Emcom Beyond

Successfully Acquired a Listed Company in Hong Kong!

2007-08-23T11:17:00.000+08:00

Finally!!

Finally, after months of paperwork and anxieties, we are happy to announce that Emcom has successfully acquired a listed company, China Photar, in Hong Kong!

The recent acquisition of China Photar, a Hong Kong GEM listed company, is a huge step towards our goal to become a BILLION dollar company by 2010. Principal Business activities of China Photar include development, design and sale of consumer electronics, especially DVD players, fax machines, mobile phones, and Home Theatre Systems. Together with its 10,000 distribution points throughout China, the acquisition of China Photar would give our company a solid foothold into the huge China market. As part of our plans to improve the consumer electronics business of
China Photar, a series of plans expand the consumer electronics business is already in the works, and we would be working closely with many of our partners in the South-East Asian markets to quickly increase our trading activities in the region.

Getting a foothold into China has been a key part of our corporate strategy since we first set up our company, as China is too large a market to simply ignore With more than 1.3 billion people in China, the huge Chinese economy has been growing at a ferocious pace over the past ten years, and having recently overtaken Germany and Japan to become the world’s second largest economy. Looking ahead, while there are certainly issues that China has to cope with in its drive towards economic growth, there looks to be no stopping this massive behemoth in its drive towards modernization. For Emcom, we plan to increase our presence in the Chinese market, and we hope to announce more exciting news in the near future to our stakeholders on our company’s future developments in China.

Once again, thank you for all the support that we have received so far from our partners and clients. We could not have done it without you!

Seize the day!

Rgds,
Ignious Yong
Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology Pte Ltd

Em™Beyond Corporate Announcement

2007-07-06T17:29:00.000+08:00

Corporate Announcement:

Surge Global Pte Ltd has changed its name to Em™Beyond Pte. Ltd.
SURGE GLOBAL PTE LTD incorporated since 03.03.03. * EM™BEYOND PTE. LTD. inception on 07.07.07.

Today, 7th July 2007, marks the day of corporate name change of Surge Global Pte Ltd to Em™Beyond Pte. Ltd.

In alignment with this change, Em™Beyond will also renew its brand identity, which strives to create an image of simplicity and true quality in the Technology, Communications and Electronic-Commerce market and to bring about synergies with a strengthened link with its Asia Pacific parent organization, Empire Communications Technology Pte. Ltd. (a.k.a. Emcom).

Along with the launching of the new name and new brand identity, Em™Beyond has developed a new vision: “To inspire the world by providing technological innovations in the form of services and products that seek to drive people and corporations to achieve beyond their current reach, interconnecting and providing for a collaboration platform for them, and bringing about a convolution of ideas and information exchanges.”

The new company name and new brand identity will not only allow Em™Beyond to establish a prominent brand identity as an international player in the realm of ICT Solutions and Data Internetworking - both wired and wireless, but also to position our strategic offerings so that we become the thought leaders in areas of our expertise.

There has been no change in our Management Team. We will continue our utmost efforts to enhance our technological initiatives, and product and service quality improvement. We assure you that we are totally committed to providing excellent support and service, on which we have built our reputation. We will be just as customer-focused and hardworking to go above and beyond for our clients and partners, to ensure Em™Beyond 's growth in future years. All businesses carried by the formerly-named will continue business as usual.

We appreciate if you could bring this announcement to the attention of your relevant departments and inform them accordingly. With effect from today, the name “Surge Global Pte Ltd” will cease to be used as the representation of our registered entity. All our official business transactions should thus be using “EmBeyond Pte. Ltd.”.
Thank you for having us as your valued customer, strategic partner, service provider, business associate and friend. We appreciate our business and the relationship with you deeply.

Yours Faithfully,

Cedric Lim
Chief Executive Officer
Em™Beyond Pte. Ltd.

Em™Call – The Official Launch

2007-06-18T17:49:00.000+08:00

Finally, we have officially launched Em™Call in Singapore and its first phrase of CallBack Services! It was both an exciting and memorable experience. The event room was fully packed with people overflowing to the back and with people continually trying to inch forward just to hear the latest updates and news of what Em™Call has to offer.

Although CallBack services are not a new thing in the market, with the advent of new technology and the communications era, this has enabled Em™Call to break the mould and provide cost effective and reliable phone services to everyone. Being able to cut most people’s phone bills by more than 50%, Em™Call value adds and brings affordability to both local and global telecommunications.

To date, the official launch of Em™Call is a milestone, not only for us in Emcom but to many others out there. In just a matter of days, we have a total of more than 16,000 subscriptions purchased, bringing in revenue of more than USD1000,000 for Em™Call. The customer service line has also been ringing off the hook serving the enquiries of the large quantities of people who wants to integrate and use the service immediately. For more information, please look at our Em™Call Website

The official launch of Em™Call is not only a milestone to us but more importantly to other people and our clients because they are able to benefit greatly from it. With Em™Call and greater cost savings, end-users would be able to call their friends, and partners in life with a lower cost and with more endearing talk time. Businesses would be able to lower their IDD call charges or their overseas telephone costs by a drastic amount, and allowing great savings especially for international calls.

In the coming weeks, it would be an even more exciting time for Em™Call as we start launching our callback services into the other countries and offering this exciting service to more people. We would also be increasing our efforts to move on to our next phrase of implementation to offer SIP and VoIP services to our existing users. Research and development efforts have also been increased to offer more exciting services to our users such as one-step dialling and much more.

With one-step dialling, not only will you be able to benefit from the huge cost-savings of Em™Call, you would also have the ease and convenience of using Em™Call just like a normal phone.

At Em™Call, we pledge to bring communications to everyone. We pledge to bring cost savings, effective and reliable services and more importantly, we pledge to strive to offer
NOTHING BUT THE BEST.

No One Cares For Your Pocket Like We Do.
Em™Call - Call Me and I’ll Call You!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

EmCall Presentation

2007-05-25T14:52:00.000+08:00

The last few days have been a very exciting time for Emcom! In introducing and giving updates on the recent progress of Emcom and its business units, we presented Emcom to more than 2000 delegates from 9 different countries of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Brunei, and Korea.

Situated in a conference room in Toa Payoh Hub, the international conference was held over a period of a few days with overwhelming response from the many different countries. The event was a huge success with people filling up not only the entire room, but had people standing up and overflowing all the way till the back of the room. Imagine a highly enthusiastic crowd filled with people coming from different countries who speak different languages! It was an interesting yet challenging feat, talking to people from a variety of cultures and countries. There was one conference when there were two translators in the room, translating two different languages as I spoke!

Overall, it was a unique experience with an amazing crowd. Not only were the people very excited over the new updates of Emcom, they were amazed at the tremendous growth and progress which Emcom has made. Growing from just a small company in May 2006, Emcom has grown to an international conglomerate with 6 subsidiaries and 2 operational business units in the last 8 months. Also with an international presence, Emcom’s has strong active presence in the Asia Pacific Region including Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Taiwan and by the end of 2007, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and China. With a turnover of USD10 million in the last 8 months Emcom has done tremendous well for a newly start-up company which is slightly less than a year old.

One of the most exciting sections of the conference was on the introduction of Em™Call. In the next few months, Em™Call would be officially launched and we would be able to provide cost effective, reliable phone services to everyone. The crowd was very excited when Em™Call was presented as it would enable them to cut their phone bills by more than 50%. Quoting one of the delegates from China, “We are now able to make overseas calls for just a fraction of the cost! Not only am I able to decrease my business overheads but with this cost savings, I am able to expand globally more into other markets without worrying about communication charges!”

One of the quotes from a man whom I really respect, Walt Disney has really touched my heart. “As long as you have the courage to dream, you can achieve”. And it was following these words that I live upon everyday to really dare to take a step forward to live my dreams. I remember very early on when we first started on this dream to build a wireless world and to connect wirelessly whole countries; people laughed and said that it was impossible. However I did not believe so. I believed that the word impossible stands for “I M POSSIBLE”.

The last few months which has passed has not been an easy one. However the hard work has really paid off, in seeing the growth of Emcom throughout the months and how far it has progressed. With the support and approval of the crowd and in seeing their upmost excitement and enthusiasm for the new products and services which would be coming out, the moment was very gratifying not only for me but more importantly for all the staff in Emcom. Without the hard work and input of all the dedicated staff in Emcom, the company would not have been able to progress so far. It is really through their dedication and hard work that results were created. Here, I would really like to thank them for all the effort they have placed in and all the sleepless nights they had in rushing out the projects and reports. It is the people that make the company work and it is this strong team that will bring the company to greater heights and beyond.

ACHIEVING GREATER HEIGHTS & BEYOND!!!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Continual Expansion

2007-05-15T10:52:00.000+08:00

I am very pleased to update you on the tremendous growth and breakthrough of Emcom in the last month. In the recent months, two major acquisitions were made of Surge Global Pte Ltd and InterVoice Media Incorporated. These two acquisitions have helped to greatly increase the quality of our management team and also with our expansion plans into different regions.

In line with our plans for expansion into new markets, Surge Global Pte Ltd - a System Integration company, would help us penetrate into the B2B market. Surge Global Pte Ltd specialises in providing enterprises and operators with the right solutions to increase profitability, efficiency and productivity. Offering total solutions services in the areas of wireless market developments, fast efficient and customer-oriented service is provided to enable clients to achieve their corporate goals and objectives. As part of our plan to increase our economies of scale, Surge Global Pte Ltd will be merged together with Bluengine Asia Pacific Pte Ltd to form Em™Beyond Pte Ltd. The services which Em™Beyond now provides are separated into a few areas of infrastructure consultation, implementation and deployment services which includes messaging, collaboration and workflow portal solutions, storage and backup, network security, gateway solutions, PABX and VoIP solutions; system operation and outsourcing, which includes server , network, user workstation, process management; project management; management systems which include logistics, document management, call centre, business information, inventory, point of sales, client relationship management and much more. Other services may include procurement, facilitating of trading deals, e-Commerce solutions, Wi-Fi technology consultation, implementation and deployment and Metropolitan Area (MAN) rollout.

We would also like to officially welcome Cedric Lim Teck Kim, Steven Phua Boon Keng and Evan Sim Siang Hwa, the Directors of Surge Global Pte Ltd to the Emcom family. With more than 30 years of corporate and professional experience in IT and technology, our management team for Surge Global Pte Ltd has managed to develop a growing company with more than $2.6 million revenue and $360 thousand profit in its latest financial report. At the same time, as a local partner with technology partners such as IBM, HP and Fujitsu Asia, Surge Global has been able to provide local enterprises with outstanding business solutions to help companies improve their profit margins. Some of our clients include Fujitsu Asia, MediaCorp, Omni Industries Holdings, Prosafe Production, Glaxo Welcome and much more.

InterVoice Media Incorporated, spearheaded by Mr Gavin Lim Yong Kai is a Voice Communications Company set up in September 2003. Providing voice, data and media solutions, InterVoice Media Incorporated enables companies to harness rapidly evolving internet technologies not only to stay competitive but to forge ahead in an increasingly competitive global market place. With strong presence and marketing partners in Philippines, InterVoice Media Incorporated has aided Emcom greatly in the penetration of new markets and in providing higher quality voice and VoIP services. InterVoice Media Incorporated is now integrated under the leadership of Emcom to form Em™Call and some of the services they provide include callback systems, VoIP telephony, VoIP hardware, integrated voice portals and much more.

We at Emcom are very excited to welcome all shareholders, managers, and staff to our big family. With the addition of Surge Global and InterVoice Media, we are confident that the synergy of our companies would create more outstanding results in the coming years!

MOVE BEYOND!!!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Radwin Appoints Emcom as Regional Distributor

2007-03-26T19:26:00.000+08:00

The RADWIN Regional Partners Meeting Asia 2007 was held at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore on March 6-7, 2007. The positive energy that surrounded the event was truly inspiring, and it was gratifying for us to see other channel partners and the RADWIN team come together and share their experiences and know-how.
During this technical seminar, Emcom’s Hassim Selahudin, Kenneth Ang, and Mohammed Darvin have all completed the official WinLink™ 1000 technical training. They are now certified to install, commission and maintain RADWIN's WinLink™ 1000 systems.

It was a special day for us at Emcom. Radwin has officially appointed us as a Distributor for their products in the region. This is an exciting event for Emcom as we continue to build the Company into a leading provider of a wireless lifestyle!

Emcom’s Group General Manager, Wilson Tan, signing the Distributor Agreement, as Mr. Hassim Selahudin looks on.

Emcom officially appointed as Radwin’s Distributor in the Region.
From Left, Wilson Tan, Group General Manager; Hassim Selahudin, Business Development Manager (Professional Services) ; Oded Milstein, Assistant Vice-President (Radwin, Asia Pacific)

Wilson Tan

Group General Manager
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Celebration in Taiwan!

2007-03-04T11:56:00.000+08:00

A major strategic shift have resulted in a drastic shift in our operations model. With the upcoming businesses in Cambodia, Taiwan, and our upcoming business division, Em™Call, there was a strong impetus for us to increase our manpower in our company. And at the same time, to allow better allocation of our resources, we have now established separate divisions to handle the different upcoming projects.

With Em™Beyond to handle most of our B2B businesses, with a special focus on wireless technology, and Em™Call to handle our voice communications business, there was also a strong need for us to allocate manpower to handle our Em™Taipei project. With our Em™Taipei project in the process of finalizing our planning stages, we are ready to move forward to begin our foray into Taipei!

For Em™Taipei, we would expect to begin construction in June 2007, and with the surface area being ten times more than our project in Taichung, we expect this to be a huge challenge indeed! When completed, Em™Taipei would be the largest seamless Wifi-enabled Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) in the world! With our project management scheduled to be formed by the end of April, we are confident that they can rise to the challenge.

Visit the EmcomGroup Website!

At the same time, our design team gave me a wonderful birthday present while I was in Taiwan! Our new improved website, www.emcomgroup.net, was finally launched! The design was way beyond my expectations! I must say that once again, they have done a fantastic job! There is still a little bit of fine tuning to be completed for the website, but we expect it to be completed soon.

Thanks for the fantastic birthday present team!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Cambodia Reconnaissance

2007-02-16T16:55:00.000+08:00

I am writing this blog at Cambodia right now, and this is my first trip to the country. I must admit that this is a real eye-opener!

Coming here on a two-day trip just to get a better feel of things, and I do feel that there are plenty of possibilities in Cambodia. Having just been stabilized politically roughly ten years back, the country is developing pretty well. Definitely there are plenty of vehicles around, and the commercial area is really starting to pick up.

When I first touch down at the airport (there is only one run-way at Siem Reap and Phnom Phenh International Airports), there was a lot of difference from what I am normally accustomed with. Firstly, language is really different from back at Singapore. Thankfully, we have a fantastic secretary that can speak Khmer, English as well as Chinese! Without her, we would probably not have been able to do much during our trip here! Secondly, the landscape here is comprised mostly of two-three storey buildings in Phnom Phenh, and stands in sharp contrast to the towering sky-scrapers in Singapore, Taiwan and China. Thirdly, there is definitely a lot less air-conditioned places than Singapore! Finally, I have found a place that is hotter than Singapore!!

And yet, there are plenty of business opportunities. For one, there is a healthy level of wealthy citizens in Phnom Phenh that has plenty of disposable income. And at the same time, there are very little places for them to spend their money! A place that is able to provide comfortable shopping facilities for high net worth consumers would be worth investing in Phnom Phenh. Also, the low landscape here makes it very easy for us to possibly deploy our wireless infrastructure in the country, and would cost only a fraction of our construction costs in Taichung! Mobile penetration is lower compared to developed cities, and would give alternative solutions like PHS or VOIP an easier entry into the voice market.

Emcom is going to take Cambodia by storm!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Business Expansion Plans

2007-02-02T18:56:00.000+08:00

The past few weeks have been a real hectic time for our company! Not only have we successfully organized an exhibition in Taichung, where our vendors created booths to display our various future offerings in terms of our products and services, we have also made significant developments in our business divisions in Singapore.

EmCall, our voice services division, would be launching by the end of February 2007. Right now, we are in the process of setting up the web page for EmCall and watch out for our launch of our web page on the 9th of February! Offering high quality call-back services, our users can save up to 80% of what they would pay if they were to pay roaming charges from mobile operators! Within the year, we would also be launching P2P voice services as well as PC to mobile VOIP services in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan. EmCall would be a highly profitable business unit for our growing consumer market business.

Additionally, we have recently acquired the VOIP and ISP license in Cambodia. Being controlled licenses, there are currently only 3 VOIP licenses issued out to companies, and our registered company in Cambodia, Emcom Technologies (Cambodia) Ltd, is one of the companies having this license. In Cambodia, we expect to develop a highly profitable business in the country. As part of our plans to develop a strong foothold in the developing countries in the South-East Asia region, we are happy to be able to work with the Cambodian government in the development of the ISP and voice market in Cambodia. In the near future, we hope to be able to establish a wireless city infrastructural project in Cambodia, much like our current EM-Taichung project.

Till next time!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Corporate Profile

2007-01-22T13:54:00.000+08:00

After working our designers to death, we have finally completed the corporate profile for our company. Also included are the DMs for our “EM-Taichung, Connected City”. After taking a look at the final printed copy, I must say that our designers have done a fantastic job! The profile would definitely be a great boost for the corporate image of our company.

Right now, our management team is in Taichung to prepare for the launch of a public relations event, where more than 900 visitors from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan would be in attendance. For the past few months, we have been really low key with regards to our publicity efforts in letting the world know more about our wireless city project, and we would be stepping up our publicity efforts strongly in the coming months. Our Taichung gala event would be the first of many large scale exhibition events that we would be conducting in the coming months. With better publicity, we would create immense excitement in the city of Taichung to let them know that Wireless Lifestyle is here to stay! At this moment, we have already created a stir in the West area of Taichung and many people have started receiving the signals from our base stations. However, we would not be launching our services just yet. We want to make sure that all technical issues are resolved before we start to accumulate a bigger subscriber base.

At the gala event, we are also honored to have been able to invite the presence of our strategic partners to set up exhibition booths on our infrastructural set-up, as well as booths for our products and services that we would be launching by 2008. Their presence in our event is a strong testament to their active involvement in our EM-Taichung project.

Time to get back to my work!! Till next time!!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Voice Services Pre-Launch!

2007-01-09T10:37:00.000+08:00

Preparations for our Voice Services have been ongoing for some time, and we are happy to announce that we will starting our soft launch for our Voice services by the end of the month. Working with our local partner, C3Call Telecom Group, for the past few months, we are now confident of rolling out cost-effective, quality and simple-to-use alternative voice communications services for our consumers. As an important component of our overall strategy for our Consumer Services Division in Emcom, we look forward in extending our Voice services into Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Taiwan, and The Philippines by the end of the year.

Consumers can either choose to select a monthly subscription plan model, where they would be able to enjoy generous rebates and get free talk time, or they can choose to purchase a pre-paid card. Right now, we have come up with a variety of subscription plans targeted at different market segments, and would be lining up attractive prizes for our initial group of subscribers.

On the consumer end, there would be substantial cost savings of up to 80% of the current rates that they are paying. Additionally, with other features to be added on to our system in the next six months, subscribers would eventually be able to enjoy absolutely free phone calls to anyone that is also a subscriber! As our anchor product in our Consumer Services Division, we are confident that we would be able to generate substantial response to our voice services.

Till Next Time!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

The Internet as a Way of Life

2007-01-03T20:45:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year to everyone!

Looking back over the past year, 2006 was certainly a memorable year for us. Not only have we begun on our EM-Taichung project, we have managed to successfully set-up a strong management team to bring our company forward. In the next few weeks, we would be having our company strategic planning for the New Year and some of the issues that we will be discussing include a review of our business model, HR recruitment, as well as international expansion. Looking ahead, we are happy with the amount that we have achieved in this short time frame and would be looking to press ahead further this year.

Just as 2006 was coming to an end, something happened that gave a glimpse of what might have happened without the Internet. The earthquakes that happened off the coast of Taiwan resulted in some damage of the undersea cables and severely affected the connectivity of Internet and telecommunications lines across the Asia Pacific region. Many businesses suffered tremendously during this period with banks, E-commerce companies, as well as telecommunications companies having to endure a torrid time and a dip in profits.

Coincidentally, during this time, I was away with my Chairman in Hong Kong and China. During the first few days, I was totally cut off and unable to access any Internet websites. Broadband speeds slowed to a crawl in the next few days and I was unable to receive or send out any emails! And, even my mobile phone communications were terrible. I was totally unable to make any contact with our partners in Taiwan and had to endure an information “black-out” just when we needed to make some urgent conference calls to Taiwan. In a way, I felt totally cut off from the rest of the world. Unable to reach my partners, staff and friends, my productivity dropped tremendously. Additionally, this “black-out” forced our plans to be delayed for at least a week. And I was left wondering, what would happen if the Internet died?

And in some places around the world, the Internet is practically non-existent. Or, Internet access might be extremely expensive. It is our vision to be able to bring high-speed, cost-effective, wireless broadband and telecommunications access to many developing countries across the world, starting with the Asia Pacific region. As such, the infrastructural development would allow citizens in these various countries to enter into an Information Age where the Internet and a Wireless Lifestyle becomes a Way of Life.

Carpe Diem!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Office Renovations

2006-12-18T23:41:00.000+08:00

Officially today, we have received the keys to our new office space in HDB Hub and we would be starting our renovation works in the next few weeks to come. Clashing headlong with the festive season makes it a little complicated, but we hope to have our renovation completed by end of March 2007 and start the second quarter with a bang! So far, the design has looked fantastic, and as a team, we are really looking forward into moving to the new office.

With our increasing staff size, our office is starting to get a little cramped… Not to mention the fact that we are still currently sharing an office with another company, and things do get pretty complicated sometimes. At the same time, I believe that it is a good morale booster for our staff as well, and it acts as a powerful indicator that our company is indeed growing.

At the same time, it would make our internal communications simpler. Right now, because we are all pretty scattered around the office, we have to walk quite a fair bit just to talk to one another. The close proximity that we can have with one another will hopefully create an even better bond between all the staff at Emcom!

We have recently added another web designer to our team, and we are quickly accelerating our marketing efforts. To coincide with our move to our new office in Singapore, we will be launching a marketing campaign in April 2007. With a strong focus on customer satisfaction and needs, our campaign will be geared towards the end consumers. We strongly believe that we will be able to impact the way that people live, work and play. Wireless communications and lifestyle is here to stay!

Use IT! Love IT! Live IT!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology Pte Ltd (Emcom)

Marketing Plans

2006-12-15T18:39:00.000+08:00

With the festive season coming up, all staff in Emcom are getting ready to give the company a great present… Finally, we will be getting our corporate profile and “M-Taichung, Connected City” profile! With the marketing profile scheduled for completion by the 20th of December 06, we hope to have our profile ready by the festive season. Here is a short teaser of what we would be coming out with!

Having been in contact with many vendors and partners, we would be tying down some important partnership agreements soon. Things are really beginning to look really exciting, and we will keep everyone posted on our progress!

That is all for today and Thank God Its Friday!

Expansion Program

2006-12-12T10:19:00.001+08:00

These few weeks have been really hectic! The groundwork that we have laid over the past two months is slowly falling into place. Negotiations with various vendors and content providers are finally in the midst of being concluded, and we should be able to give our Consumer Services Division a strong push over the next few months. Our initial range of services that we will be coming up with should include Voice services, Downloadable mobile content, IPTV, Online Games, and SMS applications. At the same time, our backend support staff are working furiously to rush out the initial marketing collaterals. It is extremely gratifying to see that we have such a committed group of people working together towards a common vision.

It is indeed rare for a start-up company launching simultaneously into several countries at once. By the end of next year, we target to have a strong marketing presence in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and The Philippines. As of now, in addition to our M-TAICHUNG, CONNECTED CITY project in Taiwan, we are developing a growing presence in Singapore. Through our recent acquisition of Bluengine Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, we have developed a strong marketing and trading presence in Indonesia.

The huge amount of workload that we have to complete would mean that our staff have to stay in overdrive mode right through the holiday season and probably even after Chinese New Year. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff of Emcom for their continued commitment to the company. Without everyone in the company, there is absolutely no chance in the world that we succeed in building a strong company. But with you guys, not only will we succeed, but we will grow beyond our wildest dreams!

Till next time!

Ignious Yong
Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology Pte Ltd

The New Global Economy

2006-12-06T11:24:00.001+08:00

As I was having lunch with a close friend today, one of the topics that came up for discussion was on the viability of different business models. This good friend of mine has a fiery entrepreneurial spirit, and at a very young age (he’s only 22!), he has managed to build a good reputable marketing consultancy company. As a friend that I respect tremendously for his energy, enthusiasm and flair, the conversations that we have are generally extremely enjoyable. For both of us, we love the idea of being in business, having the freedom to choose our working hours, and the enjoyment of being immersed in our work.

At the end of the day, we realized that it is not so much the technology, financial resources, or even the business model that is the critical success factor, we felt that it was the people behind the company that would determine the success or failure of an enterprise. And if people are the most important resources a company can have, are the future generation of our nation equipped to deal with the challenges of the global village?

Having in the past few months having been invited to share my experiences in business with students in some of the tertiary institutes and universities in Singapore, and having observed some of the behavioral traits, I do wonder whether we are doing enough to educate students with the realities of the working world. In an era where the competitive wages in China, India and some other countries creates irresistible cost savings to enterprises, our competitive edge would no longer be in lower-costs and better infrastructure. And even in terms of talents and value-added knowledge capital, the sheer amount of talents in populous countries like China, India and even Indonesia would mean that there is no lack of talents in these countries.

What edge, then could Singaporeans hold over some of the counter-parts in other countries? Since we are neither smarter, nor more hardworking, nor more charming, probably one strategy that we could adopt is to master the art of working with people.

Liu Chuanzhi, past Chairman of Lenovo, once said that some people are like pearls, and that they are able to shine on their own. For others, they are not pearls, and on their own, they are unable to shine. But, they are like the string that holds many pearls together, and the string of pearls would shine more brightly than a single pearl. A great asset that Singaporeans have overseas is that we have a trustworthy reputation. With relationships being formed on the basis of trust and integrity, this is an intangible asset that we should strongly leverage to create strong relationships and partnerships with overseas partners.

Overseas expansion might be the only way for us to thrive and prosper in the new global economy.

Ignious Yong
Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology Pte Ltd

Link Up to the Wireless World!

2006-12-01T16:27:00.000+08:00

The Singaporean government initiative Wireless@SG was made available to the public with much publicity in the local newspapers, and while I was reading through the reports a thought just flashed through my mind… It is absolutely great that finally, we are able to get access to the gateway of the Information Age for free! Nowadays, especially for the Gen-X and Gen-Y population, the Internet is something that is especially difficult to do without. More importantly, the explosion of the Net has resulted in powerful innovations in the area of voice, data and video communications. Through VOIP, people potentially are able to make unlimited calls for free! Video communications and live feeds through the Internet are able to produce almost the same video qualities as cable television! Emails have resulted in lightning speeds of communications. The Wireless@SG has a great potential to positively impact the way that people live, work and play. I would strongly recommend people to sign up now and start linking up to the Wireless World and start playing with your tech gadgets!

The Wireless@SG programme bears striking similarities to the project that we are currently embarking on in Taichung, Taiwan. Conservatively speaking, we expect that we would be able to complete the construction of a Seamless WIFI Network that will cover approximately 95% of the city area in Taichung. Offering tremendous business possibilities, we are confident that through our unique business model, we would be able to capture a large percentage of the target audience in Taichung. At the same time, by integrating our wireless broadband services with our Voice and non-voice services, we would be able to offer to our consumers substantial cost savings and value for money. Right now, we are very excited about the progress of the project and so far, we have completed the coverage of roughly 20 square kilometers of area space! ( link to see pics)

For anyone who wants to link up with this Blog, do drop me a comment!

Take care!

Ignious Yong
Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology Pte Ltd

Welcome to Emcom!

2006-11-23T14:22:00.001+08:00

Welcome to Emcom!

Having been working on the set-up of the company since March of this year, it has been really exciting seeing that things are accelerating at a furious pace and that the momentum is really starting to pick up!

One of the reasons that I want to start this blog site for Emcom is to enable faster and better communications to the general public, and at the same time, it is also for me to have a chance to pen down my thoughts and probably some of the experiences that I go through in my role as the Managing Director of Emcom. I must admit that this year has been really amazing, and I am really grateful to my Mentor and Chairman for giving me this opportunity to head this enterprise. My vision for the company is for us to significantly impact the lives of people around the world and create tremendous value through cost-effective info-communications.

When I was studying in the United States for my degree, the cost of calling back to my family and loved ones was amazingly expensive! At one point, I was spending more than $500.00/mth making calls back to Singapore! And just this September, I was shocked when I was billed for more than $1,000.00! (Yeah, I was traveling around the globe and making international calls every now and then… but still…) Why does the cost of communications be so expensive!?

In Emcom, we believe that we can positively impact the financial well-being of our subscribers by providing great value and significantly lower the costs of communications internationally. And it is with this intention to create value that Emcom was formed. Personally, I will make a commitment to constantly communicate the vision, ideas, and happenings of Emcom to our friends, family and valued clients as often as possible. . I invite anyone who is excited to be a part of this amazing technological revolution to join us in our journey.

Till next time!

Ignious Yong
Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology Pte Ltd