Remarkable Past 10 Years for Tech

December 25, 2010

by Oon Yeoh @http://www.malaysiakini.com

The past 10 years have been a remarkable decade for tech. We’ve seen so many changes in the ICT landscape.

My tech journalism journey began in 2000, the year the dotcom boom hit Malaysian shores. It was a time when everyone wanted a piece of the dotcom pie. I recall a fresh graduate getting a million ringgit in angel funding to start a dotcom.

I recall a top-notch analyst quitting his million-ringgit a year job to start a dotcom. And I recall a university student dropping out to start his own Internet business. Those were the days.

I had been working for a foreign business news organisation, writing about the political and economic situation in Malaysia. So, when the whole country went dotcom crazy, I figured it was time for me to start covering that trend too.

If people could leave their secure and steady jobs to try their hand at dotcoms, I figured I could do so as well, and so I left my foreign media job to become editor of an online publication focusing on the local IT sector. I also maintained a weekly column in the Sun newspaper which gave me access to a mainstream audience.

At the time, the local media’s coverage on technology was largely focused on hardware and gadgets. Yet there was a burning public appetite for all things Internet. So, I decided my journalistic pursuits would be Internet-centric. Since I was writing a column, which by definition is supposed to be opinionated, I made sure I peppered my articles with strong viewpoints.

This formula worked. It was something different and refreshing. A local journalist articulating opinionated viewpoints about Internet business models. Imagine that!

Prevailing despite the odds

Over the past 10 years of covering technology, I got to know many CEOs of tech companies, big and small. The most common trait amongst the success stories is something cliche but true: Persistence.

I’ve seen guys prevail despite the odds. They just kept at it, refusing to give up and always pushing ahead with optimism. Some of the more successful businesses today were mere start-ups or at still a very early stage of their growth when I first got to know about them. Today, they are the greybeards of the industry.

There is also a common trait amongst the ones who didn’t succeed. And that is fear. I’ve met countless technopreneurs who are so afraid people would steal their ideas. It’s like they are afraid of their own shadows. I would also tell these guys two things.

Firstly, if the only competitive advantage you have is that no one knows about your idea, that’s not much of a competitive advantage. Secondly, ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s the execution that counts. The world is full of people with big dreams and lofty ambitions. Very few can actually roll up their sleeves and get down to the business of executing and implementing those ideas.

What I like most about the IT industry is that the people are generally open-minded and collaborative-minded as well. If you have a good idea and you approach them with a proposal to collaborate, more often than not they will say, “Yeah, let’s give it a try!”

I think that’s a really good characteristic of technopreneurs. They are generally very optimistic people.

Some things right, some wrong

In helping technopreneurs, the government has done some things right and some things not so right. Two very big positives are the availability of grants for local technopreneurs and the commitment not to censor the Internet. You’ve got to give credit where credit’s due.

Of course there were some boo-boos too. The whole concept of Cyberjaya and requiring companies to have a presence in Cyberjaya (a policy since loosened) was wrong from the start. The incredibly slow roll out of high speed broadband was also an impediment.

In looking back at the most impactful tech innovations or developments I would say the top five (not in order of importance) are:

1. Peer-to-peer file sharing,
2. Wi-Fi,
3. The rise of blogs,
4. Internet telephony, and
5. Social networking.

Although these are now a common part of our lives, they have all just emerged in the past 10 years. There were also some tech that had great potential but never took off as expected. These include

1. Sony MiniDisc
2. Browsing the web on TV
3. Bluetooth (for anything other than mobile phone earpieces)
4. MMS, and
5. Video conferencing on phone.

What’s it going to be like going forward? I would like to say that I’m bold enough to predict the next 10 years but it would be foolish of me to do so. Instead, I’ll just share what I think are important technological trends to look forward to in the next 10 months (which is a long time in tech terms).

1. iPad publishing (because 2011 is the year of the Tablet)
2. Wireless broadband price war
3. Hybrid cars
4. Social media becoming even more integrated into our lives, and
5. Anything new from Apple!