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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stitch who wrote (2307)	2/20/1998 8:35:00 PM
From: B Tate	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Stitch Not so Stitch! You know at least this one. Or rather one wannabee. No argument with the thrust of your post this is only to add what I know of MSC. As you know I'm involved in a multi-media JV start-up. I have spent a substantial portion of the last six months doing the paperwork for the application. - Remember that the purpose of this (MSC) is to encourage companies, of all sizes, to spend money on R&D within this "ideal" environment - I met with the representative of MSC about my application last month, the result will be an almost total re-do of the application - Seems the rules changed. Apparently I must fulfill different requirements than say, MSFT, Oracle, Dell or Motorola. Since the stated purpose of this is to "generate technology R&D offshoot companies" I guess that being one already is not sufficient. As to the implementation, Stitch, your correct. IF it does get off the ground it will be 2 - 5 years late. Have you seen any ground-breaking yet? Cyberjaya is to be only 40% - 50% of its original size. Putrajaya's status is still up in the air as far as I know. Grand signing ceremonies, ribbon cuttings and announcements aside, where are the T3 lines coming from? Where do the roads really go? Is there really a water supply for that chip-fab facility? Yet, these are not my major concerns at this time. I worry about where the hell I can find educated/computer literate employees. There are approx. 800,000 gov't employees in Malaysia. It is estimated that over 95% of them must be trained on how to 'boot' a computer. This does not bode well for a totally computerized gov't by the year 2000. In doing a simulation demonstration for senior military officials we discovered that the senior officer in charge of the project didn't know how to use a mouse. (really funny story that is too long for this post) Nor did anyone on his staff. Dr. M has a track record of accomplishment that is directly related to his charisma. This time he may have underestimated the basic needs of such a project. Yes, the Malaysian gov't will build/supply the infrastructure, eventually, but will the participants really pony up to actually build a $2B USD research campus. Time will surely tell whether mostly US based technology companies will spend that kind of money in basically duplicating existing facilities. The one thing that would make it a certainty would be the availability of a trained/educated workforce. Not here folks! re. Kulim - That will be a winner. I know of and deal with a company that will be moving into it. The Kulim project is one that Malaysia can excel at. Enough for this too long post. Apologies bt