Blackberry BBM Money app to launch in Indonesia

Blackberry remains very popular in Indonesia

Blackberry is to enter the peer-to-peer money transfer market. BBM Money will soon allow owners of its handsets to send money to each other that can then be withdrawn from banks' cash machines. Indonesia will be first to get it - a country not typically associated with big tech launches, but it is a critical market for RIM.

Andy Zain is a self-confessed gadget geek.
"I have at least three phones, my tablet and my laptop at any point in time - but sometimes I can have up to seven devices," Andy says, beaming proudly as he shows me his beloved tools.
Like many Indonesians, Andy has long been a fan of Research in Motion's Blackberry phone.
"As an Indonesian, or if you live here, you need to have a Blackberry phone - otherwise people won't talk to you!" Andy says as he chuckles, cradling his gadgets.
"Blackberry is a working phone for me - it's where I do my emailing.
"Then my iPhone is how I consume media, and browse the internet.

“Start Quote

We definitely can't be complacent”

End Quote Hastings Singh RIM's South Asia operations

"I also have an Android device - I didn't use it so much before but I am now using it more than I used to."

There's no question that Blackberry still owns the bulk of the handset market share in Indonesia.
It is thought that Research in Motion, the makers of the "BB" phone as it is known here, has more than 50% of the Indonesian market - one of the few places in the world where Blackberry is still king.
More innovation But a recent study from the technology research group IDC suggests that Android phones - and in particular their operating system - are fast gaining ground, with their OS now owning 52% of the Indonesian market.
Research in Motion says it is not ignoring the warning signals.
The company will be launching its newest offering in 2013 in Indonesia - the highly anticipated Blackberry 10, which it hopes will recapture the hearts of its loyal fans in the archipelago.
"Indonesia is very important for RIM," Hastings Singh, the managing director of RIM's South Asia operations, tells the BBC.
"It's a huge market for us - and it is a market that has grown significantly over the last few years.
"[But] we definitely can't be complacent.
"So we are offering a new innovation - BBM Money which will be launched in Indonesia - first in the world - shortly. It is a peer-to-peer transfer service that anyone with a Blackberry phone can use to transfer funds to someone else with a Blackberry phone."
Mr Hastings says the fact that Indonesians are some of the most social people in the world and use the BBM messenger service as much as they do is one of the key reasons behind the creation of this new application.

Mobile phone vendor Adi Ferguson says Blackberry is losing out to its competition

"Indonesians spend a large amount of time communicating with their friends and family - using tools like BBM," he says.
"That's why it is a focus for us to improve upon what Indonesians really value about the Blackberry."
Android invasion? But critics warn that Blackberry's prized BBM service is not so unique anymore.
"The uniqueness of the Blackberry is diminishing," says Sudev Banga, the country head of IDC research - the group that published the recent study showing RIM's declining market share in operating systems in Indonesia.
"Now with Apple's iPhone you have the i-message function, you also have... all sorts of different applications that are taking away the differentiator that Blackberry used to have with the BBM."
Mobile phone vendors have also noticed that young Indonesians are rapidly changing their tastes.

We believe Blackberry seems to be the only predominant mobile carrier in Indonesia”

End Quote Lex Fenwick Dow Jones

At Ambassador mall, one of the most popular mobile phone shopping centres in Jakarta, you can see how Indonesian gadget lovers are increasingly spoiled for choice.

Shop keepers here say that just a few years ago, only Nokia phones and Blackberrys were on sale - but today there are all sorts of brands ranging from Blackberrys to Nokias, Samsungs, iPhones and Sonys.
"Blackberries used to be very popular," mobile phone vendor Adi Ferguson tells me, "but now they're losing out to the others because they don't come up with innovative applications fast enough.
"Samsung and the others come up with new apps almost every month. That's what young people want these days."
Still not everyone's convinced that this is the end of Blackberry in South East Asia's largest economy.
'First love' Many big businesses are betting that Blackberry phones remain the best way to reach out to the hearts and minds of Indonesian customers.
In November, the Wall Street Journal launched a Blackberry app - the first of its kind for the media conglomerate - for its Indonesian language service site. The app is unique to Indonesia.
Lex Fenwick, the chief executive of Dow Jones which publishes the Wall Street Journal, says it was a no-brainer to use the Blackberry to reach Indonesian readers.
"We believe Blackberry seems to be the only predominant mobile carrier in Indonesia," he told the BBC in a telephone interview.

Logistics: Distribution tech spreads Christmas cheer

Dashing all the way: Father Christmas has plenty of staff and reindeer at the north pole to sort out distribution issues, but toy distributors like Stortz & Associates need to rely on technology

"Some toys are made from love, love for the toy and the design and the art and the thought that a child's going to play with it and enjoy it."

So says Josh Diament of toy distributors Stortz & Associates. The Canadian company specialises in supplying eco-friendly toys to shops across the country.

Father Christmas has his sleigh and an army of elves to help make sure that all the toys get to the right place for Christmas day.
But how does a small company, which started in founder Linda Stortz's basement and a decade later now has 10 employees, track stock and make sure inventory gets to where it needs to be in a timely fashion?
Weighing it up The answer is enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. It's something all the big players use - and using industry-leading products like SAP's NetSuite has a correspondingly-big price tag.

Toy story: Josh Diament uses enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to work out his stock

"I thoroughly investigated the solutions that are out there," says Mr Diament. Many of the products didn't translate well to a small business distribution environment, he says. Almost all were too expensive.
Finally, after considering and discarding a procession of products, he settled on start-up BizSlate.
"BizSlate is developed to really control your inventory, sometimes we have customers that want certain size boxes and labels, that's already included.
"Some customers, they want to get eight in a box, they don't want six. BizSlate does it really well to pull inventory, recognize what's left in open stock, do your packs, tell you how many boxes you need."
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) system is web-based, with data held in the cloud, and no need to install expensive servers.
It is customisable, with optional industry-specific functionality, and lets small businesses manage everything including customers, vendors, orders, inventory, order processing and overall supply chain. It also integrates with Quickbooks (small business accounting software).

Stortz & Associates distributes eco-friendly toys like these products from Green Toys

Mr Diament believes that as well as cost - he estimates it comes in at about 30% of the average quote he was given elsewhere - his ability to give feedback sets it apart.
"[Founder Marc Kalman] really knows the distribution business," he says.
"It's not going to save you, it's not going to create anything for you, it's not going to make your business.
"However if you have something going on now it is an accelerator. It's going to help you do things quicker. It's going to enable you to have a faster workflow."
Marc Kalman has worked in distribution and supply chain technology most of his working life.
"One of the things I found is that it was surprising to me that there aren't more solution providers that cater to this market," he says.

SWANTECHNO

Wednesday, 5 December 2012