Google Targets Southeast Asia: Malaysia Stands Out

Google is setting its sights on the increasingly lucrative Southeast Asia market, where Internet traffic is rising and the use of technology and social-networking platforms is gaining speed.

As part of its push to expand in Southeast Asia, Google said Wednesday it is opening a new office in Kuala Lumpur, its first new Asia office in four years. The Mountain View, Calif., Internet giant set up offices in Singapore and South Korea in 2007.

Google SEA managing director Julian Persaud, Dato Mukhriz and Sajith (from left-right) at the opening of the new Google Malaysia office.

Riding on the back of Malaysia's 55.6% internet penetration and the fact that Malaysia also has one of the highest usage percentage for Google's Chrome web browser in Asia Pacific, Google Inc. have announced their deepening investment into Southeast Asia by opening a brand new office in Kuala Lumpur.

Headed by Sajith Sivanandan - Google's previous head of online advertising business for the travel sector in South East Asia - the new office is a big step for Google to more efficiently bring its leading advertising platform, web services and search experience to users, advertisers and partners in Malaysia.

“We are delighted that Google has decided to set up an office in Kuala Lumpur. Their presence is a testament to their commitment to Malaysia as well as Malaysia's suitability as a regional multimedia hub. We hope that Google's entry will encourage more local businesses to go online and tap into international markets. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry looks forward to collaborating with Google more in the future,” says YB Dato' Mukhriz Mahathir, Deputy Minister of International Trade & Industry.

“Malaysia is a very significant country in Southeast Asia in terms of its digital economy and tech-savvy population. We are excited to be investing in Malaysia and, through our search and display solutions, helping small and large businesses grow, reach new markets and contribute to the growth of the economy. We also have a very engaged set of local users with whom we look forward to interacting much more closely,” said Sajith Sivanandan.

Google Malaysia is also currently hiring for its KL office and job openings can be viewed on their website, www.google.com.my/jobs. Welcome To Malaysia Google!

Source: Wall Street Journal/Lowyat.net

New Year ⋅ New Hope ⋅ New Path

Will it be a little bit out of fashioned to write about some kind of stuffs regarding new year while it has already come to the end of January? Woops, as a pure-real-tranditional Chinese young man, since it still left several days before the Lunar New Year descends upon us, I personally think that I'm still in the right time to catch up the last train :)

Okay, enough chattering. Year 2010 was a big year for me. It brought me to hop from a tempting pinnacle of starting point, push me down with an extremely frightened 'falling down' feeling and then straight away hit to a glossy surface but full with caves. In the end, I woke up with an ever-broadened prespective. Failure in SAT I, rejection from NTU, mistake in applying UCLA, UC Berkeley, those experiences undoubtedly provided me with a precious moment to really comtemplate about my ability and to really understand how much effort that I still need to put it on. Tons of people might wondering about this part, I mean, my education/further studies, in promise, I will further interpret for it once everything work out OK. On the other hand, work in Sony Malaysia, participation in Asian Science Camp, involvement in several national conferences and events, led me to realize how astonishing that the people in the other communities. Their passion, enthusiasm and attitude were what I should learn and keep working on.

Thus, what's the next plan for the Year 2011?

You know, right after undergoing the dreadful year of 2010 which sort of like leading to nowhere thoughout the year, I'm now so much hungry to set out a distinct path for the new year. Collecting all sort of jigsaw puzzle piece by piece and matching up them toward my ultimate goal. In a short speculation, I prepared a neat 'To-do' list for that. Let's see what should I do/ought to do/eager to do in year 2011. Of couse, they're not sorted in priority.

To-Do List:
• Be more proactive. At least five blog posts per month. (Okay, I know I failed on this month)
• Exposed to oversea experience. Both study and travel.
• Raise back my entrepreneurial bent. Gonna kick start for something big.
• Be serious in computer studies. Going to complete my self-study in web technology: CSS, XML, PHP, SQL, Javascript, Ajax, in both theory and practical works and further up my step toward Objective-C and Cocoa.
• Set out a real-valuable-professional research work in Computer Science. Not the topsy-turvy that I did before.
• Improve my second language - English. Both speaking and writting. At least getting near to a native speaker.
• Get deep into business area stuffs. Stock, forex, business managment, etc. Understand the real theory behind, keep following up the latest movement of the world business topics.
• Relationship? Okay, this one to be really optional @_@

The roads are there, tread them softly.

Happy New Year to everyone, wish everyone have a good good year :)

Apple Store New Year Surprise!

Calling out all the Apple fans in Malaysia! Apple Store Malaysia will going to burst out a spark on Friday, January 14 as a part of spicing up the upcoming Chinese New Year Festival. It supposes to be a sort of one-day-pricing-cut promotion for few of the Apple products. So, what are you waiting for? Leave your hands down, start planning your purchase list today! Grab off your favorite gadget right at this precious date.

Apple's Mac App Store Now Live With 1,000 Apps

Apple kept to their 90-days word—it's January 6th, and the Mac App Store is ready for your custom. There's over 1,000 apps—both free and paid-for—for Macs, with all that's needed is Snow Leopard and an iTunes account.

You'll have to download the software update Mac OS X v10.6.6 to install the App Store, and as expected, iLife '11 programs (iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand) are sold individually through there for $15 each, along with Pages, Keynote and Numbers for $20 and Aperture 3 for $80.

True, 1,000 apps isn't that many—but as with the iOS App Store, we expect that number will grow quickly. We're going to take a big look at the Mac App Store later today, but in the meantime let us know what you think of it all, via the comments field.

Apple's Mac App Store Opens for Business

CUPERTINO, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Apple® today announced that the Mac® App Store℠ is now open for business with more than 1,000 free and paid apps. The Mac App Store brings the revolutionary App Store experience to the Mac, so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes® account, download and install them in just one step. The Mac App Store is available for Snow Leopard® users through Software Update as part of Mac OS® X v10.6.6.

"With more than 1,000 apps, the Mac App Store is off to a great start," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We think users are going to love this innovative new way to discover and buy their favorite apps."

The Mac App Store offers apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what's hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews.

Entirely new apps, as well as current Mac favorites, are available from developers such as Autodesk, Ancestry.com and Boinx. iPhoto®, iMovie® and GarageBand® apps from Apple's popular iLife® ‘11 suite are available individually in the Mac App Store for $14.99 each, and Pages®, Keynote® and Numbers® apps from iWork® are available for $19.99 each. Aperture® 3, Apple's powerful photo editing and management software, is available for $79.99.

"We're delighted to bring our professional-grade paint and drawing app, Autodesk SketchBook Pro, to the Mac App Store on its first day of launch," said Carl Bass, Autodesk's CEO. "We've seen tremendous success on the Mac, iPhone and iPad with multiple apps. We're excited to offer SketchBook Pro on the Mac App Store so artists can easily create everything from quick sketches to high-quality artwork right on their Macs."

"By offering the Ancestry.com Family Tree Maker app on the Mac App Store, we're making it even easier for people to discover and access their family history," said Tim Sullivan, Ancestry.com's CEO. "The Mac App Store will drive a new generation of innovation on the Mac platform."

"We're thrilled to have our award-winning animation, video production and photography software available on the new Mac App Store," said Oliver Breidenbach, Boinx Software's CEO. "The Mac App Store makes it easier than ever for consumers to access all the innovative software designed for the Mac."

To get the Mac App Store, download the Mac OS X v10.6.6 Software Update or visit www.apple.com/mac/app-store. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Source: Gizmodo