Tech players race to widen reach !

Facebook goes the distance to widen reach 

IN the age of connectivity, what sells a technology company is not its system nor its employees, but the reach it has throughout the world.

Making news over the past few days has been the Facebook-WhatsApp deal, sealed at a whopping offer of US$19bil.

It is the biggest deal year-to-date and has set yet another stratospheric benchmark in the arena of tech deals. The deal pushed 2014’s total tech deals to US$50bil, the highest since 2000.

Google, which contended for WhatsApp as well, lost the acquisition battle with an offer about half the amount Facebook was willing to fork out – US$10bil.

Facebook is hungry for reach, and it has proven in the tech arena that it is willing to go the distance to get it.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was reported to have told a conference call that it was Facebook’s explicit strategy to focus on growing and connecting everyone in the world over the next several years.

“And then we believe that once we get to being a service that has one billion, two billion, maybe even three billion people one day, there are many clear ways that we can monetise.

“But the right strategy we believe, is to continue focusing on growth and the product and succeeding in building the best communication tools in the world.”

Yes, pay for your customers first, then ease them into paying you.

To depict how valuable a company’s reach or user base is, take a look at Viber’s valuations when it was sold to global Internet services company Rakuten just a week ago.

With 105 million monthly active users, the messaging app company got acquired at US$900mil or US$8.57 per user.

In comparison, WhatsApp was bought at the price of US$42 per user for its big pool of 450 million monthly active users. And this number is expected to grow over the next few years.

As tech website CNet puts it: Facebook (has) demonstrated (that) valuations can rise or fall dramatically based on how large a base of users you command.

In the meantime, game company King Digital Entertainment is also looking to list on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company behind addictive mobile game, Candy Crush, said on Tuesday it planned to raise US$500mil from an initial public offering. In the last quarter of 2013, the game had 12.2 million monthly unique players.

Going public is said to be gainful for the company’s founders, as they only raised US$9mil of funding since it was founded in 2002.

Some tech deals have been bungled too, such as in social game company Zynga’s case.

Zynga, which is also listed, rose with meteoric success in its first years of business buying as many as 11 companies when it turned a profit in 2010. However, its success fizzled out as it failed to move into the mobile gaming space, even with its acquisition of the once-popular Draw Something game app.

While Zynga focused on developing games for Facebook (names like Farmville and Mafia Wars come to mind) and the desktop, games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush outran them on mobile devices.

There are also older examples of missed and misused opportunities like Yahoo! overlooking the competition from Google or MySpace losing its appeal under the wings of NewsCorp.

An extensive reach or user base creates the pulse in the economy of the virtual world, and the pulse is sustained by being in touch with user experience and trends.

As the entrepreneur spirit demands a courage to take on risks, technoprenuers like Zuckerberg have to surely keep an eye out for competitors worth bagging to expand their social network empires.

The race for reach continues.

Contributed by Liz Lee The Star/Asia News Network

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WhatsApp deal dwarfs other high-profile Tech acquisitions

WhatsApp deal dwarfs other high-profile Tech acquisitions

WhatsApp with Facebook's $19B offer?

 http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2014/02/19/t-facebook-whatsapp-19-billion.cnnmoney/

In a play to dominate messaging on phones and the Web, Facebook has acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion.

That's a stunning sum for the five-year old company. But WhatsApp has been able to hold its weight against messaging heavyweights like Twitter (TWTR), Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) Skype. WhatsApp has upwards of 450 million users, and it is adding an additional million users every day.

Referring to WhatsApp's soaring growth, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call, "No one in the history of the world has done anything like that."

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app for smartphones, according to OnDevice Research.

Buying WhatsApp will only bolster Facebook's already strong position in the crowded messaging world. Messenger, Facebook's a standalone messaging app for mobile devices, is second only to WhatsApp in its share of the smartphone market.

Related: 5 key moments that changed Facebook
 
Similar to traditional text messaging, WhatsApp allows people to connect via their cellphone numbers. But instead of racking up texting fees, WhatsApp sends the actual messages over mobile broadband. That makes WhatsApp particularly cost effective for communicating with people overseas.

That kind of mobile messaging services have become wildly popular, with twice as many messages sent over the mobile Internet than via traditional texts, according to Deloitte. But most of the messaging industry's revenue is still driven by text messaging.

On the conference call, Facebook said it is not looking to drive revenue from WhatsApp in the near term, instead focusing on growth. Zuckerberg said he doesn't anticipate trying to aggressively grow WhatsApp's revenue until the service reaches "billions" of users.

WhatsApp currently charges a dollar a year after giving customers their first year of use for free. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said on the conference call that WhatsApp's business model is already successful.

That indicates Facebook bought WhatsApp to add value to its existing messaging services, as well as for the long-term potential of the company.

Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 for similar reasons: As young social network users gravitated towards photo-sharing, Facebook wanted to scoop up what could have eventually become a big rival.

Like Instagram, WhatsApp will function as an autonomous unit within Facebook, with all the existing employees coming in as part of the deal.

Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) said it will pay WhatsApp $4 billion in cash and $12 billion in stock.

WhatsApp's founders and staff will be eligible for for another $3 billion in stock grants to be paid out if they remain employed by Facebook for four years. Koum will also join Facebook's board of directors.

-   By Adrian Covert  @CNNMoneyTech

Beware of Cheque scams, banks take responsibility

Senior citizens' cheques were intercepted and stampered with in separate incidents
 
PETALING JAYA: Two senior citizens nearly lost thousands of ringgit when their cheques were intercepted and tampered with in separate incidents.

In the first incident, a man who paid his utility bills through cheques sent via mail was shocked to find that the amount deducted from his account was 10 times what he had written on one of the cheques.

The foreign national, who only wanted to be known as Richard, owns a home in Malaysia.

He issued a cheque for RM200 to pay his electricity bill in November last year.

“When I received the bank statement, I was shocked to see that the amount deducted was more than RM2,000,” he said.

When the bank gave him a copy of the cheque that was deposited, he realised that the cheque had been replaced with a fake one.

“The cheque was a different one altogether and it was made to one Alan Lim @ Lim Sze Wei. Only the serial number was the same as the one I had issued and there was a forged version of my signature,” he said, adding that the design on the cheque was also different as he was still using an older version.

“I only issue cheques once or twice a month and have not changed the cheque book for years. The old version had the bank logo in the centre. The fake cheque had a completely different design without the logo in the centre,” said Richard, who is in his 80s. Richard then lodged a police report.

In the second case, an 87-year-old pensioner’s cheque was believed to be intercepted and the name of the payee and amount altered, said his daughter K.L. Wong.

She said her father routinely paid his insurance policy premiums by cheque sent via mail, which was what he did on Jan 31.

He wrote a cheque for RM169 payable to a bank’s card centre to pay for his policy and posted it the next day.

On Feb 13, Wong, who handles most her father’s accounts because he is wheelchair-bound, called the bank to check if the cheque had been cleared.

“I was told the card centre had not received it and there was no payment for the December and January premiums,” she said.

Upon checking the account balance, she discovered that RM4,600 had been deducted.

“At first, the bank thought the cheque might have been processed and paid to the wrong person.”

When she requested for a scanned image of the cheque from the bank, she discovered all the payment details had been altered.

“It was the same cheque but the original details were somehow ‘washed out’. Only my father’s signature remained. The cheque was altered to pay someone by the name of Lim Teng Yong,” she said, adding that the person was unknown to her father.

Wong said the bank admitted that it was not the first complaint it had received involving the same name being used to cash fraudulent cheques.

She added that the bank promised to investigate the matter and she lodged a police report the next day.

Richard and Wong’s father’s cheques were issued by the same bank. After internal investigations, the bank reimbursed both men.

“It was good the bank was willing to take responsibility but there is obviously a scam going on. The public should be aware of how cheques are being tampered with or forged,” said Wong.

The bank declined to comment.

- Contributed by Jastin Ahmad Tarmizi The Star/Asia News Network

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Do You need jabs, antibiotics?

OUR population is getting more and more educated and knowledgeable. With the convenience of internet and smart phone, information can be assessed anytime and anywhere.

Facebook and Google have become the source of reference for most people. Many can now be “experts” in many specialised fields, including engineering, law and even medicine.

Nowadays, the medical practitioners enounter some patients who are so-called internet savvy, and refuse antibiotics and vaccines.

This issue arose due to the spread of such information in the internet, claiming antibiotics could lead to “superbug” and are associated with many adverse effects, while vaccines could cause autism or death.
Well, the risks of administration of both drugs are certainly debatable.

What we know for a fact is that since Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin and the pox vaccine, many lives were saved.

Nevertheless, I am not in the position to comment on the good and bad of both antibiotics and vaccines. But, it is more important for the general public to understand more about the need for antibiotics and vaccines.

Antibiotics or more specifically antibacterial, is a medicine indicated to kill (bactericidal) or inhibit the growth (bacteriostatic) of the bacteria.

There are various types of antibiotics with different mode of actions and indications. Strictly speaking, the mechanism of action for antibiotics is rather complicated.

However, it works mainly to counter attack the rapid reproduction of bacterial colonies, so that our immune system has enough time to defeat the illness.

Thus, the usage of antibiotics is strictly limited to the bacterial infection. In common clinical conditions, like acute exudative tonsillitis, abscess formation and urinary tract infection, antibiotics are strongly prescribed.

It must be understood that antibiotics have no role in curing diseases caused by fungus, virus or other parasites.

Therefore, it should not be overprescribed in cases like common cough and cold, flu and fungal infection of skin.

As for vaccines, they are biological preparations that help to boost immunity. Its primary focus is on disease prevention. It is always better to prevent a disease than to treat it.

Vaccines work by introducing the weakened form of “disease germ” into the body. The body will respond by producing antibodies to fight these invaders. At this stage, technically, the immune system is being sensitised. If the actual disease germ attacks the body, more antibodies will be produced to destroy the real enemy.

Vaccines are responsible for the control of many infectious diseases that were once common in this country and around the world, including polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), mumps, tetanus, Hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib).

Many patients question the need for further vaccination as diseases such as diphtheria, pertussis are very rare these days.

Furthermore, there are people that do not get vaccination, yet able to live healthily until old age. This is the myth behind “herd immunity”.

Herd immunity serves as a preventive barrier as most of the population had been vaccinated, thus, the disease is contained from spreading. If herd immunity is compromised, the widespread of the disease may occur.

A piece of advice to all, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Before you start to tell doctors about the negative effects of antibiotics and vaccines, why not, give them a chance to explain to you before you make a decision.

Contributed by DR H.B. CHEE, Muar, Johor The Star/Asia News Network

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A Malaysian household needs monthly income of RM14,580 (US$4,486) to buy a home in Malaysia

Klang Valley still affordable 

KUALA LUMPUR: You must have an average household income of RM14,580 a month to afford a home in the Klang Valley, according to a recent study.

The study – spearheaded by Sime Darby Property Bhd in collaboration with the Faculty of Built Environment of Universiti Malaya – takes into account the current household spending trend, price of homes and mortgage rates.

It found that certain groups of buyers interested in strategic areas can have access to houses that are priced at 56 times their household income.

The study also found that this same group can afford to spend up to 26% of their monthly household income to service a mortgage.

It identified strategic areas in the Klang Valley that are considered not only accessible but have the potential to appreciate in value. They include Nilai, Denai Alam, Bukit Jelutong and Bukit Subang.

A report of the study said that houses in selected areas in the Klang Valley remain accessible to homeowners who may be looking to invest in a second home.

The Housing-Income Index which was launched here yesterday by Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, who said the survey results would be useful for potential house buyers.

“The Index and its key findings had been reviewed by the ministry, and we find that the information is valuable as it can help policy makers and developers work hand-in-hand to build more houses that are not only accessible. but which can appreciate in value,” he said.

Abdul Rahman hoped that other property developers and the academia can carry out similar surveys in the country.

Based on the findings, Sime Darby said that 68% ofplanned housing schemes in the Klang Valley were in the accessible range.

“We intend to utilise the results to develop innovative, high quality products that are accessible and meet market needs,” said Sime darby Property managing director Datuk Seri Abd Wahab Maskan.

The Housing-Income Index was developed to gain a better understanding of home-owner profiles, specifically household incomes and spending patterns in relation to owning a home.

The study covered 1,529 respondents, of whom 1,183 were home owners at 12 locations: Bukit Jelutong, Denai Alam, Bukit Subang, Bandar Bukit Raja, Subang Jaya, USJ, Putra Heights, Ara Damansara, Mont Kiara, Melawati, Kajang and Nilai.

Purchasers want affordable homes but in safe neighbourhoods - However, Cheaper areas but few buyers

PETALING JAYA: Affordable homes are still available in the Klang Valley but many areas with houses priced around RM400,000 and below are not preferable to buyers.

Real-estate agent Michael Edward said areas such as Taman Sentosa and Taman Seri Andalas in Klang are examples where the houses are affordable but there are few pickers because it lacked security facilities and gated community features.

“Buyers want affordable pricing, safety and location when they buy a house. But most affordable houses that are available are usually under the older projects and may have a high crime rate. This puts off potential buyers,” said the Klang-based agent with Rina Properties.

Responding to recently-released Sime Darby Housing-Income Index, which said that one must have an average income of RM14,580 a month to afford a home in the Klang Valley, Edward said the survey probably interviewed respondents who owned properties in Sime Darby’s housing projects where prices were much higher compared to other areas.

“If other housing projects besides Sime Darby’s are taken under the survey, the average household income should be lower,” he added.

Describing the survey as “putting the bar too high”, real estate agent Jeremy Jones said the average household income of RM14,580 per month in the Klang Valley could be applicable to properties valued at RM950,000 to RM1.3mil in strategic locations.

“This is probably to purchase a double-storey house in areas such as Ara Damansara, USJ Heights and Glenmarie, Shah Alam where Sime Darby has developed its housing projects,” said Jones, who is attached to Ramdar Properties.

On whether selected areas in the Klang Valley remain accessible to potential house buyers, Jones said although there was affordable housing in various pockets within the Klang Valley, new buyers tended to look for a new environment and preferred to have their home within a gated-community.

“Therefore, choices for such housing become available to affluent buyers only,” he said.

On Monday, Sime Darby Property Bhd in collaboration with the Faculty of Built Environment of Universiti Malaya released the finding of a study that indicated that house buyers must have an average household income of RM14,580 a month to afford a home in the Klang Valley.

The study was conducted on 1,529 respondents aged between 21 and 60. Ninety-four per cent of them were married and 59% of them worked in the private sector.

Contributed by  G. Surach The Star/Asian News Network

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