Can someone out there on the Web tell me why this vendor feels the need to hold at least three different global launches, if indeed they are global launches?
By
26 Jun 2009
The time is out of joint and I am cursed to set it right.
"How important is Singapore to your business?"
"How important is Malaysia to your business?"
"How important is ASEAN to your business?"
"How important is Asia to your business?"
I've asked these questions for years now of visiting executives representing technology purveyors based someplace continents away. And invariably the answer has been pretty much uniform. If I were to cut the audio and piece them together right, I swear I could riff all night.
"Oh yes, very important..."
"Important, important..."
"Let me say it is important..."
"Definitely important..."
And to be sure and fair, some of them have gone on to count the ways that Singapore, Malaysia, ASEAN and Asia have been important to their business. And some have actually gone on to set up shop here, expanded their operations, hired people et cetera for as long as they have stayed in business. I can't really complain about that; in fact, I am grateful for all the good things these technology journeymen have said and done for us here round these parts.
But once in a while something happens that gets me wondering if we really do matter as much to these vendors as we would like to think. The latest such thing happened.
Earlier this week one of my colleagues over here at Fairfax Business Media Asia, the scintillating last bastion of true ICT journalism this side of the Pacific, went to a press event held by a software and services company (which shall remain unnamed throughout this blog entry) from the other side of the world. This vendor said it was launching globally a new set of solutions and services on the day of the event. My colleague came back to file a story about the global launch, but while doing some background research came upon two stories already filed on the IDG global news network about the same set of solutions and services being globally launched by the same vendor.
Except, one was filed in London, England, on June 9, and the other was filed in Bangalore on June 16.
Now, the event my colleague went to was held on June 23. And the press release from this company on the global launch of the same set of solutions and services that we received from the vendor bore the dateline "Singapore--June 23, 2009".
Can someone out there on the Web tell me why this vendor feels the need to hold at least three different global launches, if indeed they are global launches?
Can someone out there tell me why this vendor chose to launch 'globally' its set of solutions and services in London and Bangalore (and perhaps several other cities elsewhere in the world) before setting up for a show here?
And can someone tell me if this vendor thinks that Asia is less important to its business than Europe, and Singapore is less important to its business than India?
Write to me if you have the answers I seek.
Teng Fang Yih is the editor of Computerworld Singapore and Computerworld Malaysia.
