Greenpeace trashes Thailand

Database News - Wednesday December 12, 2007

HOME REVIEW

Greenpeace trashes Thailand

Greenpeace International released the second edition of its Guide to Greener Electronics that trashed Big Business and, of course Thailand; yes, it's Thailand's fault that Nokia got dragged down to a score of 6.7 (out of 10 for maximum greenness) for "deficiencies in takeback practice in Thailand;" and Motorola was a "big faller" (sic) because it has no timeline for eliminating harmful chemicals in its phones in Thailand; and so on.

Your CAT Telecom opened bidding on its 2.6 billion baht ASON (automatically switched optical network) and by incredible coincidence one of the early favourites was the Huawei/Loxley consortium; yes, it was earlier disqualified because it couldn't meet the performance value but CAT felt so sorry for its Chinese friends it lowered the bar; the other four bidders, Ericsson, Jasmine, Marubeni and NEC, could only watch in amazement, and probably won't bother filling in the bidding documents they bought earlier.

Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand recommended that the government should force auto makers to install engines that will handle E20 gasohol (20 percent herbs, 80 percent gasoline) from now on because, you know, the market will never work.

IT specialist Simat Technologies Plc set its initial public offering price at 3.80 baht per share; it had earlier decided to start trading on the Market for Alternative Investment on Dec 12.

Sony Corporation, whose home is in one of the world's oldest countries, said it will try to expand next year in places where people are a little younger - like Southeast Asia; "Thailand is the key country for our business in terms of both sales and manufacturing," said sweet-talking executive deputy president Katsumi Ihara, who isn't even a politician.

Travel agents worldwide told web site TripAdvisor their clients want to travel next year to Jerba, Makandi Bay and Phang-nga - and they don't want cellphones ringing and dinging and upsetting their green trips; let's repeat that, wrote TripAdvisor: "They clearly don't want cell phones disturbing their peace"; the second biggest concern of next year's tourist rush to Phang-nga is germs.

Top shelf game firm Asiasoft Corp hoped to raise 975 million baht with its initial public offering of stock, when 75 million shares go on sale at the Stock Exchange of Thailand this month; Asiasoft is behind online winners like the Thai version of Ragnarok, MapleStory and Audition; that little furrow in your brow indicates you are over 30, right?

Nokia Siemens Asia Pacific executive Marko Lius went against the grain when he said sure, IPTV is ready technically, but carriers don't think there's a market for it yet; give it a few years - or so; he actually used Thailand as a bad example, pointing out that IPTV is available but the public hasn't bitten. The Major League Soccer of America opened talks with three top yuppiephone firms about either sponsoring teams or carrying matches to watch on wireless.

President Wasan Paileeklee said he figures he can raise revenue at Mcot and Channel 9 by putting 19 new programmes on the air; they will include season 5 of the hit show Academy Fantasia.

No 1 yuppiephone network Advanced Info Service of Shingapore decided not to collect interconnection charges from No 2 DTAC of Norway and No 3 True Move of Thailand, both of whom have entered the lawsuit of the year with your TOT; AIS president Wichian Mektrakarn said he would love to have the 2.5 billion baht the two competitors are supposed to cough up, but it would be better to wait for the court; neither DTAC nor True Move has paid billed access charges to TOT since November of 2006, when they insisted they had switched to the new interconnection payment system - which they also have not paid.

Your Cattelecom explained that there is no way it could possible continue paying access charges to your TOT while a TOT lawsuit against CAT and yuppiephone operators DTAC of Norway and True Move of Thailand is under way; the lawsuit includes cute little yuppiephone firm Digital Phone, in which CAT has a stake and which has dozens of subscribers.

No one could knock the grin off the face of Suphakit Vuntanadit, marketing and customer experience relationship manager (really) of True Corp, as he explained that No 3 yuppiephone network True Move, from July through September, had added more new subscribers than in any other three-month period since the beginning of the Cretaceous era - 16 per minute for a total of 2.1 million, to take True Move up to 11.2 million customers.

Thai advertisers have fallen far behind the regional average in Internet spending; Khanokkhan Prajongsangsri, head of insights at Initiative, said just one percent of advert spending in Thailand is on the Net - 800 million baht this year; she claimed readership of newspapers and magazines has fallen, while Internet penetration has now reached 11 million subscribers.

Bangkok Post