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Asians in Cyberspace
A recent article in the Korea Herald outlined how
Korea was catching up with Japan, the world leader in the development
of "humanoid" robots. These robots are being
developed mainly for entertainment purposes.
The article is another reminder of how Asians have
made their presence felt in high-tech sphere. Nowhere
is this more evident than in the world of cyberspace.
The recent crisis involving the collision of a Chinese fighter
with a U.S. spy plane set off a hackers war between
the two nations. In many areas of technology, the
Chinese would be at a distinct disadvantage, but so
far they appear to be holding their own on the
cyber-battlefield.
Maybe it was in the stars that the actor who played
the cyber-savior in The Matrix, Keanu Reeves, is of part
Asian and Pacific Islander heritage.
The world's other 'Silicon Valley' is located in the
South Indian city of Bangalore, where IT engineers who
haven't already migrated to the real Silicon Valley, churn
out subcontract work internationally.
Success stories like those of Jerry Yang, the founder and "Chief
Yahoo" of the world's largest search engine are well-known. But the
article "Digital Architects" by
Anita Chan
in aMagazine (Dec 2001/Jan 2001), shows clearly how many Asians have
made it digitally speaking.
On the top of the list was Pradeep Sindhu of Juniper Networks,
Inc. -- one of many South Asians listed in the article.
At the piece was written, Sindu's company had a market capitalization
of $67.4 billion. The company was also the chief competitor
of industry giant Cisco Systems.
While Asians are a force as founders, CEOs and board members,
they are even more important as the core engineers of cyberspace,
the foot soldiers who make everything go.
There is hardly a company in Silicon Valley that doesn't make
copious use of foreign contract labor from Asia for software
development. For many companies the H1b visa is a necessity
to keep pace with the competition.
Asia: it's big
Asia itself if a growing force in the IT universe. Of course,
companies like Sony and Toshiba have always been leaders
in the hardware area. South Korea was the leading producer
of DRAM chips.
By 2002, the number of Asians from Asia on the Internet is expected
to increase to 90 million according to Gartner Group. Goldman Sachs thinks
the number will be 202 million by 2003.
That doesn't include those who use the popular "peer-to-peer" system
of text messaging on cell phones. Everything from revolutions to
election campaigns have been waged on this vast network.
It's now uncommon while travelling in Asia to encounter a seemingly
poor street vendor who suddenly interrupts your business transaction
to check for I-mode text messages on a cell phone.
Downside
Everything hasn't been rosy though. With so many Asians invested
in IT, the recent stock market downturn and especially the walloping
of high-tech stocks has hit the community hard.
Many Asians in Asia don't use credit cards, which has been a barrier
to increasing e-commerce in the region. Many sites don't give a clue
on alternative non-plastic payment methods.
Business-to-business (B2B) investment
has been brisk but this is not likely to continue if consumers
don't start buying online.
For all the recent hardships though, almost everyone agrees the
Internet is here to stay and that it will continue to expand
at a rapid rate.
The new trick for dotcoms is to make sites that actually turn
profits and just don't depend on one round of high-powered financing
after another.
Most are realizing that this depends on attracting an ever-increasing
number of people to the Net as regular users. Only after people
are comfortable cruising through cyberspace will they open up their
purse strings to the cyber-marketplace.
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