The power of "Inception"

Having mentioned with my friends (including my girlfriend) about the powerful messages conveyed by 'Inception' (the latest work of Leonardo DiCaprio) these few days, I think that it is worthwhile for me to record my thoughts in this blog. At least this can be the music that awakens me from a seemingly inescapable Dreamland some point in future, no matter how fallaciously beautiful it is.

After the classical 'Dark Knight', Christopher Nolan has another chance to showcase his talent in sending powerful messages to the audience in 'Inception'. In 'Dark Knight' Nolan explores the definition of Evil to a very great extent, to which Batman ends up a Dark Knight, who understands fully the real meaning of Evil after a tough lesson. Nolan tried to tell us one simple fact: Extreme Evil has no reason for its existence. It simply exists. And that is the most horrible part of Evil itself. So, how about 'Inception'?

Idea. Extracting an idea from someone's subconscious mind in dream can be as simple as crushing a peanut for Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the movie. But doing the reverse- implanting an idea in some other's mind is a near-impossible task. It is true, in the sense that stealing someone's dream by discouraging him is easy, but implanting an idea to make him better is a much harder task.

Then here comes the next message. After an idea, no matter how hard it is, is indeed implanted in someone's mind, it can spread easily like virus. Indeed, when a person understands an idea and he believes in it, that is going change his life for sure, regardless of the degree of change. The idea would spread throughout his mind, empowering him to act based on the idea. That is the power of idea.

Another phenomenon brilliantly brought in by Nolan is that, one of the ways to make a person wake up from an artificial dream built by Cobb's specialist team is to make the person fall down suddenly in the dream. I prefer to label it as the 'Sudden Downfall Effect'. That's true in real life as well. There is no other method which is better than a sudden downfall, to awaken somebody from the world of fallacy that he has been living in all the while. A sudden downfall is the greatest enemy to numbness in life. A nightmare in life turns out to be good in this sense. And I think, all of us need that kind of downfall, once in a while.

The most surprising scene comes at the end of the movie, in which Cobb spins the top on the table to see if this is real or another dream. It is still spinning though seemingly about to topple before the screen goes black. I shouted. Then I got the point.

This is just a movie. The whole plot is merely an artificial dream. Brilliant.

10 Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs

Running a one-person business is a creative, flexible and challenging way to become your own boss and chart your own future. It is about creating a life, as it is about making a living. It takes courage, determination and foresight to decide to become an entrepreneur. From the relatively safe cocoon of the corporate world, where paychecks arrive regularly, you will be venturing into the unchartered territories of business.


Is there a way to determine whether you can be a successful entrepreneur, or you are better off to work for somebody else? Alas, there is no formula for success. However, most successful entrepreneurs share these ten characteristics. Check if you possess any one of them:



1. Think success. To attain the kind of success that you want, you need to dream big. Every success story starts with big dreams. You need to have big dreams for yourself - which you want to be somebody rich, famous or fulfilled. You need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. But it doesn't stop in dreaming alone. You should actively visualize success in your mind that you can almost feel it, touch it or it is within your reach. Play this image back at every opportunity. What does it feel to triple your current income? How will your life change? What will your business look like if you achieved the million-dollar mark?
Successful entrepreneurs possess an attitude of openness and faith that you can have what you want if you can simply envision it as the first step on the path of action to acquiring it. Management gurus have taught us the power of visualization - seeing yourself in your mind as having accomplished your dreams. If you want to be a successful writer, envision yourself signing books for a throng of people who have lined up to have your autograph. If you want to be rich, picture yourself in luxurious surroundings holding a fat bank account. And the process of envisioning success for you should be a constant activity! You need to think that you are successful (or will be one) every single waking hour. A personal development coach shared me her secret to help her continuously visualize her goals for the moment: when climbing stairs, recite your goal with every step you take. So if you want more money, say "I will have money" in every step of the stairs. This technique will reinforce your goal and keep it fresh in your consciousness.


2. Be passionate with what you do. You start a business to change any or all part of your life. To attain this change, you need to develop or uncover an intense, personal passion to change the way things are and to live life to the fullest. Success comes easily if you love what you do. Why? Because we are more relentless in our pursuit of goals about things that we love. If you hate your job right now, do you think you will ever be successful at it? Not in a million years! You may plod along, even become competent at the tasks, but you will never be a great success at it. You will achieve peak performance and do what you have to do to succeed only if you are doing something that interests you or something that you care about. Entrepreneurs who succeed do not mind the fact that they are putting in 15 or 18 hours a day to their business because they absolutely love what they do. Success in business is all about patience and hard work, which can only be attained if you are passionate and crazy with your tasks and activities.


3. Focus on your strengths. Let's face it; you cannot be everything to everybody. Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses. To be effective, you need to identify your strengths and concentrate on it. You will become more successful if you are able to channel your efforts to areas that you do best. In business, for example, if you know you have good marketing instincts, then harness this strength and make full use of it. Seek help or assistance in areas that you may be poor at, such as accounting or bookkeeping. To transform your weakness to strength, consider taking hands-on learning or formal training.


4. Never consider the possibility of failure. Ayn Rand, in her novel The Fountainhead, wrote, "It is not in the nature of man - nor of any living entity, to start out by giving up." As an entrepreneur, you need to fully believe in your goals, and that you can do it. Think that what you are doing will contribute to the betterment of your environment and your personal self. You should have a strong faith in your idea, your capabilities and yourself. You must believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have the ability to recognize and fulfill them. The more you can develop faith in your ability to achieve your goals, the more rapidly you can attain it. However, your confidence should be balanced with calculated risks that you need to take to achieve greater rewards. Successful entrepreneurs are those who analyze and minimize risk in the pursuit of profit. As they always say, "no guts, no glory."


5. Plan accordingly. You have a vision, and you have enough faith in yourself to believe that you can achieve your vision. But do you know how to get to your vision? To achieve your vision, you need to have concrete goals that will provide the stepping-stone towards your ultimate vision. Put your goals in writing; not doing so just makes them as intangible fantasies. You need to plan each day in such a way that your every action contributes to the attainment of your vision. Do you foresee yourself as the next Martha Stewart of hand-made home furnishings? Perhaps today, you need to see an artist to help you conceptualize the new line of hand-made linens that you hope to launch. Intense goal orientation is the characteristic of every successful entrepreneur. They have a vision, and they know how to get there. Your ability to set goals and make plans for your accomplishment is the skill required to succeed. Plan, plan and plan - because without which failure is guaranteed.


6. Work hard! Every successful entrepreneur works hard, hard and hard. No one achieves success just by sitting and staring at the wall every single day. Brian Tracy puts it out this way, "You work eight hours per day for survival; everything over eight hours per day is for success." Ask any successful businessperson and they will tell you immediately that they had to work more than 60 hours per week at the start of their businesses. Be prepared to say goodbye to after-office drinks every day, or a regular weekend get-away trip. If you are in a start-up phase, you will have to breathe, eat and drink your business until it can stand on its own. Working hard will be easy if you have a vision, clear goals, and are passionate with what you do.


7. Constantly Look for Ways to Network. In business, you are judged by the company you keep - from your management team, board of directors, and strategic partners. Businesses always need assistance, more so small businesses. Maybe the lady you met in a trade association meeting can help you secure funding, or the gentleman at a conference can provide you with management advise. It is important to form alliances with people who can help you, and whom you can help in return. To succeed in business, you need to possess good networking skills and always be alert to opportunities to expand your contacts.


8. Willingness to Learn. You do not need to be a MBA degree holder or PhD graduate to succeed in your own business. In fact, there are a lot of entrepreneurs who did not even finish secondary education. Studies show that most self-made millionaires have average intelligence. Nonetheless, these people reached their full potentials achieved their financial and personal goals in business because they are willing to learn. To succeed, you must be willing to ask questions, remain curious, interested and open to new knowledge. This willingness to learn becomes more crucial given the rapid changes in technologies and ways of doing business.


9. Persevere and have faith. No one said that the road to success is easy. Despite your good intentions and hard work, sometimes you will fail. Some successful entrepreneurs suffered setbacks and resounding defeats, even bankruptcy, yet managed to quickly stand up to make it big in their fields. Your courage to persist in the face of adversity and ability to bounce back after a temporary disappointment will assure your success. You must learn to pick yourself up and start all over again. Your persistence is the measure of the belief in yourself. Remember, if you persevere, nothing can stop you.


10. Discipline yourself. Thomas Huxley once said, "Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you like it or not." Self-discipline is the key to success. The strength of will to force yourself to pay the price of success - doing what others don't like to do, going the extra mile, fighting and winning the lonely battle with yourself.


*this article is quoted from http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol19/secrets.htm

Apple Passes Microsoft as No. 1 in Tech

SAN FRANCISCO — Wall Street has called the end of an era and the beginning of the next one: The most important technology product no longer sits on your desk but rather fits in your hand.

The moment came Wednesday whenApple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.

This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history for Apple, which had been given up for dead only a decade earlier, and its co-founder and visionary chief executive,Steven P. Jobs. The rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds an important cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.

Microsoft, with its Windows and Office software franchises, has dominated the relationship most people had with their computers for almost two decades, and that was reflected in its stock market capitalization. But the click-clack of the keyboard has ceded ground to the swipe of a finger across a smartphone’s touch screen.

And Apple is in the right place at the right time. Although it still sells computers, twice as much revenue is coming from hand-held devices and music. Over all, the technology industry sold about 172 million smartphones last year, compared with 306 million PCs, but smartphone sales grew at a pace five times faster.

Microsoft depends more on maintaining the status quo, while Apple is in a constant battle to one-up itself and create something new, said Peter A. Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook. “Apple is a bet on technology,” he said. “And Apple beating Microsoft is a very significant thing.”

As of Wednesday, Wall Street valued Apple at $222.12 billion and Microsoft at $219.18 billion. The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $278.64 billion.

The companies have comparable revenue, with Microsoft at $58.4 billion and Apple at $42.9 billion. But in their most recent fiscal years, Apple had net income of $5.7 billion, while Microsoft earned $14.6 billion.

Microsoft has more cash and short-term investments, $39.7 billion, to Apple’s $23.1 billion, which makes the value assigned by the market to Apple, essentially a bet on its future prospects, all the more remarkable.

Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, shrugged off the shift Thursday morning. "No technology company on the planet is more profitable than we are," he said in New Delhi, where he had come to tout Microsoft’s cloud computing plans.

"On any given day, the stock market is a voting machine,’’ he said, and only ‘‘in the long run is it a weighing machine."

Apple declined to comment.

Apple’s climb to the top of the heap cements the reputation of Mr. Jobs, who once operated in the shadow of Microsoft’s co-founder, Bill Gates.

“It is the single most important turnaround that I have seen in Silicon Valley,” said Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist who has invested in some of the most successful technology companies.

While Apple is at the top of its game, it faces a new and powerful rival in Google, which is battling Apple in mobile devices with its Android operating system, and mobile advertising.

Google, with a market cap of $151.43 billion, also appeared to leap ahead of Apple in a new potentially important area, Internet-connected televisions. And Google is steering consumers toward yet a new model of computing in which Internet applications, rather than iPhone or desktop applications, rule.

“The battle has shifted from Microsoft against Apple to Apple against Google,” said Tim Bajarin, a technology analyst who has been following Apple since 1981. “Apple has a significant lead. But Google is going to be a powerful competitor.”

Apple and Microsoft initiated the personal computing revolution in the late 1970s, but Microsoft quickly outflanked Apple and grew to be one of the most profitable businesses ever created.

A little more than a decade ago, Apple, which had pushed out Mr. Jobs in 1985, was widely believed to be on the path to extinction.

Michael S. Dell, the founder and chief executive of Dell computer, went so far as to suggest that Apple should shut down and return any money to shareholders. (The computer maker is now worth about a tenth of Apple.) Around the same time, Microsoft’s chief technology officer called Apple “already dead.”

But with the return of Mr. Jobs to Apple in 1996 — and an investment by Microsoft of $150 million — the company began a slow path to recovery. Apple’s rebirth began in earnest with the introduction of the iPod music players, and Mr. Jobs began to gain a reputation for anticipating what consumers want. The company elbowed aside Sony and came to dominate the music distribution business with the iTunes online music store.

It later upstaged Nokia, the dominant brand in mobile phones, by introducing the iPhone in 2007. And this year, Mr. Jobs shook things up again, with the introduction of the iPad, a tablet computer that has the potential to create a new category of computers and once again reshape the way people interact with their devices.

Mr. Jobs helped create “the best desktop computer, the best portable music device, the best smartphone and also now the best tablet,” said Steve Perlman, a serial entrepreneur who was an executive at both Apple and Microsoft and is now the chief executive of OnLive, an online gaming company.

As Apple grew increasingly nimble and innovative, Microsoft has struggled to build desirable updates to its main products and to create large new businesses in areas like game consoles, music players, phones and Internet search. Microsoft, which is a component stock of the Dow Jones industrial average, has lost half its value since 2000.

Mr. Ballmer said Thursday that while Microsoft has “some very good competitors,” the company is a very good competitor itself. Yet Mr. Ballmer seemed to concede that Microsoft needs improvement in some areas.

“Windows phone – boom! We have to deliver devices with our partners this Christmas,” he said. Feedback so far has been good, he said, but the company still has “a lot of work to do.”

Still, Microsoft is a hugely powerful and profitable company in the tech world. Its Windows software runs 9 out of every 10 computers, while more than 500 million people use its Office software to perform their daily tasks, like writing letters or sending e-mail messages. These two franchises account for the bulk of Microsoft’s annual revenue.

But Apple has the momentum. “Steve saw way early on, and way before Microsoft, that hardware and software needed to be married into something that did not require effort from the user,” said Scott G. McNealy, the co-founder and longtime chief executive of SunMicrosystems.

“Apple’s products are shrink-wrapped and ready to go.”

Heather Timmons in New Delhi contributed reporting.

(link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/technology/27apple.html)

Advice from Sales Experts

I think the principle is universal and not only applicable in the field of marketing and sales.

F ollow
O ne
C ourse
U ntil
S uccessful

P ersonal
R esponsibility
I n
D aily
E ffort

R esult
P urpose
M ass action

Simple yet empowering words. Notice the initial alphabet of each word? They form the words FOLLOW, PRIDE and RPM respectively. Though RPM sounds lame to me :P (coz it sounds like the Malaysian government-controlled TV station RTM!)

Becoming an Entrepreneur

Becoming an entrepreneur requires lots of daring qualities. Among them are intelligence; being a risk-taker: a thirst for knowledge; a spirit for innovating; an ability to juggle; and many other variables.

However, if you have the above energy and survival instincts, you’re likely cut out to win in the business game. If you don’t, you need not sign up for entrepreneurship. That’s because these are characteristics you can’t even learn in the best of business schools. Really, you’re either born with the DNA for becoming an entrepreneur or you’re not.

If you’re still up for the task – unafraid and want to know more – you’re definitely on the road to success. To make your journey rewarding and realize a sense of accomplishment, here are a few of the essentials you’ll need to bring a good supply of for the trip.

• Becoming an entrepreneur requires applying your skills and time against only that for which you’re passionate. Oprah Winfrey and other successful entrepreneurs all say this is the secret to success: Do what you love. This means, identify the one niche, field or hobby with the power to disrupt your comfy love life; grab it with both hands and make it come alive! Doing only what you’re passionate about creates the natural determination that’s crucial to make your business a success.
• Becoming an entrepreneur requires knowledge. Don’t jump head first into something you have little knowledge about. Before you start your business, research all there is to know about your niche, the customers’ needs, and the competition. This will help you stay ahead of the market, operate profitably, and make a name of yourself – all of which help your business grow faster.
• Becoming an entrepreneur requires creating a business plan. Research shows that half of all businesses fail because not enough initial planning was done. Before initiating your venture, spend quality time planning what you’ll be selling; what’s involved in producing top quality; how you’ll attract sufficient clientele; and who you’ll need to hire to help get it all done. Spend time planning the financing, inventory, production and marketing of your goods or services to avoid an unnecessary set back that may prove too discouraging.
• Becoming an entrepreneur requires getting to know your customers. One advantage that a new business owner has over large corporations is that they can provide the personal attention that customers prefer. Over 80 percent of all business should come from repeat customers, so it’s important to establish an ongoing relationship or contact with past customers, while working to attract new customers.
• Becoming an entrepreneur requires building a first-class team. More hands halve the work, so it’s important to have a team that’s just as dedicated to the overall success of your venture as you are. Be ever mindful that time is money, and your time is too valuable to be bogged down handling menial tasks. Get good help so your business can soar. The majority of your time should be spent on marketing and business development.
• Becoming an entrepreneur requires staying organized. Organization is a key component in any business, with a goal of creating efficiencies that boost effectiveness. Develop systems and routines that’ll help you and your team stay on track daily, weekly, monthly, and beyond. Strive to create a consistent system in every function area of your business. For example, use the same, reliable suppliers; hold team meetings the same day and time each week; and ensure the work flow follows one, smart production process. Finding a steady rhythm for your business makes 90% of the work become second-nature.

(link: http://www.inspireroad.com/becoming-an-entrepreneur)

A role model for Malaysian Judiciary- Lord Bingham of Cornhill

Recently I came across a judgment from Lord Bingham of Cornhill, and felt curious about His Lordship's background. Hence the finding as below:


Lord Bingham of Cornhill
There was never any real contest for the No 1 slot. Tom Bingham, 74, is regarded as the pre-eminent lawyer of his generation with a brilliant, incisive mind. On top of that, he has held the three posts of Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice and now senior law lord (retiring this year) each with consummate skill. Not for nothing was he made a Knight of the Garter in 2005 — the first judge to be granted the honour. As senior law lord, his influence is far-reaching, both in rulings and over decisions such as who will be his successor — Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers. Key judgments over which he presided include the ruling in the Belmarsh case: the law lords held that it was unlawful, and a breach of human rights, to detain foreign terrorist suspects without charge; another was the ruling that evidence against terror suspects obtained by torture was inadmissible. He went to Sedbergh School and Balliol College, Oxford, reading modern history (an unsuccessful bid in 2003 to be Chancellor at Oxford is his only known setback); then entered the Bar, joining the commercial set Fountain Court Chambers. He was a QC by 1972, appointed a High Court judge in 1980 and promoted to the Court of Appeal in 1986. In 1992 he became Master of the Rolls. His appointment (the choice of Lord Mackay of Clashfern) to be Lord Chief Justice in 1996 was unexpected and caused a stir because of his lack of criminal background but his abilities quickly won over any critics. He became senior law lord in 2000. He favoured incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law (the Human Rights Act 1998) and also divorcing the judicial branch of the House of Lords from Parliament, to create a separate supreme court — he admits to being “very sorry” that he will not be there to take the law lords into that court in the autumn of 2009.
(quoted from UK TimesOnline)


My opinion
Why I label His Lordship as a role model for Malaysian Judiciary? The answer is simply obvious by looking at his instrumental role in separating the Judiciary from the House of Lords (one of the twin pillars of Parliament of England, another House is the House of Commons), which had been a centuries-old constitutional tradition. In short, the bizarre label of 'Judicial Committee of House of Lords' was gone officially in July 2009, and the new Supreme Court totally separated from the House of Lords is born. Any figure in the forefront of supporting Separation of Powers is highly commendable. Status quo of law can never be a road block to a real jurist or judge to realize his aspirations of Rule of Law. Is there any such comparable figure in Malaysia after the then Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram left the highest court of the land? It remains to be seen. As an earnest law student, I will observe the trend of the judicial attitude with an open heart, as I still believe that constitutional democracy and rule of law are still alive in the heart of most Malaysians. Judges' wisdom is needed more than ever in Malaysian history, because politically speaking, a counter-balancing two-party system is gradually moulding up a new climate in terms of political democracy. What we are still lacking of is probably a full bench of independent judicial great minds who are wise in both legal knowledge and world view, yet not insensitive to local issues. Regrettably, one of the great minds has retired. My Lordships in the Judiciary, buck up! Prove to us that Malaysia is really Boleh, please!

A bubble that we really can't foresee

Budget deficit is what most countries face currently, which range from the superior US to our homeland Malaysia. It is one of the factors that triggers the bankruptcy crisis at the doorstep of Greece as well. One point to add on, China is the largest creditor to US, while US remains as the superior power which fall may break the healthy life cycle of the global economy. For more than 10 years, China has been able to maintain its high growth rate quite consistently, and its reserve fund is one of the largest in the world which may be the last straw that it needs to rely on when its economy is at the brink of busting off.

What would happen when Chinese falls, and US can't sell its debt to it anymore? Looking at the current overheating Chinese economy and the extravaganza World Expo at Shang Hai, is there any potent risk that gonna trigger the next imbalance of the global economy? Can a country without democracy be able to sustain its growth?No matter how benevolent or wise the leadership is, a big crook on the top would be capable of screwing up the country, and perhaps the world order. When the unpredictable crisis happens, what is going to happen to Malaysia? Can the so-called New Economy Model contain the future risks of a more far-reaching global economic crisis?

As a tiny country of which survival can't rely solely on domestic consumption, who can we depend on?

But one thing can be quite sure. Prepare a back-up fund for ourselves, because our country may not have time to take care of us the commoners on the street, when the critical time comes. That's how the capitalist system works: save the capitalists, then the world can be secure. But secure for who? For corrupted politicians and capitalists?

I'm not an economist, so I may not be able to re-engineer the status quo. But I remain skeptical of whether economists are willing or able to do so too, because that's where they can earn from- analysis of the CURRENT economy. LOL

Rethinking legal profession

Globalization Era, Cyber Age, Virtual World, Information Century. All these modern jargons can barely fit in the shoes of a lawyer. There was an author in US who said that the new economy leveraged on the basis of Google economy is still far beyond and an exception to the life of two kinds of people ie. lawyers and PR people. To them, a piece of information is a privilege, and thus it can never be commoditized or virtualized, as it is going to strike at the cornerstone of their survival. Confidentiality of information is regarded as their strength. How late this kind of mentality gonna end remains to be seen. In short, majority of them would scoff off any idea of having a Google-kind of legal services industry.

The time has come for a fundamental change in practice and methodology of practising law. But neither do I agree whole-heartedly with the concept of commoditization of every thing in this world. No formula is a failure-proof formula. Let's look at Apple, which is a fundamentally different business idealist in contrary to Google-like business. Premium-based business still rules.

What about legal services?

燕雀安知鸿鹄之志哉

学度势
修经济
观时政
念法律

专攻未来学
旁修新科技

关心家人
深爱情人
在乎朋友

A virtual world in in a visual world

Technology is the game changer in all facets of life throughout the history of human race. The evolution of agricultural technology from the Stone Age to Copper Age and from Copper Age to Iron Age; the evolution of industrial technology from manually operated machinery to automation; the evolution of communication technology from wire to wireless; last but not least, the evolution of information technology from a visual environment to a virtual world. All these fundamental changes in the technological context influence human behaviors so profoundly that speedier paradigm shift in terms of political democratization and economic prosperity, which in return facilitates the continuous development of technology and vice versa, has become the norm.


A virtual world is within the reach of human beings. Interaction, communication, facilitation, management and organization of a business would become virtually vertical, meaning that most individuals' chances and spaces to maximize his or her intellectual and practical ability are getting higher and broader. Explosion of inherent potential and talent within the people will be the keystone to break the already blurred distinction between employers and employees. Everybody is the boss on his own within the organization, as well as being the co-worker to each other. A real knowledge-based economy will be a reality followed by the forthcoming virtual world. 


Business-to-business, business-to-government, business-to-customers, and business-to-employees relationships will all boil down to a similar mode of direct, efficient and transparent interactions. Geographical, racial and religious borders would become so insignificant in the context of communication. Bureaucracy in social, political or commercial organizations will become leaner and more efficient, as both the decision-making and decision-implementation process are cut shorter than ever. In short, the visual world would become flatter and smaller in a virtual world.


The Age of Information, the Age of Digitization, the Age of Cloud Computing or whatever you want to call it, has come to our doorstep. To open the door or not, is definitely your choice.

A whole new business structure in consumer electronic products

March 21, 2005
Outsourcing Innovation 
First came manufacturing. Now companies are farming out R&D to cut costs and get new products to market faster. Are they going too far? 

As the Mediterranean sun bathed the festive cafés and shops of the Côte d'Azur town of Cannes, banners with the logos of Motorola (MOT ), Royal Philips Electronics (PHG ), palmOne (PLMO ), and Samsung fluttered from the masts of plush yachts moored in the harbor. On board, top execs hosted nonstop sales meetings during the day and champagne dinners at night to push their latest wireless gadgets. Outside the city's convention hall, carnival barkers, clowns on stilts, and vivacious models with bright red wigs lured passersby into flashy exhibits. For anyone in the telecom industry wanting to shout their achievements to the world, there was no more glamorous spot than the sprawling 3GSM World Congress in Southern France in February.

Yet many of the most intriguing product launches in Cannes took place far from the limelight. HTC Corp., a red-hot developer of multimedia handsets, didn't even have its own booth. Instead, the Taiwanese company showed off its latest wireless devices alongside partners that sell HTC's models under their own brand names. Flextronics Corp. demonstrated several concept phones exclusively behind closed doors. And Cellon International rented a discrete three-room apartment across from the convention center to unveil its new devices to a steady stream of telecom executives. The new offerings included the C8000, featuring eye-popping software. Cradle the device to your ear and it goes into telephone mode. Peer through the viewfinder and it automatically shifts into camera mode. Hold the end of the device to your eye and it morphs into a videocam.

HTC? Flextronics? Cellon? There's a good reason these are hardly household names. The multimedia devices produced from their prototypes will end up on retail shelves under the brands of companies that don't want you to know who designs their products. Yet these and other little-known companies, with names such as Quanta Computer, Premier Imaging, Wipro Technologies (WIT ), and Compal Electronics, are fast emerging as hidden powers of the technology industry.

They are the vanguard of the next step in outsourcing -- of innovation itself. When Western corporations began selling their factories and farming out manufacturing in the '80s and '90s to boost efficiency and focus their energies, most insisted all the important research and development would remain in-house.

But that pledge is now passé. Today, the likes of Dell (DELL ), Motorola, (MOT ) and Philips are buying complete designs of some digital devices from Asian developers, tweaking them to their own specifications, and slapping on their own brand names. It's not just cell phones. Asian contract manufacturers and independent design houses have become forces in nearly every tech device, from laptops and high-definition TVs to MP3 music players and digital cameras. "Customers used to participate in design two or three years back," says Jack Hsieh, vice-president for finance at Taiwan's Premier Imaging Technology Corp., a major supplier of digital cameras to leading U.S. and Japanese brands. "But starting last year, many just take our product. Because of price competition, they have to."

While the electronics sector is furthest down this road, the search for offshore help with innovation is spreading to nearly every corner of the economy. On Feb. 8, Boeing Co. (BA ) said it is working with India's HCL Technologies to co-develop software for everything from the navigation systems and landing gear to the cockpit controls for its upcoming 7E7 Dreamliner jet. Pharmaceutical giants such as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK ) and Eli Lilly (LLY )are teaming up with Asian biotech research companies in a bid to cut the average $500 million cost of bringing a new drug to market. And Procter & Gamble Co. (PG ) says it wants half of its new product ideas to be generated from outside by 2010, compared with 20% now.

Competitive Dangers
Underlying this trend is a growing consensus that more innovation is vital -- but that current R&D spending isn't yielding enough bang for the buck. After spending years squeezing costs out of the factory floor, back office, and warehouse, CEOs are asking tough questions about their once-cloistered R&D operations: Why are so few hit products making it out of the labs into the market? How many of those pricey engineers are really creating game-changing products or technology breakthroughs? "R&D is the biggest single remaining controllable expense to work on," says Allen J. Delattre, head of Accenture Ltd.'s (ACN ) high-tech consulting practice. "Companies either will have to cut costs or increase R&D productivity."

The result is a rethinking of the structure of the modern corporation. What, specifically, has to be done in-house anymore? At a minimum, most leading Western companies are turning toward a new model of innovation, one that employs global networks of partners. These can include U.S. chipmakers, Taiwanese engineers, Indian software developers, and Chinese factories. IBM (IBM ) is even offering the smarts of its famed research labs and a new global team of 1,200 engineers to help customers develop future products using next-generation technologies. When the whole chain works in sync, there can be a dramatic leap in the speed and efficiency of product development.

The downside of getting the balance wrong, however, can be steep. Start with the danger of fostering new competitors. Motorola hired Taiwan's BenQ Corp. to design and manufacture millions of mobile phones. But then BenQ began selling phones last year in the prized China market under its own brand. That prompted Motorola to pull its contract. Another risk is that brand-name companies will lose the incentive to keep investing in new technology. "It is a slippery slope," says Boston Consulting Group Senior Vice-President Jim Andrew. "If the innovation starts residing in the suppliers, you could incrementalize yourself to the point where there isn't much left."

Such perceptions are a big reason even companies that outsource heavily refuse to discuss what hardware designs they buy from whom and impose strict confidentiality on suppliers. "It is still taboo to talk openly about outsourced design," says Forrester Research Inc. (FORR ) consultant Navi Radjou, an expert on corporate innovation.

The concerns also explain why different companies are adopting widely varying approaches to this new paradigm. Dell, for example, does little of its own design for notebook PCs, digital TVs, or other products. Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ ) says it contributes key technology and at least some design input to all its products but relies on outside partners to co-develop everything from servers to printers. Motorola buys complete designs for its cheapest phones but controls all of the development of high-end handsets like its hot-selling Razr. The key, execs say, is to guard some sustainable competitive advantage, whether it's control over the latest technologies, the look and feel of new products, or the customer relationship. "You have to draw a line," says Motorola CEO Edward J. Zander. At Motorola, "core intellectual property is above it, and commodity technology is below."

Wherever companies draw the line, there's no question that the demarcation between mission-critical R&D and commodity work is sliding year by year. The implications for the global economy are immense. Countries such as India and China, where wages remain low and new engineering graduates are abundant, likely will continue to be the biggest gainers in tech employment and become increasingly important suppliers of intellectual property. Some analysts even see a new global division of labor emerging: The rich West will focus on the highest levels of product creation, and all the jobs of turning concepts into actual products or services can be shipped out. Consultant Daniel H. Pink, author of the new book A Whole New Mind, argues that the "left brain" intellectual tasks that "are routine, computer-like, and can be boiled down to a spec sheet are migrating to where it is cheaper, thanks to Asia's rising economies and the miracle of cyberspace." The U.S. will remain strong in "right brain" work that entails "artistry, creativity, and empathy with the customer that requires being physically close to the market."

You can see this great divide already taking shape in global electronics. The process started in the 1990s when Taiwan emerged as the capital of PC design, largely because the critical technology was standardized, on Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) operating system software and Intel Corp.'s (INTC ) microprocessor. Today, Taiwanese "original-design manufacturers" (ODMS), so named because they both design and assemble products for others, supply some 65% of the world's notebook PCs. Quanta Computer Inc. alone expects to churn out 16 million notebook PCs this year in 50 different models for buyers that include Dell, Apple Computer (AAPL ), and Sony (SNE ).

Now, Taiwanese ODMs and other outside designers are forces in nearly every digital device on the market. Of the 700 million mobile phones expected to be sold worldwide this year, up to 20% will be the work of ODMs, estimates senior analyst Adam Pick of the El Segundo (Calif.) market research firm iSuppli Corp. About 30% of digital cameras are produced by ODMs, 65% of MP3 players, and roughly 70% of personal digital assistants (PDAs). Building on their experience with PCs, they're increasingly creating recipes for their own gizmos, blending the latest advances in custom chips, specialized software, and state-of-the-art digital components. "There is a lot of great capability that has grown in Asia to develop complete products," says Doug Rasor, worldwide strategic marketing manager at chipmaker Texas Instruments Inc. TI often supplies core chips, along with rudimentary designs, and the ODMs take it from there. "They can do the system integration, the plastics, the industrial design, and the low-cost manufacturing, and they are happy to put Dell's name on it. That is a megatrend in the industry," says Rasor.

Taiwan's ODMs clearly don't regard themselves as mere job shops. Just ask the top brass at HTC, which creates and manufactures smart phones for such wireless service providers as Vodafone and Cingular as well as equipment makers it doesn't identify. "We know this kind of product category a lot better than our customers do," says HTC President Peter Chou. "We have the capability to integrate all the latest technologies. We do everything except the Microsoft operating system."

Or stop in to Quanta's headquarters in the Huaya Technology Park outside Taipei. Workers are finishing a dazzling structure the size of several football fields, with a series of wide steps leading past white columns supporting a towering Teflon-and-glass canopy. It will serve as Quanta's R&D headquarters, with thousands of engineers working on next-generation displays, digital home networking appliances, and multimedia players. This year, Quanta is doubling its engineering staff, to 7,000, and its R&D spending, to $200 million.

Why? To improve its shrinking profit margins -- and because foreign clients are demanding it. "What has changed is that more customers need us to design the whole product," says Chairman Barry Lam. For future products, in fact, "it's now difficult to get good ideas from our customers. We have to innovate ourselves."

Sweeping Overhaul
India is emerging as a heavyweight in design, too. The top players in making the country world-class in software development, including HCL and Wipro, are expected to help India boost its contract R&D revenues from $1 billion a year now to $8 billion in three years. One of Wipro's many labs is in a modest office off dusty, congested Hosur Road in Bangalore. There, 1,000 young engineers partitioned into brightly lit pods jammed with circuit boards, chips, and steel housings hunch over 26 development projects. Among them is a hands-free telephone system that attaches to the visor of a European sports car. At another pod, designers tinker with a full dashboard embedded with a satellite navigation system. Inside other Wipro labs in Bangalore, engineers are designing prototypes for everything from high-definition TVs to satellite set-top boxes.

Perhaps the most ambitious new entrant in design is Flextronics. The manufacturing behemoth already builds networking gear, printers, game consoles, and other hardware for the likes of Nortel Networks (NT ), Xerox (XRX ), HP, Motorola, and Casio Computer. But three years ago, it started losing big cell-phone and PDA orders to Taiwanese ODMs. Since then, CEO Michael E. Marks has shelled out more than $800 million on acquisitions to build a 7,000-engineer force of software, chip, telecom, and mechanical designers scattered from India and Singapore to France and Ukraine. Marks's splashiest move was to pay an estimated $30 million for frog design Inc., the pioneering Sunnyvale (Calif.) firm that helped design such Information Age icons as Apple Computer Inc.'s original Mac in 1984. So far, Flextronics has developed its own basic platforms for cell phones, routers, digital cameras, and imaging devices. His goal is to make Flextronics a low-cost, soup-to-nuts developer of consumer-electronics and tech gear.

Marks has an especially radical take on where all this is headed: He believes Western tech conglomerates are on the cusp of a sweeping overhaul of R&D that will rival the offshore shift of manufacturing. In the 1990s, companies like Flextronics "completely restructured the world's electronics manufacturing," says Marks. "Now we will completely restructure design." When you get down to it, he argues, some 80% of engineers in product development do tasks that can easily be outsourced -- like translating prototypes into workable designs, upgrading mature products, testing quality, writing user manuals, and qualifying parts vendors. What's more, most of the core technologies in today's digital gadgets are available to anyone. And circuit boards for everything from cameras to network switches are becoming simpler because more functions are embedded on semiconductors. The "really hard technology work" is migrating to chipmakers such as Texas Instruments, Qualcomm (QCOM ), Philips, Intel, and Broadcom (BRCM ), Marks says. "All electronics are on the same trajectory of becoming silicon surrounded by plastic."

Why then, Marks asks, should Nokia (NOK ), Motorola, Sony-Ericsson, Alcatel (ALA ), Siemens (SI ), Samsung, and other brand-name companies all largely duplicate one another's efforts? Why should each spend $30 million to develop a new smartphone or $200 million on a cellular base station when they can just buy the hardware designs? The ultimate result, he says: Some electronics giants will shrink their R&D forces from several thousand to a few hundred, concentrating on proprietary architecture, setting key specifications, and managing global R&D teams. "There is no doubt the product companies are going to have fewer people design stuff," Marks predicts. "It's going to get ugly."

Granted, Marks's vision is more than a tad extreme. True, despite the tech recovery, many corporate R&D budgets have been tightening. HP's R&D spending long hovered around 6% of sales, but it's down to 4.4% now. Cisco Systems' (CSCO ) R&D budget has dropped from its old average of 17% to 14.5%. The numbers also are falling at Motorola, Lucent Technologies (LU ), and Ericsson. In November, Nokia Corp. said it aims to trim R&D spending from 12.8% of sales in 2004 to under 10% by the end of 2006.

Close to the Heart
Still, most companies insist they will continue to do most of the critical design work -- and have no plans to take a meat ax to R&D. A Motorola spokesman says it plans to keep R&D spending at around 10% for the long term. Lucent says its R&D staff should remain at about 9,000, after several years of deep cuts. And while many Western companies are downsizing at home, they are boosting hiring at their own labs in India, China, and Eastern Europe. "Companies realize if they want a sustainable competitive advantage, they will not get it from outsourcing," says President Frank M. Armbrecht of the Industrial Research Institute, which tracks corporate R&D spending.

Companies also worry about the message they send investors. Outsourcing manufacturing, tech support, and back-office work makes clear financial sense. But ownership of design strikes close to the heart of a corporation's intrinsic value. If a company depends on outsiders for design, investors might ask, how much intellectual property does it really own, and how much of the profit from a hit product flows back into its own coffers, rather than being paid out in licensing fees? That's one reason Apple Computer lets the world know it develops its hit products in-house, to the point of etching "Designed by Apple in California" on the back of each iPod.

Yet some outsourcing holdouts are changing their tune. Nokia long prided itself on developing almost everything itself -- to the point of designing its own chips. No longer. Given the complexities of today's technologies and supply chains, "nobody can master it all," says Chief Technology Officer Pertti Korhonen. "You have to figure out what is core and what is context." Lucent says outsourcing some development makes sense so that its engineers can concentrate on next-generation technologies. "This frees up talent to work on new product lines," says Dave Ayers, vice-president for platforms and engineering. "Outsourcing isn't about moving jobs. It's about the flexibility to put resources in the right places at the right time."

It's also about brutal economics and the relentless demands of consumers. To get shelf space at a Best Buy (BBY ) or Circuit City often means brand-name companies need a full range of models, from a $100 point-and-shoot digital camera with 2 megapixels, say, to a $700 8-megapixel model that doubles as a videocam and is equipped with a powerful zoom lens. On top of this, superheated competition can reduce hit products to cheap commodities within months. So they must get out the door fast to earn a decent margin. "Consumer electronics have become almost like produce," says Michael E. Fawkes, senior vice-president of HP's Imaging Products Div. "They always have to be fresh."

Such pressures explain outsourcing's growing allure. Take cell phones, which are becoming akin to fashion items. Using a predesigned platform can shave 70% of development costs off a new model, estimates William S. Wong, a senior vice-president for marketing at Cellon. That can be a huge savings. As a rule of thumb, it takes around $10 million and up to 150 engineers to develop a new cell phone from scratch. If Motorola or Nokia guess wrong about the market trends a year into the future, they can lose big. So they must develop several versions.

With most of its 800 engineers in China and France, Cellon creates several basic designs each year and spreads the costs among many buyers. It also has the technical expertise to morph that basic phone into a bewildering array of models. Want a 2-megapixel camera module instead of 1-megapixel? Want to include a music player, or change the style from a gray clamshell to a flaming-red candy-bar shape? No problem: Cellon engineers can whip up a prototype, run all the tests, and get it into mass production in a Chinese factory in months.

Moving Up the Food Chain
Companies are still figuring out exactly what to outsource. PalmOne Inc.'s collaboration with Taiwan's HTC on its popular Treo 650 smart phone illustrates one approach. Palm has long hired contractors to assemble hardware from its own industrial designs. But in 2001, it decided to focus on software and shifted hardware production to Taiwanese ODMs. PalmOne designers still determine the look and feel of the product, pick key components like the display and core chips, and specify performance requirements. But HTC does much of the mechanical and electrical design. "Without a doubt, they've become a part of the innovation process," says Angel L. Mendez, senior global operations vice-president at palmOne. "It's less about outsourcing and more about the collaborative way in which design comes together." The result: PalmOne has cut months off of development times, reduced defects by 50%, and boosted gross margins by around 20%.

Hewlett-Packard, a company with such a proud history of innovation that its advertising tag line is simply "invent," also works with design partners on all the hardware it outsources. "Our strategy is now to work with global networks to leverage the best technologies on the planet," says Dick Conrad, HP's senior vice-president for global operations. According to iSuppli, HP is getting design help from Taiwan's Quanta and Hon Hai Precision for PCs, Lite-On for printers, Inventec for servers and MP3 players, and Altek for digital cameras. HP won't identify specific suppliers, but it says the strategy has brought benefits. Conrad says it now takes 60% less time to get a new concept to market. Plus, the company can "redeploy our assets and resources to higher value-added products" such as advanced printer inks and sophisticated corporate software, he says.

How far can outsourced design go? When does it get to the point where ODMs start driving truly breakthrough concepts and core technologies? It's not here yet. Distance is one barrier. "To be a successful product company requires intimacy with the customer," says Azim H. Premji, chairman of India's Wipro. "That is very hard to offshore in fast-changing markets." Another hurdle is that R&D spending by ODMs remains relatively low. Even though Premier develops most of its own cameras and video projectors, "the really core technology," such as the digital signal processors, is invented in the U.S., says vice-president Hsieh. Premier's latest wallet-size video projector, for example, was based on a rough design by Texas Instruments, developer of the core chip. With margins shrinking fast in the ODM business, however, Premier and other Taiwanese companies know they need to move up the innovation food chain to reap higher profits.

That's where Flextronics and its design acquisitions could get interesting. Inside frog's hip Sunnyvale office, designers are working to create a radically new multimedia device, for an unnamed corporate client, that won't hit the market until 2007. The plan, says Patricia Roller, frog's co-CEO, is to use Flextronics software engineers in Ukraine or India to develop innovative applications, and for Flextronics engineers to design the working prototype. Flextronics then would mass-produce the gadgets, probably in China.

Who will ultimately profit most from the outsourcing of innovation isn't clear. The early evidence suggests that today's Western titans can remain leaders by orchestrating global innovation networks. Yet if they lose their technology edge and their touch with customers, they could be tomorrow's great shrinking conglomerates. Contractors like Quanta and Flextronics that are moving up the innovation ladder, meanwhile, have a shot at joining the world's leading industrial players. What is clear is that an army of in-house engineers no longer means a company can control its fate. Instead, the winners will be those most adept at marshaling the creativity and skills of workers around the world.


By Pete Engardio and Bruce Einhorn
With Manjeet Kripalani in Bangalore, Andy Reinhardt in Cannes, Bruce Nussbaum in Somers, N.Y., and Peter Burrows in San Mateo, Calif.

理想爱情：李嘉诚成功背后的女人

李嘉诚先生已经连续多年荣膺世界华人首富称号。关于他缔造 商业神话的文章，可谓汗牛充栋。然而，关于他感情世界的文 章却极为鲜见。为什么呢？李嘉诚不喜欢谈私人感情。近日， 笔者在陪同撰写李嘉诚传记的青年女作家丽妮采访李嘉诚时， 总算对这位富豪的情感世界有了一点了解。 青梅竹马两小无猜 1928年7月29日(农历六月十三日)，李嘉诚出生在广东省潮州 市北门街面线巷的一个教师之家。5岁那年，李嘉诚在父亲李 云经的引导下，祭拜孔子儒学，进入观海寺小学念书。 1937年7月7日，日本侵华战争全面爆发。1941年李云经与妻子 庄碧琴商议，决定带上李嘉诚、李嘉昭和李素娟三兄妹前往香 港投奔妻弟庄静庵。 李嘉诚的舅舅庄静庵，是香港钟表业的老行家。今日有关香港 钟表业的著作，莫不提及庄氏家族的中南钟表有限公司。庄家 长女叫月明，比李嘉诚小四岁，聪明伶俐，被父母视为掌上明 珠。月明在教会办的英文书院念书。小月明一点也不嫌弃穷表 哥李嘉诚，相反还十分同情他。 李云经发现香港是一个金钱至上的商业社会，于是告诫李嘉诚 兄妹，要在香港生存下去，就要学做香港人。而要与香港社会 融为一体，第一步就是要过语言关，改掉潮汕口音，学好广州 话。从此，月明就成了李嘉诚的广州话老师。表妹用心教，表 哥认真学。不久，李嘉诚便能用广州话与香港人交流了，月明 十分高兴。李嘉诚也发挥自己的长处，教月明学习中国古典诗 词。 这一对“金童玉女”两小无猜、互相学习的情景，是当时庄家 最为动人的风景。那一段日子，也成了李嘉诚动荡童年中最温 馨的回忆。 赤手空拳打天下 1941年12月8日，太平洋战争爆发，圣诞节前夕，香港英军向 日军投降。港币不断贬值，物价飞涨，李家生活愈加困难，而 李云经又在这时病倒了。1943年冬天，李云经病重，他把李嘉 诚叫到床前，轻声告诫道：“求人不如求己。吃得苦中苦，方 为人上人。失意时莫灰心，得意时莫忘形。”15岁的李嘉诚坚 定地点了点头，李云经才放心地闭上了眼睛。 父亲去世了，李嘉诚自觉长大了许多，他明白，从此以后他要 挑起全家的生活重担了。尽管舅舅表示要资助李家，但倔强的 李嘉诚仍然决定中止学业，打工挣钱。他相信只要自己肯努力， 一定能出人头地。舅舅表示支持他，因为舅舅自己也是十多岁 就离开父母到广州打天下的。不过，他仍然没有让李嘉诚进他 的公司。李嘉诚明白没有人可以帮助他，他必须赤手空拳闯出 一条路来。 月明走的却是完全不同的另一条路。她以优异成绩从英华女子 中学毕业后，进入香港大学，后来又留学于日本明治大学。她 的生活之路充满阳光和鲜花。但难得的是，她从来没有嫌弃过 表哥。而且，她与李嘉诚两小无猜的纯真感情还随着年龄的增 长转变为热烈的爱情。她一直牵挂着在香港拼搏的表哥。李嘉 诚踏上谋生路后，不管是当茶楼的堂倌、还是当钟表公司的学 徒，月明对李嘉诚都是一往情深，她在精神上对李嘉诚的慰藉 和支持，鼓舞着李嘉诚战胜了一个又一个的困难。 1950年，年仅22岁的李嘉诚在筲箕湾创办长江塑胶厂。“长 江”取意于“长江不择细流，故能浩荡万里”，足见李嘉诚 的雄心壮志。月明更加欣赏表哥，并为他感到自豪。 办厂初期，曾经出过质量事故，李嘉诚再一次体会到世态炎 凉。危难之中，不变的是庄月明对表哥的一片赤诚之心。爱 情的力量，将历经磨难的李嘉诚锻造成不屈的男子汉。 1955年，长江塑胶厂终于出现了转机，产销渐入佳境。1957 年，李嘉诚到意大利考察，回港后率先推出塑胶花，随即成 为热销产品。不久，他又积极开拓世界市场，很快就成为 “塑胶花大王”。1958年，李嘉诚涉足地产业，在港岛北角 建起了第一幢工业大厦；1960年，又在柴湾兴建了第二幢工 业大厦，李嘉诚的事业迅速走向辉煌。 有情人终成眷属 李嘉诚已经事业有成，他与庄月明的爱情也本该瓜熟蒂落， 但好事多磨，若按世俗的眼光，他们并不门当户对。月明出 身富贵名门，受过高等教育，才貌双全；而李嘉诚出身寒微， 只读过初中，虽然事业初成，但将来怎样还是未知数。而庄 静庵和李嘉诚母亲庄碧琴也表示反对。  转眼到了1963年，李嘉诚已经35岁，月明也已经31岁，他们 对爱情的执著和真诚终于感动了庄静庵夫妇和庄碧琴，同时 李嘉诚在商业上创造的奇迹也越来越让庄静庵感到惊奇，他 们终于同意两人结婚。在一片祝福声中，李嘉诚牵着庄月明 的手，幸福地踏上了红地毯。为了让爱妻住得舒适，李嘉诚 斥资63万港元买下一幢花园洋房，这就是李嘉诚现在仍然居 住的深水湾道79号3层住宅。当时李嘉诚并不算大富豪，一 下子拿出63万港元很不容易，所以有人说，这是他送给妻子 的最好礼物。婚后，庄月明加入长江工业公司，她流利的英 语和日语、谦和勤勉的作风，深得同事的尊敬。 1964年8月和1966年11月，李泽钜和李泽楷兄弟相继出生， 庄月明渐渐退居幕后，相夫教子，孝敬家婆。在她的悉心教 导下，李泽钜、李泽楷兄弟均勤奋好学，先后赴美国大学深 造。 1972年11月，“长江实业”上市，这是李嘉诚事业上的重大 转折点。庄月明出任执行董事，是公司决策层的核心人物之 一，李嘉诚不少石破天惊的决策，均蕴含了庄月明的智慧和 心血。但庄月明在公众面前始终保持低调，她很少露面，也 不接受记者采访。所以人们在谈论李嘉诚的“超人”业绩时， 很少会提到庄月明。其实如果李嘉诚的生命中没有庄月明， 真不知他会变得怎样。 一生只爱你一人 进入20世纪80年代，李嘉诚的事业如日中天。庄月明别无所 求，丈夫事业成功就是她最大的心愿。 1989年12月31日夜，李嘉诚携夫人出席在君悦酒店举行的迎 新年宴会，夫妇俩容光焕发，是宴会上最“抢镜头”的一对 伴侣。不料翌日下午，庄月明却突发心脏病，于医院逝世， 年仅58岁。当时李嘉诚也才60出头，身体硬朗，精神奕奕， 又是富豪，因此不乏主动示爱的美女。香港不少富商都以绯 闻为荣，但李嘉诚始终如一块白璧。港人都知道李嘉诚和庄 月明情深似海，所以至今竟无人向他提及续弦之事。 这些年来，李嘉诚获得了无数的名誉，这便是他的人品的最 好证明。

10条有助于你我创业路上成功的感悟

1、做小生意,解决生活中的问题;做大生意,解决社会中遇到的问题.
2、生活中处处充满商机,若没有发现,是因为你缺少一双发现商机的眼睛.
3、创业,最需要的不是资金,也不是人才,而是一个好的思路;没有资金,可以筹集;没有人才,可以召集;而没有一个好的思路,就很难找来资金和人才,创业思路决定企业的出路.
4、创业,设定目标很重要,没有目标,就缺少了奋斗的方向,这样就容易走弯路.
5、选合作伙伴,是选择互补性!比如你懂管理,找一个懂营销的做你的合作伙伴;你有资金,找一个有项目懂技术的人做你的合作伙伴.
6、在创业者眼里,没有什么不可能的事情,只有一些亟待解决的问题.
7、失败对创业者来说是一笔财富,只有小的失败才能积累大的成功.
8、创业,机会很重要,但机会往往青睐有准备的人,如果没有准备,当机会突然降临时,是很难把握住的,因为把机会转变成财富,需要一定的能力,而能力不是短时间能得到的!
9、创业,有许多潜规则,这是书本上看不到的,因为潜规则本身就是说不清道不明的东西,是需要悟的,只有你经历过了,你才可能悟到.
10、创业,贵在坚持,对于你看好的事情,一定不要轻易放弃,因为,失败与成功之间只有一步之遥.

An open letter to our learned Prime Minister

To our dear Prime Minister,

The public seemed to be suspicious of your political will to carry out your agenda of national reformation plan in the very beginning. Nonetheless, four key pillars of the national policy that you have initiated in the sequence as follows have started to earn you the credit for being bold enough to correct the national systemic deficiency: standardization of supervision over the delivery system of public administration (Key Performance Index), reconstruction of the structure of government (Government Transformation Plan), racial integration agenda (1Malaysia) and the latest holistic master plan in rebuilding national economy (New Economic Model, in lieu of the previous New Economic Policy and National Development Plan).

In view of the impediments that you most probably have faced within your own ruling party ie. BN-cum-UMNO, you seem to be on the right track to reform our country, notably on the part of the New Economic Model. It is indeed a brilliant masterstroke of yours by laying down the general guidelines and policies for rebuilding our national economy before heading directly into the stage of implementation and execution, as it is a hallmark of a democratic government to consult all stakeholders in an existing system before taking drastic measures to reform a nation. Eradication of rent-seekers (middlemen) in our political and economic system is the priority, as it is the root cause of corruption in public administration, divide-and-rule agenda and declining standard of public governance in Malaysia under the protectionist umbrella of race-based policy. Your bravery should be sustained firmly against the seemingly strong yet substantively empty opposition from some political opportunists.

Dear Sir, your effort of building national economic strength on the existing Economic Corridors initiated by his predecessor is worthy of mention too, as you are actually entering the realm of decentralized national economy which depends more on the liberal development of each economic cluster in different emerging industries. Nevertheless, explosion of business and employment opportunities can only be a booster for Malaysian economy if national education system can produce talents of quality in various fields. Hopefully the old National Education Policy will be reviewed so as to complement the proposed New Economic Model which demands a more dynamic and creative workforce behind the whole economy.

With much respect to your aspiration, I humbly hold the view that something is still running loose in the whole transformation plan. Rule of law is the basis for sustainable prosperity of a country. Respect for fundamental rights of the people is the ONLY answer to the challenge. I admit the fact that no legal system is perfect in this world, as social and human needs change from time to time. However a dynamic administrative law system is definitely a powerful tool to enhance the constitutional governance of a nation, as it is capable of tapping any legal and hence systemic loophole that infringes or even violates the fundamental rights of the citizens. Malaysia still falls short of that kind of mentality at virtually every level of the Government. (The Government here refers to its three branches ie. Legislature, Judiciary and Executive.) Without the right legal framework in place (including statutes, case laws and national policies), an Economy can never grow healthily on a land without Rule of Law, just like a good seed can never grow on a dry land without nourishment. My learned Prime Minister, it will be our fortune if you deem this point as the key to building Malaysia as a nation worthy of our love and passion towards it. My humble proposed plan is that the de facto Law Minister in the Ministry of Prime Minister's Department should be given a primary role in revising all antiquated laws which sometimes arbitrarily violate the constitutional rights of a citizen. No right-thinking talent over the whole world is willing to stay on a land where its government always wields a powerful sword embodied in harsh laws against its poorly protected people. This point of view should not be converted into a political issue, as it is a purely essential element of a good government. I know very clearly that my opinion on this particular point is guaranteed by Article 10(1)(a) of Federal Constitution subject to the limitations imposed by Sedition Act which in fact allows the room for voicing out comments on governmental policies under its Section 3(2). The recently amended Universities and University Colleges Act also allows me to make a public statement relevant  to my area of academic studies ie. the legal studies in this case. I have no intention to make a statement of a seditious tendency as described by the Sedition Act. Instead of that, I do this in total good faith for the benefit of our nation by exercising my constitutional rights as an undergraduate and a Malaysian citizen.

Do you see this, dear Prime Minister? Appropriate amendments to our laws (for instance the 2009 amendment of Universities and University Colleges Act in this case) have given the government a better chance to obtain a fair view from the people and youths in this country for its own improvement. Just like what John Stuart Mill has told us, the function of appropriately limited freedom of speech is the "establishment of constitutional checks by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power". To achieve the dream of having a sustainable and progressive nation, a correct legal regime must be put in place in the spirit of Constitutionalism.

I enthusiastically look forward to the announcement of New Economic Model at the second stage. Rhetorics may make a politician a victor for once a lifetime, but only real hard work and effort can turn a visionary leader into a great stateman who will be remembered in the sand of time.

Dear Sir, it is better for our nation to move forward now, than to let down our following generations and ourselves. You have my full support, though I know that my voice may not be heard by you.

Billions of thanks to my learned Prime Minister, if my voice does come across your ears and you do heed some of my humble views. Good luck to you and of course, also to Malaysians.

Best regards,
John Tan
A 2nd-year law student in University of Malaya

Miscarriage of justice under preventive detention law in Malaysia

Another case of outright violation of fundamental rights in Malaysia. Law is still at a state of chaos on our homeland. You may find that the case below may imitate the storyline of Green Zone, which illustrates the way US Government defamed the Iraqi Government under Saddam Hussein's tyranny rule for possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction and shamefully declared it as a cause for invasion of Iraq. It is one of the biggest lies of the century. Malaysia is no loser in this respect. Mere accusation is sufficient to put someone behind the bars. All these owe to the stupidly drafted ISA and relevant preventive detention laws. See the real case below which is copied from loyarburok.com, as follows:

Any Law that Goes Against Human Rights Ceases to be Lawful

30 March, 2010

By Elza Irdalynna

Elza Irdalynna’s letter about her brother Khaeryll Benjamin Ibrahim@ Benjy’s ordeal – from his impeded access to counsel to his re-arrest under preventive detention laws; where on the same day his lawyer, Amer Hamzah Arshad was manhandled and briefly arrested by the police.

Speak with me

by Elza Irdalynna
On March 11th, he was arrested at his apartment’s parking lot in Segambut. Police brought him to an apartment he rented in Kepong, and after entering, claimed that in that residence, he possessed 800grams of cocaine, and 140grams of methamphetamine, and accused him of processing and trafficking, putting him under the risk of being charged under Section 39B, which carries the death penalty.
On March 12th he was remanded for 7 days. When my parents inquired if we can engage a lawyer, the Investigation Officer told us “No need.”
On March 17th, after our family waited more than an hour, we were allowed to see him for the very first time, under supervision.
Again my mother asked if we should get him a lawyer, again the I.O advised against it, claiming “Lawyer tak boleh buat apa-apa sekarang. Buang duit je. (Lawyer can’t do anything now. It’s simply a waste of money).”
On March 18th, his remand was extended another 7 days. The magistrate inquired why there was no lawyer present for him, and whether he was made aware he had the right to a counsel of his choice. He replied “No.” Therefore, he requested for one, and only nine hours later, did the I.O call to inform my mother, who promptly engaged Amer Hamzah Arshad.
But the very next day, the police used their Executive authority under Section 28A that vetoed his right to a counsel. All requests made by our lawyer to visit him was denied.
Only after we complained to SUHAKAM, did the police allow Amer to visit him.
On the last day of his remand.
After the investigations were concluded.
For only 15 minutes.
On March 25th, he was brought to court, and charged under Section 12(2) for possession of 0.24grams of metaphetamin in his Segambut residence. Nothing the police claimed they found in the Kepong residence, the cocaine and shabu that was “already packaged to be distributed” or the so called “cocaine processing mini-lab” was brought to court.
Because there WAS none.
He was released on bail. A trial date was set. He was so close to being free, and seeing his 4 year old son again.
But as he was signing the papers of his release, the Plainclothes were outside waiting.
Not two steps after he came out of the bail department, without any explanation, they re-arrested him. Amer was restrained from protecting him, and only after Amer repeatedly asked them to show their I.D, did they do so. Still, no explanation was given to the family. We were merely told to go to the Headquarters and speak to Inspector Kang. The same guy who claimed my brother possessed the cocaine they NEVER found.
He never saw us, he was “in a meeting.” He wasn’t too occupied to give the press a statement, but was unavailable to see us.
We were told by the new I.O. for this case, and the DSP (the guy who signed the papers denying my brother the right to a counsel) that they are detaining him for 60 days under the Special Preventive Measures Act (LPK), after which, they could further detain him for 2 years if found guilty.
Guilty according to them. For under this act, it is a detention without trial, like the Internal Security Act. Any information gathered from “witnesses” and “investigations” will never be disclosed to him or his lawyer, or the court. He will also not be able to defend himself against any allegations. Under this act, he will never have his day in court.
On March 25th, my brother, Ben, was denied his Constitutional rights.
For 2 weeks, our family went through hell. Sleepless nights, press waiting outside our door, Ben had asthma attacks after the police delayed themselves in acquiring the requested medication for 3 days, Mama, who is a cancer patient herself, suffered chest pains and lost her voice.
We felt it was all worth it, for we would be able to have him back.
But now, a new nightmare has begun.
Whether or not Ben is guilty, should not be for the Police to decide. If they HAD the evidence to strengthen their warrant for re-arrest, why was it not brought to court? Why is Ben not given a chance to defend himself? How can we ever know the authenticity of these so called witnesses and their statements? If there were ANY to begin with?
Under this act, I could simply be caught for any crimes of drug offences the police accuse me of, because they can claim they have enough information (even if they have absolutely nothing) and detain me. For 60 days, for 2 years, and even EXTEND it after.
Acts like this and the ISA are licenses for ARBITRARY arrest and detention. Anytime. Anywhere. Anybody.
My family and Amer will not back down. We will fight for Ben’s right. We will speak up for all of those who were silenced before us, who will be silenced hereafter.
But we seek your help. In any way at all, help us fight this. Re-post this, write on your blogs, write to your local representative, to our newspapers, and together we shall use our voice, our art, our space, to stand up not just for Ben, but for all our rights.
Liberty is a Constitutional right. It’s time to get it back.