnam and Cambodia in the region, and barely ahead of Myanmar.

Almost three times slower than Vietnam, Malaysia at 5.48 Megabits per second (Mbps) was ranked a low 126 out of 192 countries surveyed from May 2013 to April this year in the recent Net Index.

Zooming to the number one spot was Hong Kong with a speed of 78.3 Mbps. Singapore sped to second placing at 66.6 Mbps while South Korea was ranked fourth (53.77Mbps), the United Kingdom 23rd (26.85Mbps) and the United States, 32nd (23.9Mbps).

The survey was conducted by Ookla – a global broadband testing and web-based network diagnostic applications company that compares the download, upload and line quality of broadband connections.

Commenting on the survey results, Federation of Malaysian Manu­facturers (FMM)’s ICT and multimedia committee chairman Dr Neoh Vee Heng said its 2,678 members were generally concerned about the country’s slow Internet speed, the unavailability of wireless and fibre connections, and the high cost of connectivity.

“One member who is investing in a big project in Sepang is very worried about the slow 1Mbps broadband speed in that area.

“More and more FMM members are becoming heavily dependent on the Internet for their global business communications and transactions. Unfortunately, connectivity in Ma­­laysia is slow and costly compared with our neighbouring countries,” he said, adding that it was important for businesses to have fast Internet connectivity at a reasonable cost.

The FMM would meet with the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to discuss how broadband services could be improved and its cost reduced, he said.

Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) secretary-general Datuk Paul Selvaraj said slow Internet connection was among the top grouses of consumers.

“Consumers sign up for pricey packages expecting fast, stable connectivity but on most occasions, the telco companies fail to deliver. Despite having highlighted the problem many times before, the telco companies have failed to respond,” he said.

He urged the MCMC to act on telco companies that did not keep their promises because of a clause that says “the speed is not guaranteed due of various factors”.

“It is the telcos’ responsibility to ensure that all the necessary infrastructure is in place before they go around promising speedy Internet connectivity,” he said.

Symantec Malaysia systems engineering director Nigel Tan said the Government had announced an allocation of RM1.8bil under Budget 2014 for the second phase of the High-Speed Broadband (HSBB) project to increase the speed and extend the access areas in the urban, suburban and rural areas.

“This is a key initiative in making access to information easier as the nation moves into an information-driven economy.

“The need for speed correlates with how a huge part of our lives are conducted online – from sending e-mails and e-banking to watching videos and video-chatting.

“Our increasingly digital lifestyle consumes vast volumes of bandwidth,” he said.

He, however, warned that the grass may not be greener on the other side as cybercriminals tend to target computers that were connected to high-speed broadband Internet.

Netizens: Viewing rich content files a chore 

PETALING JAYA: Internet speed in the country is still lagging and varies according to locations, according to netizens here.

IT executive T.Y. Teoh, 29, said the country’s current Internet speed was all right for light browsing of news portals but “absolutely unacceptable” for viewing multimedia-rich content or downloading movie and audio files.

“Even watching a short clip on YouTube is frustrating because it keeps buffering,” he complains. His 3G package is supposed to be for speeds of between five and 10Mbps, but he usually only surfs at the speed of two to 3Mbps.

“For more than RM100 monthly, I feel shortchanged.”

He said 4G connectivity was no better because at different locations, the speed varied vastly.

Citing an example, he said in Petaling Jaya, the speed was usually 50Mbps but in Penang, it was only 20Mbps.

“It is the same telco provider, yet there is a big 30Mbps difference. Why?” he asked.

Bank staff P. John Eric, 38, who is “always online”, said free public hot spots and 4G data plans were still unreliable and unstable.

“In other countries, you get the speed that is advertised – usable hotspots and decent speeds.

“Here, it is all hype,” he said.

Source: by Christina Chin The Star/Asia News Network

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China's economy close to overtaking USA in PPP measure this year but China don't read the ranking

China may be poised to overtake the United States as the world's top economy sooner than expected, according to one measure, but some underwhelmed Chinese would rather have clean air and political freedoms.

The World Bank on Wednesday published a vast study on the rankings of national wealth creation on the basis of 2011 figures.

It was carried out with several international organisations to compare national production figures in nominal terms, and also to reflect differences in buying power -- or purchasing power parity (PPP).

Gross domestic product (GDP) for the United States in 2011 amounted to $15.533 trillion, more than twice China's $7.321 trillion. As soon as this year.

But after adjusting for PPP, the figure for China rose to $13.495 trillion -- which means that the rapidly growing Asian giant could overtake the United States as soon as this year.

Thursday was a public holiday in China so official reaction was not immediately available. Communist authorities have in the past played down such talk, keen instead to stress that in per capita terms, their people remain a long way behind the world's richest nations.

But there was scepticism, and cynicism, among Chinese social media users.

"They are talking about PPP, not GDP," wrote one of them on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter.

"As long as GDP, China is still far behind US," continued the post, which was written in English and was echoed by several others.

Some weibo users suggested they were more interested in tangible indicators directly related to their quality of life.

"Low income, cannot breath freely, no freedom, why should I care even if it's No. 1 in the Universe? Not to mention No. 1 on Earth," wrote a user.

"Is this more important than blue sky and clear water?" posted another.

China's decades-long economic boom has brought rising environmental problems, with large parts of the country repeatedly blanketed in thick smog and both waterways and land polluted.

One user suggested that such rankings were more closely watched overseas than in China.

"No domestic reports about this, only foreign media always talk about it," the post said. - AFP

Don’t read too much into PPP ranking

The International Comparison Program, a project coordinated by the World Bank, released a new report with data suggesting that the size of the Chinese economy, by the measure of purchasing power parity (PPP), will surpass the US to become the biggest sometime this year.

The data, once released, drew keen attention from Western mainstream media, some of which even reported that China, which strongly questioned the accuracy of the report, had tried to stop the World Bank from announcing it for a long time.

PPP is usually employed by economists as a supplementary measure to evaluate the size of economies besides market exchange rate. The size of developing economies will be usually bigger when assessed in PPP terms instead of market exchange rate.

The statement that Chinese economy tops the world is not nonsense, but  such a vision is still too far away from what Chinese people can really feel. Although China has surpassed the US in certain economic spheres, the quality of the Chinese economy is far worse than that of the US.

It is a positive sign that the Chinese government has objected to the PPP-based conclusion, and the Chinese public cares much less than the Western countries about the top economic ranking. The mainstream society is aware of China's real economic conditions. China may lack confidence, but it won't sacrifice sense to acquire it.

The PPP-based statement, announced by Western economists and analysts, does not mean it is a conspiracy, as some alarmists think. What China should do is to keep calm, and know what exactly it means to the Chinese economy.

The report may serve as new catalyst for discussion in Western countries about China overtaking the US. It might be the start that they will discuss it in a serious way. The world will probably take new perspectives toward China's growth.

China also needs to adjust itself to avoid any false pride and self-centeredness. It has to keep a clear mind about what it really is, and minimize the impact caused by external forces.

For now, China cannot decide what image it has in the mind of the West, which still has a big say on this matter. But China has the initiative for its own actions. It doesn't have to wrestle with the West for image, but it must make sure the steps it takes for its own development are not dictated by the West.

China will become the No.1 economic power sooner or later, which is an irreversible trend. But China still needs foresight to guide its moves, and make sure the geopolitical changes in the Asia-Pacific area will generate more positive results.

China being the No.1 economic power is like a double-edged sword, which on the one hand will enhance the nation's confidence, but on the other hand pose great challenges to the improvement of people's wellbeing. Whether the crowning will produce more positive results instead of social problems will be a huge test for the Chinese society.

Source: Global Times Published: 2014-5-5 0:53:01