Thailand Wants To Be The Hub Of The Digital Industry In The Asia-Pacific

[BSJ]

Hub this, hub that....hubba dubba dub, 3 Thai's in a tub.

Maybe they should sink some money into this hub! http://www.funnyhub.com/

At least we will get a laugh out of it.

[ferd54]

Thailand should focus on this. It wont be China. There was a great article in the Atlantic Monthly, by Falows I think, that made the case that China is incapable of being an engine of innovation like the US. That China's univrsities churn out robots, not inventors and innovators, from its university system. Thailand is inherently more open than China, and there are studious Thais. But are there enough?

It's true that China's educational system of rote memory -- salted with a sense of ethnic/cultural superiority -- has not and will not produce a great number of innovators. It's a county that lived for 2,000 years with the notion that Confucius already discovered what needs to be known, and everyone just needs to memorize and follow that. Not surprising that its a nation of unsurpassed copyists.

That said, Thailand is not one bit better in that regard and lacks the work ethic of China. Thailand's political system may be more open than China, but is the mindset? The Chinese are far better read than Thais -- they read incessantly. I see no edge to the Thais whatever. Fallows may be a China expert, but I doubt he's an expert on Thailand.

[jackinthebox]

So anyone here use ANY apps made in Thailand except CRACKS for outside apps?

And chances are those cracks were also made elsewhere.

There are some kids getting pretty hight tech lately,

but I wouldn't see a real innovative industry stringing up here.

Me. I use the Program "ArnThai", an OCR (Optical-charater-recogntion) solution made in Thailand (works pretty well - strange thing is that all international OCR-Software like Abbyy Fine-Reader, ReadIris etc. ist not capable to read thai letters). I bouht it in Fortune-IT-Plaza in Ratchada, funny thing that in the shop every software, every CD was 100 Baht (cracked obviously) exept this "ArnThai" -CD that cost me B 200 ("Mister mister, this one original, cost more mister"). But hey, 200B for licenced software is fair (normally OCR-Software is about 60-100 EURO!)

>And chances are those cracks were also made elsewhere.

Sure....there are no crackers in Thailand, I think they are mostly russian. Thai teenagers are not "nerd" enough

[basjke]

Thailand should focus on this. It wont be China. There was a great article in the Atlantic Monthly, by Falows I think, that made the case that China is incapable of being an engine of innovation like the US. That China's univrsities churn out robots, not inventors and innovators, from its university system. Thailand is inherently more open than China, and there are studious Thais. But are there enough?

Or you have never visited Thailand previously or you must be joking.Can you point to one invention that Thailand have ever made,and I don't mean those inventions which actually were invented by someone else years earlier.

Common be serious and look around.

[ManilaLover]

As long as university students are not able to count from 1 to 10 in English this news is usual fried air.

[khundon]

Make me laugh. A country who spend 1 billion on GT200 wants to go hi-tech. Some scientific institutions director still insist of using GT200.

Good luck Thailand. Oh, I forgot to mention that Thailand is behind Singapore by 10 years, Malaysia by 5 years, and Myanmar by ..... The list goes on.

I think half the harddisks worldwide are made in Thailand, a lot printer, mainboards etc etc

Made in Thailand, designed elsewhere.

[LuckyLew]

I suggest a crackdown on things Thailand want to be the hub off

Thailand already is the hub of crackdowns

[monkfish]

Thailand has some great digital designers! but the "No lose face" mentality makes it very difficult

for international clients to work with them. I know as I have tried.

For example just changing the color on a background or some text could become a major issue.

also working to deadlines seems to be a major problem and if one of the many public holiday gets in the way

you have no chance! Pity though as the potential is there!!

[bangon04]

Have any of Thailand's many proposed hubs this century actually come to fruition?

Is there anyone out there who thinks this one will?

When are the mods going to give us a Hubs subforum....? (or should that be a hubforum?)

[tooninthai]

thailand wants to be the hub of this,wants to be the the hub of that, what is this the new catchphrase? ...how about being the hub of getting the basics right and then moving on from there...lol

They are sick of seeing three 'hub' Tuk Tuks so they want to develop a wee bit and become 64 wheelers

[wolf5370]

Thais tend to be very artistic, so I don't see that it could not excel, given the right impetus, encouragement and guidance, in the digital content field. We are talkiing animation, games, movies and music here, not designing multi-layer microprocessors, the design aspect are more creative and less scientific or lateral (thinking out of the box etc). Personally I was hoping we left the stupid "Hub" terminilogy behind us with the last government though (or was it the one before that - it gets confusing what's a government and what's not these days!).

[wolf5370]

Thais tend to be very artistic, so I don't see that it could not excel, given the right impetus, encouragement and guidance, in the digital content field. We are talkiing animation, games, movies and music here, not designing multi-layer microprocessors, the design aspect are more creative and less scientific or lateral (thinking out of the box etc). Personally I was hoping we left the stupid "Hub" terminilogy behind us with the last government though (or was it the one before that - it gets confusing what's a government and what's not these days!).

[livinthailandos]

Thailand to become a hub, didn't they have something about this for the so called airport hub to and other various hubs to. As easy as it ease to poke fun and many areas I simply won't. I do know of a few thai's that are highly educated, have gone abroad to work and for school and if they come back here most are picked up by foreign companies. Thailand will never catch up in many areas due to:

High Levels of corruption

Due to corruption everything else suffers, poor infrastructure, poor quality education system, safety etc the list goes on and on.

Besides the corruption you have a seriously uneffective government unable to make any real necessary changes.

Oh well TIT = This is Thailand

[GungaDin]

The offical start of the Hub season.

:D How true!

[AdoboLove]

Thailand. The Hub of Hubs.

But seriously. MORE BANDWIDTH would be needed to be a hub. Can you imagine Thailand with 50 MB DSL like Korea, Japan etc? Google is even rolling out 1 GB connections in the US.

Thailand has some serious catch up

Even Vietnam has faster internet connections than Thailand, any random hotel/guesthouse in Vietnam can give me fast or decent connections

[sokal]

hub of crackdowns

hahahaha

[David006]

If this is actually a serious aim then perhaps a visit to Ireland would bring him down to earth..they actually started this a year or so ago.

Maybe even use technology ( dugh!!) to do a bit of research....start here!!

www.thedigitalhub.com/

[Thai at Heart]

Thailand to become a hub, didn't they have something about this for the so called airport hub to and other various hubs to. As easy as it ease to poke fun and many areas I simply won't. I do know of a few thai's that are highly educated, have gone abroad to work and for school and if they come back here most are picked up by foreign companies. Thailand will never catch up in many areas due to:

High Levels of corruption

Due to corruption everything else suffers, poor infrastructure, poor quality education system, safety etc the list goes on and on.

Besides the corruption you have a seriously uneffective government unable to make any real necessary changes.

Oh well TIT = This is Thailand

For Thailand to become a hub it needs to have an Absolute advantage economically in performing something.

Now lets take the so called "Digital Industry".

Are Thais

a. The most computer literate in the region?

b. The most well educated at computer science in region?

c. Possessing the best digital network in the region?

d. Possessing the best intellectual property controls in the region?

e. Having the best foreign investment laws in the region?

f. Having a clear policy for developing digital networks and improving them in the next ten years?

If you can't answer yes to all, then that rules out ever becoming a hub in this industry. Why they prattle on about trying to become the centre of anything in Asia when they have Singapore down the road I really don't know. The system won't allow Thailand to excel at anything because it needs effort, a plan and perseverance to create a region best performance in any industry.

[CDB]

I'm currently producing multilingual Flash animations in Thailand. Have tried using resources in many countries but it turns out the the most skilled and low cost resources are in Thailand, whether it's my in-house staff or freelance resources.

As usual, the Thaivisa naysayers are clueless. It's easy to get BOI privileges to either be 100% foreign owned or to have tax breaks for anything to do with digital content production. Thailand is a much better choice than China for this kind of work: lower wages; laws on IP protection; faster Internet (yes really); skilled resources; and skilled foreigners here too, so can build a fusion workforce.

The people at SIPA are smart with good ideas. Unfortunately they don't often get the support they need from other government departments. Even though the endless promotion of "hubs" is getting a bit tired, the concept itself is sound enough.

[Thai at Heart]

I'm currently producing multilingual Flash animations in Thailand. Have tried using resources in many countries but it turns out the the most skilled and low cost resources are in Thailand, whether it's my in-house staff or freelance resources.

As usual, the Thaivisa naysayers are clueless. It's easy to get BOI privileges to either be 100% foreign owned or to have tax breaks for anything to do with digital content production. Thailand is a much better choice than China for this kind of work: lower wages; laws on IP protection; faster Internet (yes really); skilled resources; and skilled foreigners here too, so can build a fusion workforce.

The people at SIPA are smart with good ideas. Unfortunately they don't often get the support they need from other government departments. Even though the endless promotion of "hubs" is getting a bit tired, the concept itself is sound enough.

I have heard about SIPA and it is quite a good organisation. However, as you say, the stick in the mud is the very organisation that is trying to promote the idea.

[CDB]

Are Thais

a. The most computer literate in the region?

For digital content production, they are as good as anyone else

b. The most well educated at computer science in region?

They are good enough

c. Possessing the best digital network in the region?

Not really relevant. Sure bandwidth is much better in Korea/Japan, and for that matter, much worse in China, but for any large project delivery to the client is likely to be via DVDs/Blu-ray/Flash drives not internet uploads.

d. Possessing the best intellectual property controls in the region?

Much better than China's and getting better all the time. Anyway you can just set up Thailand for production and run contractual issues through another country (as I do)

e. Having the best foreign investment laws in the region?

For this kind of work, yes, I think so. The Board of Investment gives multiple ways to achieve typical investment goals, whether it's tax privileges or foreign ownership.

f. Having a clear policy for developing digital networks and improving them in the next ten years?

Again, it's not clear to me how network development affects a production environment. Nor does anybody plan 10 years out. The development of 3G here has been a sorry story, but certainly the Thais have plans.

[ferd54]

As usual, the Thaivisa naysayers are clueless. It's easy to get BOI privileges to either be 100% foreign owned or to have tax breaks for anything to do with digital content production. Thailand is a much better choice than China for this kind of work: lower wages; laws on IP protection; faster Internet (yes really); skilled resources; and skilled foreigners here too, so can build a fusion workforce.

All that could be true, but do the powers that be have the diligence and persistence to establish the environment needed for such an industry -- or dare I say 'hub" -- over the long haul? When will the bickering and attempts to carve up any potential gains begin? Just look at the internet "backbone" in Thailand and that is a good graphic on the nation's poor abilities in consistent, long-term effort. It's spaghetti.

[CDB]

Internet is an infrastructure issue -- why would that issue be conflated with Thailand's ability to build industries that utilize its labor force?

Thailand typically gets there in the end with infrastructure, as it did with the BTS, airports, expressways and so on. It might be slower than other countries but there is no reason to believe that it's a long-term issue.

But anyway the internet is just a delivery method in digital content production. Saying that we can judge Thailand's prospects for success in digital content by its Internet is akin to saying that electronics factories won't work in Thailand because the roads aren't good enough!

Thailand has a long record of attracting industries that utilize its lower cost workforce, whether it's textiles, electronics, movie production and so on. And as with other developing economies the trend over time is to move to more highly skilled industries as labor costs rise. Digital content is a suitable area because the skills needed are not very high end; nor do they require leadership or research.

[ferd54]

Thailand typically gets there in the end with infrastructure, as it did with the BTS, airports, expressways and so on. It might be slower than other countries but there is no reason to believe that it's a long-term issue.

I'm talking about creating an overall environment to be world-class. The combined length of BKK's skytrain and subway is simply puny for a city that size, and it took them forever to do it. Thaksin ram-rodded a lot of what exists through, as he did to finally finish the new airport. And look where he is today. Bandwidth might not be that important, but the supporting policies to do anything like this must be there -- and remain there.

Incidentally, people keep saying China's internet speed is slower than Thailand. Simply not true. I live in Beijing and have a 1 mb connection at home and gawd knows how much at work. Even with the Great Firewall, speeds are fine.

[bangon04]

Thailand to become a hub, didn't they have something about this for the so called airport hub to and other various hubs to. As easy as it ease to poke fun and many areas I simply won't. I do know of a few thai's that are highly educated, have gone abroad to work and for school and if they come back here most are picked up by foreign companies. Thailand will never catch up in many areas due to:

High Levels of corruption

Due to corruption everything else suffers, poor infrastructure, poor quality education system, safety etc the list goes on and on.

Besides the corruption you have a seriously uneffective government unable to make any real necessary changes.

Oh well TIT = This is Thailand

So there we have it - the perfect answer - Thailand is already the HUB of sending your children abroad to get a decent education and a chance of a successfu life..... Led from the top down (as usual).