HOME REVIEW
True Corp bragged that its We Love Shopping web site passed the landmark one million visitors per month in March, and planned to go online with what it called the first Thai web-based promotional site for products and services. |
The Basic Education Commission said it has set aside 12.2 billion baht to buy 300,000 computers for the schools of Ban Nok, raising two questions: The BEC has 12.2 billion baht it can just set aside?; and, at 40,666 baht per computer for a mass purchase, shouldn't Sukavich Rangsitpol be brought in as adviser? BEC Secretary-General Khunying Kasama Vorawan explained that the purchases over the next three years will raise the ratio of students to classroom computers nationwide from 46-to-one at present to 20-to-one.
Arguably the least-known influential Thai company announced it will go public this month; CEO Pramoth Sudjitporn said Asiasoft Corp Pcl plans to sell a 25 per cent stake to the public in the form of 75 million shares on the Stock Exchange of Thailand beginning on May 20, to finance further expansion in Malaysia and Vietnam; if you've never heard of Asiasoft, maybe the name Ragnarok rings a bell; it is one of the world's top MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing games) makers and distributors, including PangYa, MapleStory and - a major distributor - World of Warcraft; in other words, as they say around Asiasoft, "Thank you Ministry of Culture for not banning computer games."
The US elevated Thailand and eight other countries to the very pinnacle of piracy watch lists, the summit of the most-watched super-bad top-priority 301 Watch List; after that, the US Trade Representative said it'd be hard for Thailand to aspire to anything other than a lawsuit at the World Trade Organization and possible trade sanctions; but with Russia and China also on the list, there seems little chance Thailand will move any higher; as a sign of good will, the US report published the best places to get pirated stuff in Bangkok, in PDF format at tinyurl.com/3no9qr.
In a huge, unrelated, shock surprise, Microsoft announced on the very same day that while it had made as much money as it expected - a profit of $14.45 billion, or more than the entire Thai government budget - it could have made more if it weren't for all the pirates; Colleen Healy, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations, explained that someone ought to do something about all those Asians with unlicensed Microsoft stuff on their computers.
The Corrections Department installed yuppiephone jammers at three maximum security prisons; it has long been known that smuggled phones have allowed criminals to run crime rings, particularly drug gangs, from inside Khlong Prem Central Prison, Bang Kwang Prison and the Central Correctional Institute for Drug Addicts; department chief Wanchai Rujanawong said new devices allowed jamming in the prison only, where previous jammers had brought complaints from houses in the surrounding areas.
The Last Dit-Dah: Hundreds of people grabbed their yuppiephones and Internet devices to make a personal pilgrimage to the main post office building on Charoen Krung Road to send a telegram; unfortunately for history, it was nostalgia, not retro; Thailand Post ended telegraphic service on April 30, 173 years after Samuel Morse introduced the first speedy worldwide communications system; most of the visitors were young people who never had seen an actual telegram; now watch eBay for sales of messages stamped "the last telegraph", hundreds (maybe thousands) of which were sent for 30 baht by Thailand Post, and delivered on May 2.
Also likely to turn to memories is SuthepNet, aka Thai Mobile, the little 100-billion-baht mobile company that couldn't; the new board of your TOT checked the standing 2.4-billion-baht sale price for the 42 per cent held by your CAT Telecom and sniffed, "Too much."
Thai authorities were hurt by charges that the world food price rises have anything to do with your car eating poor people's lunches; alternative fuel specialist Capt Samai Jai-in of the Royal Thai Navy explained the drive for biofuels must continue, because the actual blame must be put on high oil prices.
The global GSM Association politely suggested that the National Telecommunications Commission stop yakking and start acting on 2,100MHz licences for 3G services; Ricardo Tavares, senior president in charge of vice at GSMA - whose 700 members in 218 markets represent 85 per cent of all mobile phone users - said Thailand is behind almost everyone in building a 3G network and market. No. 1 yuppiephone network Advanced Info Service of Shingapore said it will launch commercial 3G services in Chiang Mai within days, and in Bangkok next month; of course it will just be a test, unless of course a certain three-letter agency decides to issue licences.
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