BlackBerry 10 App Challenge Malaysia

BlackBerry has launched a challenge for developers, both experienced and budding, to build BlackBerry 10 applications for Malaysians. The BlackBerry 10 App Challenge Malaysia is part of the BlackBerry and MSC Malaysia Integrated Content Development (ICON) programme, run by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) collaboration.

[L-R: Wan Murdani Wan Mohamad, Director of Digital Enablement Division, MDeC, Annamalai Muthu, Country Director for Malaysia, BlackBerry]

Winners of the app challenge will win cash prizes as well as BlackBerry smartphones from BlackBerry Malaysia. [...]

Survey: 85% people in Malaysia BYOD to Work

According to a recent survey, 7 in 10 respondents in Malaysia value technological mobility in their role and 85% bring their personal computing devices to work. However, 74% say their IT departments do not provide them with relevant support to use these devices effectively in the workplace.

Commissioned by VMware and conducted by Acorn Research, the New Way of Work Study surveyed over 2,100 people in 12 countries across Asia-Pacific, including 150 responses from Malaysia.

According to the 2013 study, Malaysian employees who are empowered to use the technology of their choice at work say they are faster to respond to change (76%), more productive even when outside of the office (75%), and more efficient (71%). [...]

Extra up to 125GB for new P1 Broadband Subscribers

Packet One Networks (P1) is giving up to 125GB additional quota for new customers.

As part of the new promotion, P1 is giving 25GB extra quota at 5GB per month in the first five months (5GB x 5 months) of subscription to the new ForHome (wireless fixed access plan for home use) and OnePlan (wireless fixed and mobile combo plan for home and on-the-go use) subscribers. And if subscribers trade in their old USB dongle(all 2G/3G dongle except P1′s dongle), they will be given an additional 100GB (5GB x 20 months). [...]

TIME Posts a Record 34% Revenue Growth [Business]

TIME dotCom Bhd posted a record RM419.1 million in revenue for its financial year ending 31 December 2012, a 34% increase from RM313.9 million recorded in the same period a year ago, driven by new revenue streams contributed by regional bandwidth sales, data centre, and continuous growth of its domestic fixed-line business.

On a comparable basis, operating profits year on year rose 57% to RM76.8 million. Profit before tax, after taking into account investment income, for the financial year ended 31 December 2012 jumped 32% to RM157 million. [...]

Maxis has 14.1 million Subscriptions as of end 2012 [Businesss]

Maxis Berhad recorded a revenue of RM8,967 million for the financial year ended 31 December 2012, a 1.9% growth from RM8,800 million in 2011 on the back of higher revenue from all business segments.

[L-R:  Nasution Mohamed, Chief Financial Officer, Maxis Berhad; Sandip Das, Chief Executive Officer, Maxis Berhad; Raja Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Arshad bin Raja Tun Uda, Chairman, Maxis Berhad; Suren Amarasekera, Joint Chief Operating Officer, Maxis Berhad.]

The mobile operator said it maintained an industry-leading EBITDA margin at 48.6%, despite strong competition and aggressive market initiatives. Subscription base crossed 14.1 million subscribers with growth in postpaid over the last two quarters and prepaid over the last three quarters. In 4Q 2012, Maxis said it led the market with 4.1% quarter-on-quarter revenue growth with non-voice revenue growing 5.1% and contributing 46.2% to total mobile revenue. [...]

LG buys webOS from HP for smart TV [Comment]

South Korean electronics giant LG has acquired the source code, documentation, engineers, and websites of the Palm-developed webOS from HP. LG says that it plans to use the technology in future smart TV devices rather than the smartphones and tablets for which webOS was originally designed.

The move by LG to buy the webOS assets comes as something of a surprise.  The code of the software platform was released into open source by HP as Open WebOS last year and wasn’t widely expected to find any OEM support despite having demonstrated some novel thinking in devices such as the Palm Pre and HP TouchPad. [...]

P1 has 517k Subscribers as of 2012, LTE rollout in Q2 this year

Green Packet Berhad in its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2012 announced today that Packet One(P1) has 517,000 subscribers as of end of 2012.

In the 4Q12, P1 rolled out 77 new WiMAX sites increasing its total number of base station to about 1900 sites. The service provider posted a better than industry average churn rate of 4.9% while its ARPU increased to RM81. [...]

HTC Butterfly as low as RM1488 from UMobile

Malaysia 3G Telco, U Mobile has started offering the HTC Butterfly. By subscribing to U Mobile’s U88 postpaid plan, customers can now take home HTC’s smartphone darling from as low as RM1488.

The Telco said that the value-for-money plan provides the convenience of having both data plan and free voice and SMS services within a single package – eliminating the hassle of subscribing to two separate plans, which could be more costly. In addition to high-speed mobile Internet, U Mobile’s U88 postpaid plan includes 3GB mobile data, free calls and free SMS to all networks so subscribers can stay connected with their friends and families without qualms over pricy mobile expenses every month. [...]

Free 1 hour Twitter usage via DiGi-Opera Mini browser

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd in collaboration with Twitter Inc and Opera Software are now offering free 1 hour Twitter usage via the DiGi-Opera Mini mobile browser.

In a media statement, DiGi said that the service is open to new and existing DiGi Easy Prepaid customers. This latest feature complements the existing social proposition of the plan that offers 24-hour free calls and SMS for customers to interact with their three (3) Buddyz, among others. [...]

Maxis & e-Sentral launches ebook Writing Competition

Maxis Berhad is collaborating with local digital platform, Xentral Methods Sdn Bhd (e-Sentral) to organise an ebook writing competition. The competition aims to discover Malaysia’s next generation of writers and is open to all Malaysians aged 18 and above. Writers may submit their short fiction ebooks either in English or Bahasa Malaysia from 1 February to 15 March 2013 (one author per submission) to the official Ebook Competition Facebook page.

All submissions will be available on Maxis’ ebook service and e-Sentral for preview and download from 22 March. The authors of the five most downloaded ebooks will then be selected as the winners, and will receive an iPad each. In addition to this, the author of the most downloaded book will receive a Professional Editorial and Publishing Consultation on how to publish and commercialise their work on digital platforms. [...]

BlackBerry Z10 launched in Malaysia, available starting March 9

The BlackBerry Z10 was launched in Malaysia mid this week and it will be available first via Maxis at the retail price of RM2188 starting March 9. The Z10 smartphone will also be available via other mobile operators such as Celcom Axiata and DiGi on April 8 followed by U Mobile and Tune Talk.

As previously reported exclusively on MalaysianWireless, BlackBerry will be running a trade up program for current BlackBerry fans. Under this program, fans can get a rebate of up to RM480 per device when they trade in selected older BlackBerry smartphones and purchase a new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone.

Fans interested in benefiting from the Trade Up should first visit the BlackBerry Facebook page and provide the details required to obtain a voucher, which entitles them to participate in the program. With a printed copy of this voucher and their old BlackBerry smartphone, they can then attend any of the 21 roadshows being organized across Malaysia by Brightstar and Maxis starting March 9.

The trade up program will also be available via BrightPoint and Sunstrike.

Details/Terms and conditions of the “Trade-in” program as below: [...]

McAfee Mobile Security Trends Report

Leading online security vendor, McAfee Labs today released the results of its Mobile Security: McAfee Consumer Trends Report, documenting sophisticated and complex risky apps containing multi-faceted scams, black market crimes, drive-by downloads and near-field communication threats.

The report identifies a new wave of techniques hackers use to steal digital identities, commit financial fraud, and invade users’ privacy on mobile devices.

Key Findings:

• Unlike the email- and website-based infections typical of PCs, mobile malware is distributed primarily through infected apps today
• 3 percent of malware-infected apps in the overall mobile app zoo came from the Google Play store
• Within the fairly conservative McAfee user community, 75 percent of malware-infected apps were downloaded from Google Play
• Crooked app stores use black hat search engine optimization (SEO)
• Based on the experience of McAfee users, typical consumers have at least a 1 in 6 chance of downloading apps that include malware or suspicious URLs
• Almost 1/4 of the risky apps that contain malware also contain suspicious URLs
• 40 percent of malware families misbehave in more than one way, showing the sophistication and determination of the criminals
• 23 percent of mobile spyware joins a botnet or opens a backdoor, increasing the risk of data loss or device abuse

In the report, McAfee Labs identifies the following threats as the most severe existing and new trends consumers will encounter in 2013: [...]

TM’s Cahaya Malaysia Links to Hong Kong

Telekom Malaysia Berhad’s (TM) private international submarine cable system, Cahaya Malaysia, has linked to Tseung Kwan O, its landing station in Hong Kong, completing the cable’s intended connectivity route.

Cahaya Malaysia, which began its construction back in January 2011 is TM’s wholly owned 2-fiber-pair system within the 6-fiber-pair Asia Submarine cable Express (ASE) system linking Malaysia to Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore. Spanning a distance over 7,800 km, the cable system which began its construction in January 2011 was meticulously developed to maximise reliability, able to withstand earthquake and typhoon damages as well as covering the shortest distance to Japan. It has been carrying Internet traffic between Malaysia and Japan since August 2012. The final leg of this cable system, completed early this month, is now fully operational and ready to serve connections between Malaysia to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to Japan. [...]

Celcom among 12 Companies Fined by SKMM for SMS Spamming

In a press statement early this month, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said that it has served compounds to 12 companies for breaching their license conditions. The total amount of compound is RM260,000-00.

MCMC said that failure to comply with the Mandatory Standards for Mobile Content Services (MCS) is a breach of the licence conditions under article 2.2 of the standards set by the Application Service Provider Class Licence (ASP(C)).

The Malaysia regulator has previously issued numerous warnings to the license holders to improve their quality of service including those on the issue of dropped calls and promotional SMS messages. Unfortunately complaints from consumers regarding the quality of service kept on increasing as the telcos are still unable to satisfactorily resolve the problem. [...]

BlackBerry Z10 price at RM2188 in Malaysia, plus other launch details [Insider]

We’ve got word that the all-new BlackBerry Z10 will be price at RM2188 in Malaysia. The launch event is expected to take place on February 20 next Wednesday however availability of the Z10 in Malaysia will only happen sometime in the second week of March 2013.

More details brought to you by MalaysianWireless below. [...]