BlackBerry, Apple Battle Over Indonesia

Gandi Faisal | March 29, 2010

The first quarter of 2010 is near an end and electronic goods and cellphone manufacturers have been pumping out their latest products on an almost weekly basis.

Lauded by many as the biggest electronics show in the world, the Consumer Electronic Show 2010, held in January in Las Vegas showed Google trying to steal the spotlight with the announcement of Nexus One, its first ever smartphone, which is powered by the Android operating system. It was an attempt by Google, along with Palm Pre, Motorola Droid and Windows Mobile-powered smartphones and PDAs, to unseat today’s reigning smartphone kings: iPhone and BlackBerry.

Now, what about Indonesia? Is there even any battle? Go to any business hub in Jakarta, any shopping center, or even high schools and colleges. You’ll see people frantically running their thumbs on that shiny trackball, eyes glued to the little screen, before doing the thumb dance on the tiny qwerty keypad. Yes, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry is the king of the hill in Indonesia’s lucrative smartphone market and it looks likely that RIM will continue to enjoy the view from that lofty place. With Indonesia’s five cellular operators working as authorized distributors of and going all out in promoting BlackBerry phones, consumers have had no qualms to jump on the bandwagon and use the BlackBerry.

Axis, Indosat, Smart, Telkomsel and XL Axiata all market BlackBerry and its services.

“There is close to 10 percent growth in BlackBerry sales in Indonesia,” Gregory Wade of RIM said, as quoted by okezone.com. And RIM consistently looks to cooperate with local application developers, including universities.

“We’ve had constructive and promising dialogues with several universities in Indonesia. And one important thing is that we have our online tools and Java developer kits that can ease the developers’ work in building local-content apps,” Greg added.

The BlackBerry phenomenon in Indonesia may make some analysts scratch their heads, as in big cities even eighth graders are seen using colorful BlackBerrys. Corporate executives and managers are not the only ones who need constant connection via the handsets. Apparently teenagers nowadays also need to have their stream of uninterrupted communication — something that a BlackBerry phone provides through its BB Messenger and push e-mail features.

And, what about Apple’s iPhone?

Back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s Apple took the world by storm, and brought up the then fledgling PC industry to its adulthood. Apple’s iPod — later followed by the iPhone — introduced to the world revolutionary ways of interacting with your gadget. And Apple’s marketing machine has been doing wonders introducing the products to the world. Out of 100,000 plus apps, more than ten thousand of them are totally free, and market wins in America, Europe and many other countries are clear declarations of the company’s prowess.

Apple reported sales of more than 4.3 millions iPhones in the last quarter alone. “Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, on the first-quarter earnings.

But Indonesia is proving to be a tougher nut to crack for Apple. The BlackBerry is way out in front in terms of sales and then there are the new players like Google’s Nexus, Motorola’s Droid and the Palm Pre as well as Windows Mobile-powered smartphones and Symbian smartphones. Consumers must dig deeper into their pockets to buy Apple’s expensive iPhones. And, besides, interaction using the touch screen interface has not really caught on in Indonesia.

Forget iPhone’s award-winning work and productive software, or great games with beautiful graphics developed by the world’s major developers. iPhones sold in Indonesia carry hefty price tags, a flaw in the local marketing strategy. Some Indonesians bought the iPhone for its standard functions and they don’t know about the tens of thousands of apps that they can buy or get for free: Indonesian iPhone user think apps are only for iPods.

And most Indonesians still see Apple as the maker of the Macintosh, whose reputation as an expensive computer for the selected few is strongly embedded on the local culture.

RIM’s brush with the Indonesian government over the availability of BlackBerry after-sales service in 2009 is more evidence of the smartphone’s dominance in the country: people were hungry for the phone and did not factor in the lack of service before purchasing.

The BlackBerry operating system may not look as sophisticated as rival technologies, but when it delivers on its promise to deliver rapid, simple communication, a bland-looking operating system wins the day every time.

So, when faced with the choice of getting either an iPhone or a BlackBerry, Indonesian buyers will opt for the most practical option: a gadget that gives them a package of easy-to-use communication at an affordable price.

Fun and productivity-enhancing features, such as a calender, office applications, a camera, a music player and games are on the list of things that consumers want — ask high-school students how many times a day they take pictures using their phone. But as the Facebook-craze remains unabated and push e-mail and Twitter continue providing business people with more ways to maintain contacts, many see BlackBerry as the better choice.

The companies that win are those that come out strongest and try hardest to entice Indonesian smartphone users.

Ultimate Connectivity and Creativity with Samsung GALAXY Note II and Samsung GALAXY SIII

March 01, 2013

Advertorial

Words: Gandi Faisal for Jakarta Globe online

Samsung, the largest OEM of mobile phones in the world, has never taken a break in innovation. The company continues to spoil people with its range of products that integrate sophisticated communication and connectivity, entertainment, and productivity.

Samsung GALAXY Note II –The Might Redefined

Samsung Galaxy Note II has taken advanced leaps and bounds from where its predecessor started. Samsung GALAXY Note II excels in term of design, hardware might, and capabilities. With its top-of-the-line 1.6 GHz quad core processor and 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system, Samsung GALAXY Note II is lightning fast, opening multiple web pages in a breeze, as well as opening a series of features and apps at the same time.

Users’ productivity is sure to rocket as the device shows no lagging when it is used to take important notes in S Note, edit pictures, and open and edit office documents simultaneously. And incorporating multimedia files—pictures, sounds or even video clips with Easy Clip—into S Note or a document has never been easier and seamless. All these are done on multiple windows and also Multiscreen, another shining feature other smartphone products are yet to have.

Creativity knows no bound, and highly intuitive Samsung GALAXY Note II’s S Pen is the perfect way to express it. With S Pen bringing out the artist in everyone or boosting productivity with the ultimate degree of comfort is never easier.

The HD Super AMOLED 1280x720 pixel size capacitive touchscreen provides crystal-clear display ensuring you a comfortable viewing of its 5.5-inch screen. Those who often work with graphs and tables will appreciate the high resolution Samsung GALAXY Note II has.

Another shining feature of Samsung Galaxy Note II which helps users become more productive is Air View feature. With Air View, browsing images on Samsung Galaxy is quick and convenient, as users do not need to open any folders. This in turn will help save time and energy, leaving more time for other productive endeavor.

Samsung GALAXY SIII—What Other Smartphones Aspire To Be

And what about Samsung GALAXY SIII? This multiple award winning product from Samsung, with its innovative features and breakthroughs, remains a standard bearer for other smartphone products. Samsung GALAXY SIII’s tagline—Designed for Humans—redefines how users interact with Samsung GALAXY SIII and how it connects users to those important to them.

With S Beam, sharing contents is now so much easier—not to mention faster and more fun. A light touch of the back of the device will transfer any files to another Samsung GALAXY SIII. Smart Stay, another innovative feature of Samsung GALAXY SIII, automatically adjusts the smartphone to what the users are doing, making sure the setting perfectly fits the users—be it reading an e-book or browsing the web.

Burst Shot enables you to continuously capture fast moving objects up to 20 photos and Best Photo automatically recommends the best photo among the 8 photos taken. And with Social Tag, staying connected with the important people is so much fun as viewing their pictures will directly display their status updates.

Samsung GALAXY S III is equipped with 4.0 Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and 1.4Ghz Quad Core processor. Its 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen displays images and videos in true colors that are outrageously sharp to provide a vivid viewing experience.

There are so many innovations this smartphone has to offer that Samsung GALAXY SIII —awarded the best smartphone of the year by many of the industry’s major media outlets—is what many other smartphones aspire to beat.

Dream Smartphone Yours To Have

And, now, Samsung and XL Axiata Indonesia are working together to make it easier to own these dream smartphones—Samsung GALAXY Note II and Samsung GALAXY SIII—with a remarkable bundling package.

Package	GALAXY SIII		GALAXY Note II
	Smart A	Smart B	Smart A	Smart B
Down Payment	999,000	1,999,000	999,000	1,999,000
Installment/month*	500,000	416,667	583,333	500,000
Benefit	6 GB/month	6 GB/month	6 GB/month	6 GB/month

With a choice down payment of IDR 999,999 and easy installment schemes, either one of these great products is yours to have. And not only that, XL is giving out a range of benefits which are just out of this world: 6 GB of data package per month, ensuring non-stop Internet connection for all of your needs; and a choice of favorite cellular number worth IDR 3,000,000.

With the bundling program, owning Samsung’s dream products—Samsung GALAXY Note II and Samsung GALAXY SIII—and experiencing the ultimate in productivity and creativity becomes a simple reality.

You can get this special package at Samsung Experiential Store, Erafone Megastore, Global Teleshop, Okeshop, Xplor, and XL Center. So, immediately contact the store and click this link to find out more about this great offer, and be sure to follow Samsung Indonesia twitter to always be connected to Samsung at @Samsung_ID.