Bali and Jepara IT-supported industry?

Everyone should have known Bali as it is the world's best island for many straight years. Everyone who is involved in high-class exotic furniture also should have known Jepara, which exports US$ 112 million valued products annually. But doesn't anybody think that both tourism and furniture industry need to modernize themselves with high technology approach?
To keep those industries running, nowadays IT is badly needed. Some good info websites are already available. In tourist area like Bali, a centralized hotel and travel booking system will help tourists and the Balinese themselves a lot. A good online Bali map which guides the tourists everywhere with GPS supported device will also be very helpful for tourists who want to conquer the island conveniently. And of course with a good data system, Indonesian security bodies can recognize as early as possible any unwanted threats.
For Jepara, a good IT system can help them to forecast quickly wood supplies and to collect number and specification of the orders enough time before the deadline. This will result better resources allocation and will avoid either overpricing or underpricing. Many ERP and CRM software products are available in Indonesian market, including some developed-in-Indonesia like ones produced by Zahir Accounting and Mitrais. The latter has even a development site in Bali. There are a lot potentials in developing high tech industry in Indonesia, also because the government has launched Indonesia, Go Open Source! (IGOS) program and in the same time also improves relationship with Microsoft :-)

Mobile phone market boom to be expected in Indonesia

According to Yahoo! News, Telkomsel, one of Indonesia's leading mobile service provider, is targetting to get 7 million new subscribers in 2007. Therefore it is expected that Telkomsel will have 41 million subscribers at the end of 2007, whereas in the end of 2006 it is projected that the subscriber number will reach 34 millions. It is roughly 50% Indonesian market. The market growth in 2007 is expected as much as 15 million subscribers. Having its 35% shares owned by SingTel, Telkomsel is ready to invest approximately US$ 326 millions within 3 years for building its 3G network, in which Siemens has won 70 million euros project.
Indonesia is the largest market in South East Asia, and also a huge mobil phone market. Nokia is planning to launch its new TV-mobile product N92 in Indonesia and Vietnam, probably in November. EMTEK will operate DVB-H network needed for N92 probably with TV programs from subsidiary SCTV. But I can imagine this can be a new trend in Indonesia - especially in the big cities where middle class people stay - as many people should work a whole day and it will be small entertainment for them to watch TV in the middle of traffic jam, for example.

Quad core from Intel

Just read this announcement: Intel proudly released two day ago its first quad core architecture, specially designed for servers, high-end gaming machines , and workstations. They boasted that this new architecture offering 50% faster performance than the current dual core architecture and four times than its single core Xeon. The quad core Xeon 5300 server processor series, which was codenamed Clovertown - has speeds in range of 1.6 GHz and 2.66 GHz, power consumption between 80 and 120 watts, and it is priced US$ 455 for 1,000 units order. The other one is designed for high-end client Core 2 Extreme QX 6700 costs US$ 999 and has speed up to 2.66 GHz with power consumption up to 130 watts, which is also approximately the same amount as single and dual core's needs in a chip. Dell, IBM , and HP are among the server makers who are ready with the new Intel release.
Intel has done restructuring last September with layoff of some 10,500 employees worldwide, aimed to save US$ 3 billions a year by 2008. This enables Intel to make a "great leapfrog" from single-core, dual-core, to quad-core architecture in a year.
Critics from AMD say that Intel's architecture with two dual-core chips onto a single piece of silicon "is less elegant" than AMD's "native" four-core design. That should have some impacts with performance and power efficiency. But as Intel is now ahead with the architecture, it has a better chance in the market as it is not likely that the user would wait until 2007 when AMD will release its quad-core chip.
Both designs from Intel and AMD are reported to be made up from 65 nm technology. Both also have a plan to move from 65 nm to 45 nm manufacturing process in the next one or two years. Smaller technology node promises more transistors in the same area of chips which means more functionalities can be built. The problems with smaller node are mainly power dissipation per unit area, signal integrity, and lithography limit.

GSM vs CDMA

"What? Why do you still ask who is the winner of the battle", you may ask. But it is not finished yet, even when the manufacturers are considering which standards would be implemented in their products.
After 2G technology fades away then comes 3G from both standards: GSM launches WCDMA (wide code division multiple access) and CDMA tops its CDMA2000. They still compete each other, even though GSM claimed that WCDMA occupies 48% market in Western market, which is traditionally CDMA's stronghold. But CDMA2000 is being implemented also in some traditional GSM providers like in Indonesia. Sometimes CDMA, CDMA2000, and WCDMA terms in Indonesia can be very confusing. But Indonesia is one example, how these standards are competing a huge market.
3G can not be claimed as the most advanced mobile technology. There is already 3.5G technology, popular as HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access), and even 4G technology has been waiting in the front of your door. The HSDPA has been launched last September in Indonesia, at least by the Excelcom (XL) provider, Indonesian provider owned 60% by Telekom Malaysia. This technology promises up to 2Mbit/s wireless data transfer. It is approximately as much as standard DSL connection in Germany (even though some German providers have offered some cheap high speed DSL - 16 Mbit/s).
Meanwhile Telkomsel, another Indonesian mobile phone operator, has awarded German Siemens to help building its 3G WCDMA infrastructure. Telkomsel has already also some contracts with Nokia and Ericsson made before, but now Siemens is getting this 70 million Euros project. Telkomsel is believed to have around 30 million costumers in Indonesia.