The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down, particularly when it comes to businesses. It has accelerated the shift from analogue to digital more than three fold and has forced businesses to think outside the box. Honeywell has been one of the companies that has been adapting to change to help deliver meaningful services to their customers. Over the past year, the company has developed services that allow their clients to address the ever changing landscape.
In the forefront of their service, the company has been focusing on empowering their customers digital transformation initiatives. With the growing need for tighter Cybersecurity measures and the increase of work from home arrangements, Honeywell is investing resources into its Honeywell Forge entreprise performance platform. The platform delivers actionable insights from real-time data that allow decisions to be made effectively.
Honeywell’s new offering is just the tip of the iceberg. The company’s rapid response to the changing needs driven by the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed them to create new products and offerings in a short period of time. The new innovations are focused on enabling companies in ASEAN maintain safety standards and compliance, create leaner operations, increase reliability of their critical assets while increasing productivity.
In addition to the Forge, Honeywell’s Remote Industrial Solutions has seen an uptick in adoption across ASEAN as businesses look to maintain business continuity. The remote solutions include Forge and Experion Remote operations. These programs allow the deployment of a remote workforce complete with cybersecurity solutions which ensure a secure connection between firewalls. It also allows IT departments to remotely deploy updates and patches to address any new or potential vulnerabilities.
The e-commerce industry is also being empowered by Honeywell in the ASEAN region. The region’s explosive growth in e-Commerce adoption has spurred the need for solutions that empower cold chain integrity for medical products. This also comes on top of solutions for Building Safety and Sanitization.
Hot off the finalisation of the sale of it’s Honor brand, rumours are surfacing that Huawei may be looking to do the same with their P and Mate smartphone line ups as well. News first surfaced when Reuters reported that it had obtained the information from sources close to the matter.
The report stated that Huawei was in talks with Shanghai government-backed investment firms to spin the brands off as independent companies like Honor. One of the sources claimed that the idea has been floated since late last year. Sources are claiming that Huawei hasn’t made a final decision just yet and the deal may not go thru as Huawei is still looking to manufacture its own HiSilicon Kirin chipsets.
Be that as it may, Huawei has issued a statement to Android Authority dismissing the “rumours”. That said, the company did the same when initial rumours of Honor’s sale surfaced. In its statement, Huawei states, “There is no merit to these rumours whatsoever. Huawei has no such plan. We remain fully committed to our smartphone business, and will continue to deliver world-leading products and experiences for consumers around the world.”.
The sale would effectively mean that Huawei would be withdrawing itself from the high-end smartphone market. On the other hand, Huawei has been touting its upcoming Harmony OS as an alternative to Google’s Android OS since the sanctions from the U.S. were enacted. However, things haven’t been easy for the company as sanctions have tightened leading to the company losing access to key partners such as ARM and TSMC.
The sale of Honor seems to have been a boon to the brand as the company has since inked deals to engage partners like AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek and more. This enables them to produce their Honor MagicBooks and smartphones. However, unlike Honor, the sale of the P and Mate brands would only leave Huawei’s lower end Y and Nova series in their smartphone portfolio.
From shifting to work from home policies to customers’ increasing demand for better services and experience, organizations are finding that they need to transform faster to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect technology trends to only continue to evolve as reliance on technology becomes more critical in our current social and economic landscape. To ride out the wave rather than sink in it, forward-thinking organizations in Asia-Pacific (APAC) should rethink their digital transformation strategies based on these trends we expect to see in the coming year.
5G, IoT, Edge computing: The trio for intelligent connectivity
APAC will continue progressing on its 5G journey. While commercial 5G services are already available in nine markets in the region — including South Korea, Japan, and China — another 12 have officially announced similar plans. The increased availability of 5G will help drive the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing to deliver ultra-low latency, high bandwidth network, and effectively support large-scale distribution of endpoints. For example, 5G, IoT and edge computing can be applied to smart fleet management, wherein edge devices can monitor critical vehicle systems and access the 5G network to send alerts, track the flow of goods, plan routes, and facilitate communications between a vehicle and any IoT-enabled entity that may affect or be affected by the vehicle.
We foresee more APAC organizations and cities adopting 5G, IoT, and edge computing in 2021 to become more connected and efficient. Emerging use cases for the three technologies include analyzing sensor data for predictive maintenance and quality control, augmented reality systems for remote operations, and personalized ‘connected experiences’ for customer and supplier engagement.
Security is a growing priority for hybrid cloud
Customers and employees alike now expect business applications and services to be highly available, on-demand and secure. To achieve that, we recommend organizations to embrace hybrid cloud in order to run workloads across any environment (i.e., on-premises, private or public cloud) more easily and quickly. Red Hat’s 2021 Global Tech Outlook found that 77% of APAC organizations surveyed plan to use more than one cloud platform — be it private and public clouds — in the next 12 months, up from 53% in 2020. According to the survey results, the top three reasons for organizations to run their applications across hybrid cloud include improving data security, gaining IT agility, and addressing data privacy concerns.
Security will remain a focus area as organizations progress in their hybrid cloud journey — nearly half of the organizations we surveyed globally cited cloud security as their top funding priority next year. The challenge when it comes to security is that it is made up of different elements such as endpoint, network and data security. One way of overcoming this is by adopting an open security automation framework that unifies the different security practices using a set of automated workflows. By doing so, organizations can gain greater visibility across the entire security function, enabling them to identify threats or remediate cyber attacks faster.
Cloud-native will drive container adoption
Cloud-native applications can respond quickly to change, adapting and evolving with new features and functionalities released incrementally more quickly, reliably and frequently with less risk. As more organizations adopt hybrid cloud to increase the scalability and availability of apps, those that also embrace cloud-native development are in a better position to build and run responsive, scalable, and fault-tolerant apps on any cloud.
Containers are a key technology for unlocking the benefits of cloud-native development. Containers enable applications to be packaged and isolated with their entire runtime environment, making it easier to move them between environments while retaining full functionality. With containers, developers can more easily release and update apps as a collection of loosely coupled services, like microservices, instead of having to wait for one large release. Recognizing that containers can help accelerate innovation, 45% of APAC respondents from the 2021 Global Tech Outlook expect more than half of their workloads to be containerized in the next 12 months.
Automation is on the rise
Customers are demanding more at a faster pace, while IT architectures are ever-changing and built on increasingly complicated technology stacks. Organizations also need to support a work-from-home productivity model during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address these requirements, APAC organizations are increasingly turning to automation to reduce complexity, improve productivity, and lower operating cost. However, they must have an enterprise-wide automation strategy instead of deploying automation in silos in order to fully benefit from the technology.
More organizations are increasingly using automation in conjunction with artificial intelligence and machine learning to create an additional layer of automated insight to optimize business processes. Some APAC banks are already using robotic process automation (RPA) to approve credit card applications, automate payments, and validate claims. Because RPA can augment and mimic human judgment and behavior to replicate rules-based human action, it reduces the time taken for those tasks.
Open culture needs to complement technology modernization
According to a November 2019 study sponsored by Red Hat, 80% of APAC business leaders surveyed rank cultural change and technology modernization of equal importance for digital transformation. Cultural characteristics key for transformation include adaptability, inclusivity, transparency, and collaboration – all of which are open source principles. Organizations that have supported their cultural change initiatives with efforts to modernize their infrastructure and application architecture have been able to quickly develop and deliver new applications, respond rapidly to customer demands, and control maintenance costs.
With APAC businesses recognizing that digital transformation is driven by a change in mindset, we foresee more organizations embracing open principles, processes, and culture next year. By doing so, organizations can nurture collaboration and empower employees to bring their best ideas and selves to work, which can help accelerate innovation and address changing customer and business requirements in an agile manner.
All in all, global events in 2020 have caused organizations to focus on near-term survival goals to support business continuity. As the business landscape continues to evolve, APAC organizations must prepare for the future by adopting flexible, agile and scalable technology solutions. Considering trends such as 5G and edge computing, hybrid cloud and automation can help organizations as they develop or update their digital transformation plans in 2021.
Maxis is one of the only telecommunications companies in Malaysia already embracing the cloud. The company embarked on its journey to become a one-stop provider for connectivity and infrastructure for Malaysia back in 2019 with an early partnership with AWS (Amazon Web Services) who is currently the most prolific web service platform in the world. Today, they are announcing that they have successfully achieved new accreditation as an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner; making them the only telecommunications company in Malaysia to have done so. This solidifies their claim to being one of the most equipped converged solutions providers in the country.
The new accreditation certifies that Maxis is equipped to provide its customers and partners with the technical support and know-how to migrate and sustain their businesses in the cloud. To achieve this, Maxis has to demonstrate a sustained competency in their workforce equipped and certified by AWS for the many services that their platform provides. This includes taking advantage of the Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence components available on AWS.
In addition to this, Maxis is now also offering AWS Direct Connect. AWS Direct Connect allows customers to access AWS directly via a dedicated network connection with one of the many AWS Connect locations using industry-standard 802.1q VLANs. This also allows customers to partition the connection into multiple virtual interfaces easing access to object instances in the AWS public and private clouds while maintaining network separation.
The new accreditation comes on the heels of Maxis having announced key acquisitions that have bolstered the company’s position as one of the most equipped telecommunications companies in Malaysia able to empower businesses in their digitization journey. The company has also been certified in the AWS Public Sector Partner program with over 300 Maxis employees being accredited and undergone comprehensive training by AWS.
Just one week after YES of YTL Communications introduces the most affordable mobile data plan ever, they are back. This time, they are back with Shopee in hand. Why? They are launching another thing of course. They are launching their new DATABACK program, in collaboration with Shopee.
What is DATABACK? It is like Cashback, but not cashback. You do not get cash rebates when you shop. Instead, you get data to rebate when you shop. They say, giving data back makes sense. This is because you need data and internet to buy things online anyway. So, giving data back to customers allows the customers to stay online longer and spend more money. As far as they can tell, it is a win-win situation.
The exclusive partnership between YES and Shopee, as part of the Kasi Up plan, applies to all YES customers on the Kasi Up plan, which should be all of them by now. If you have not gotten your YES SIM card for the Kasi Up plan yet, you might want to get it on Shopee for MYR 1. MYR 1 on Shopee buys you the SIM card together with a 30-day validity period. On top of that, you get YES Kasi Up Prepaid 15 plan which gives you 10/GB of data for the next 30-days once you activate your card.
The YES DATABACK programme is exclusively for YES users. The program allows users to earn back their data as they spend on Shopee. For every MYR 50 you spend on Shopee, YES gives you back 5GB of data. You can get back up to 100GB of data in a month. You will have to spend up to MYR 1,000 a month to get back 100GB though. That also means that you can buy a smartphone on Shopee and all your data problems for that month is solved.
The YES DATABACK initiative is exclusively valid on Shopee for now. The YES kasi Up SIM card is also now available on Shopee for as low as MYR 1. You can also top up your YES Prepaid account with Shopee, of course. For more information on the YES DATABACK programme exclusively on Shopee, you can head to Shopee’s microsite. Of course, you can head to YES’ website for more information on Kasi Up plans as well.
How much do you pay for data? That is the question that you often do not ask yourself in this difficult period. It is also something we take for granted these days. In fact, we have taken this for granted for a while. You never really thought about it also because Malaysia’s major Telco players have not made a huge step in terms of competitive pricing over data. That is, until now.
To be fair, when you talk about a major Telco for Malaysia, you would not start at YES 4G. You might not even consider this plucky organisation to be a major Telco in Malaysia. To blow your bubble a little bit, we can safely say that they are now a major Telco in Malaysia. They have one of the widest, if not the widest 4G network coverage in Malaysia. This includes Sabah and Sarawak, mind you.
Back to the price of data. If you do a little bit of research in and around the region of South East Asia, Malaysia’s data price point is not exactly the most affordable. You have players in Indonesia, and even Singapore that would offer data at much cheaper price points. Malaysia still has competitive pricing on data though, do not get us wrong.
It could be even more affordable though, and YES, with the Kasi Up plans, show that it is completely possible. They have introduced two new mobile data plans with Kasi Up, one Prepaid and one Postpaid. Both are, in our books, extremely attractive in value.
Kasi Up Prepaid
Source: YES
We start with the prepaid Kasi Up plan. The YES Kasi Up Prepaid 15 plan, they call it. As the numbers suggest, it will cost you MYR 15 for a 30-day validity. To be fair, that does not actually sound all that special. MYR 15 though buys you 10GB of data for that 30 days of validity though. This pricing is quite unheard of in Malaysia. Before this, YES’ most affordable data plan was MYR 30 for up to 10GB of data. Of course, for prepaid plans, calls are charged normally (MYR 0.09/call) on your valid airtime.
Kasi Up Postpaid
Source: YES
If you want to make calls for free though, you go for a YES Kasi Up Postpaid 49 plan. As the name suggests also, the plan will cost you MYR 49 a month. For just below MYR 50, you get 100GB of 4G data a month and free unlimited call time. This also means that your data effectively costs less than MYR 0.50 for every 1GB. What’s more, you get to have your bill free for the first 6 months if you sign up for a 24-month plan. This is also effectively the cheapest data plan available in Malaysia currently.
Additional Plans
Of course, the YES Kasi Up mobile plans are not limited to just those two plans. For prepaid customers, you can choose between three available plans. You know the YES Kasi Up Prepaid 15 data plan. There is a YES Kasi Up Prepaid 20 plan too for MYR 20 a month. You get 20GB of data a month for MYR 20. Then you can go for YES Kasi Up Prepaid Unlimited for MYR 30 month which qualifies you for unlimited mobile data capped at 7mbps and 9GB of uncapped speed hotspot data. This also makes the YES Prepaid Unlimited data plan the most affordable of its kind in Malaysia.
For Postpaid customers, the YES Kasi Up Postpaid 49 data plan is the most premium available from YES. You can go for something cheaper at MYR 30 for the YES Kasi Up Postpaid 30. You only get a data quota of 20GB a month though, on top of a free YES 4G smartphone.
Kasi Up Refer & Earn
Source: YES
YES also introduced a new way of earning a little bit of side income for Malaysians with YES Kasi Up Refer & Earn programme. You get up to MYR 50 cash for every referral you make when you get your friends to sign up for the YES Kasi Up data plan. Your friend also makes MYR 50, if they sign up. It really looks like a win-win situation.
Availability
There is some caveat in all this though. YES relies completely on their own 4G network with no 3G or 2G coverage. That also means that if you do lose your 4G coverage, you lose coverage. YES has continuously worked to improve network coverage in all major cities in Malaysia and even rural areas in Malaysia, enabling connectivity across the nation though. The introduction of the Kasi Up data plans will also bring an end to all their previous data plans. Current users would be transitioned to their new Kasi Up plan. Why would you not want to be transitioned to a cheaper plan?
The YES Kasi Up data plan is now available for both new and current customers. You can head to your nearest YES outlet to get more information, obtain your SIM card, and sign up for either the postpaid or prepaid plans. You can also head to their website for more information and to obtain their SIM cards and get it delivered to your doorstep for free. Of course, all terms and conditions apply.
Maxis Berhad, one of Malaysia’s biggest telecommunications providers, has been actively differentiating itself from its competition. The company has, in recent months, been focusing on complementing it’s telco services with services which make sense to businesses and also consumers. Not too long ago, the company announced it’s consumer-focused OnePrime, which has now been rebranded to the Maxis Unlimited Postpaid & Fibre, which gave consumers the flexibility of having their mobile and broadband service in a catch-all subscription with added benefits.
At the same time, Maxis has been busy building its portfolio for its business clients with partnerships with companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and more. These partnerships work to bolster the company’s portfolio with more than just telephony and connectivity services. The company has also announced a series of acquisitions including its recent acqui-hire of ICMS (Infrastructure Consulting & Managed Services) which allowed the company to provide better integration with cloud services such as Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 and more. It also brought deeper partnerships with ICMS’s certifications as a Dell-EMC partner and Commvault partner.
The latest announcement made late last week, gears Maxis to be one of the only telecommunications companies in Malaysia focusing on becoming a truly converged solutions provider. The company has acquired Audeonet (M) Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian based unified communications and voice cloud solutions company to bolster its talent pool and services. The acqui-hire also brings on board a team of skilled individuals which will enable end-to-end deployment of Audeonet’s services. The new products and services brought into the fold will allow Maxis’ enterprise and SME customers access to offerings to help them cope with the rigours of the “new normal”.
The acquisition of Audeonet (M) Sdn Bhd also makes Maxis Berhad the exclusive distributor of Deltapath, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider, in Malaysia. In addition, Maxis Business will now also be a Gold Reseller of Lifesize, bringing a cloud-based 4K video conferencing solution into their list of offered services.
Sony’s Xperia line up is one of the longest lasting line up of smartphones. It continues to be Sony’s go to brand with their newly launched flagships the Xperia 1 II and the Xperia 5 II. The Xperia 1 II will be available starting in November and the Xperia 5 II a little later after that, with prices starting at MYR4099. Let’s take a peek at bells and whistles of models to retail in Malaysia.
Both of these new Xperia models share some key specs. Chiefly, they are both powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865. They both have a triple 12MP camera setup with ZEISS optics for quality images. They also have good life battery with 4,000mAh battery supported by USB-PD and charging via USB-C. They also retain the 3.5 headphone jack for your audio needs.
The key difference between these devices is their size. The Xperia 1 II is slightly bigger with a 6.5 inch screen compared to the Xperia 5 II and its 6.1 inch screen. The Xperia 1 II also has a better OLED display with higher resolution of 1644 x 3840 and and a higher pixel density, while the Xperia 1 II has a lower 1080 x 2520 resolution.
Both models have IP65/IP68 certification for water and dust resistance. They also come with stereo speakers and support PS4 Remote Play. Only the Xperia 1 II comes along with wireless charging as is expected of the flagship variant. However, the Xperia 5 II with its lower price tag and similar core features will give it a run for its money.
The Xperia 1 II is listed for retail at MYR4,999 while the Xperia 5 II is listed at MYR4,099 in the official Sony Online Store. With this announcement, the original Xperia 1 and Xperia 5 are now retailing for MYR3,099 and MYR2,799 respectively.
You know the year has been a tough one when it forces a titan like Dell to consider leaning up its operations. The company well known for its laptop and desktop offerings to consumers and businesses is entering a transition phase to withdraw itself from retail in Malaysia and Singapore – two of the most tech forward markets in the Southeast Asian region.
The company will halt supply of its products to partner retailers in Malaysia and Singapore. This will come into effect immediately. The information surfaced via a tip to Malaysian online portal, LowYat.Net.
When contacted for a comment on the situation, Dell Technologies representatives clarified:
Dell Technologies has announced plans to transition out of the retail market in Singapore and Malaysia. Customers will still have access to the full complement of our products and services through Dell direct.
Dell will honour contractual commitments with our partners and customers, and our team is on hand to work with our partners to coordinate a seamless transition. We anticipate the transition to be completed by the end of January 2021.
Dell’s service and customer support is not affected by the transition.
That said, Dell products will continue to be offered by retail partners until current stock sells out. Come 2021, consumers interested in purchasing Dell and Alienware desktops and laptops will have to go to Dell’s official online store at dell.com.
Leaving your home can be daunting now with COVID-19 on the rise. While there are measures in place to help control the spread, there are some that are still wary of the risks. That said, there’s also a group of us who would rather have our groceries come to us. Well, there’s good news for both sides – Tesco has partnered with foodpanda.
With the partnership, you will be able to order from Tesco’s catalog of over 3,000 items on foodpanda’s delivery service. The items range from fresh produce to groceries. These items will be delivered to your doorstep within 40 minutes of your order being confirmed.
The partnership will complement Tesco’s online grocery service: Tesco Online. It will serve as a way for users to get urgently needed groceries on demand while larger monthly or weekly orders can still be done via Tesco Online. This partnership will let customer rely more on Tesco as Foodpanda is a well-known delivery service and strengthen the presence of the platform.
“With the Covid-19 pandemic, customers have begun to change the way they shop. Many are looking for options where they can feel safe to purchase their necessities. This partnership with foodpanda will not only be convenient for Tesco’s loyal customers, but it will also help to address those who are concerned with having to leave the safety and comfort of their homes for a grocery run,” said Product Director, Kenneth Chuah.
Kenneth Chuah, Product Director, Tesco Malaysia
The service is available in the Klang Valley area. Users can order groceries from Tesco Paradigm Mall, Kepong, Extra Cheras, Extra Puchong, Bandar Puteri Bangi, Kajang, Bukit Puchong, Shah Alam, Wangsa Walk, Setia Alam and Selayang. They are planning to bring this service online to other areas soon.
