MSC - An Orphaned Child Or a Waste of Money?

Did you notice something?

Well I didn't and that has to do with the quiet slumber party that characterizes the MSC. Originally the brain child of the 4th Prime Minister (who has since censored Wenger's comments), it was launched with much funfair around 1995 or 1996 or 1997. I myself do not know exactly when MSC was launched, and as usual I do not bother one bit.

Why?




Because the MSC to me is most irrelevant. We know it exists because we see the sign boards on the way to KLIA, we know it had cost a lot of money, we know it has a heck of lot of advisors (called the IAP), we know it continues to draw some Government budget but aside from that we just do not know what MSC does.

Oh yes - theres something called MDC. And between the MSC and the MDC, nobody would know they were connected because if you go to the MSC Website there is no single point to say what the heck it is. Instead they have cleverly created a separate tab for the Rakyat, for the Business and for the Government.

I know humbly request they create one additional tab called For the Critics.

But where do we start?

I guess it should be something called a Cost Benefit Exercise. We want to know exactly how much money was spent to develop the MSC, how much money the MSC, the MDC and all the other "C"s cost to operate and actually what is the success matrix used to determine whether or not all the C's added anything to the country.

We know all the C's cost something and that's "Cash".

Many supporters of that man seem to point and say without the MSC, we probably will still be using Pos Malaysia to send mail. Of course, his supporters were never known to be the smart type - so chuckle all you want.

I see the MSC as yet another evidence of a programme without any clear commercial benefit, does not leverage of Malaysia's unique talent pool and really just another excuse for the PR/Ad hiphop joes to get business.

Which is an indictment of the Founder of the MSC. He is as clueless when it comes to investing in motorcycle companies as it is when intending to develop the new economy.

Contrast this billion dollar baby with the situation in South Africa. South Africa is perhaps one of the most technologically innovative and independent countries, South Africans have been behind some major home runners in the world of High Tech - VeriSign and the Ubuntu Linux distro being some examples, their engineers are highly sought out throughout the world and guess what, they did not have any MSC.

Take the example of the Ubuntu Linux Distribution. Linux was an operating system originally developed by a Finnish Uni student called Linus Torvalds as  non-commercial replacement for MINIX which eventually became the Linux kernel (kernel to sama dengan Water cooled engine for the MV Augusta fanatics, difference is nobody needed to be exposed to an RM 1 billion risk for that technology.) Ok whats MINIX - MINIX is an inexpensive version for UNIX. And whats UNIX - Unix is the code that is used to run computers. However, most of the computers today run Windows and not Unix because of the commercial genius of Bill Gates in teaming up with Intel.)

If you've not confused as the "IX"es, then we can continue.

So after this Linus student joker went and created Linux, he released the code free of charge. Of course, there is so much new stuff that needs to be done because computer technology keeps on changing, and people around the world began enhancing and localizing Linux, adding new features to match the functions produced by Microsoft.

Which is interesting by itself. Microsoft is a several hundred billion dollar firms, their employees are richly rewarded (don't know about Microsoft Malaysia - the last time I checked they don't even carry the same corporate name card), and they have a virtual monopoly with the hardware vendors. So its very strange that a couple of nerds in a basement spread all througout the world could come up with something.

But they did. Linux is now very much favoured to run the big machines in data centres called Servers and a certain South African chap called Mark_Shuttleworth decided to "glokalize" this new Linux technology. By the way he did not need to buy Lotus for that, he just tapped the resources of the South African technologists he knew of together with other developers connected all throughout the world.

And the product of this development was a version of Linux called Ubuntu.

People holding hands. Different races in harmony.

Ooops, not part of the standard Mahathirist cutlure right?

The name Ubuntu itself is based on Ubuntu is an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of southern Africa. Ubuntu is seen as a classical African concept.^[1] The Ubuntu operating system was named for this principle


The clear principle is that of ethics. That means this guy developed the program in an ethical manner, meaning his boys will make an effort to code properly, test it and release it for free.

Which also means no way could Ubuntu model work in Malaysia.
Ethics had been swept aside before the turn of this new century. Its perhaps difficult to find a single ethical business man around.

Anyhow, this program was a success. In fact it was so successful that it was mentioned in the New York Times recently

A Software Populist Who Doesn’t Do Windows

THEY’RE either hapless pests or the very people capable of overthrowing Windows. Take your pick.

In December, hundreds of these controversial software developers gathered for one week at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. They came from all over the world, sporting many of the usual signs of software mercenaries: jeans, ponytails, unruly facial hair and bloodshot eyes.

But rather than preparing to code for the highest bidder, the developers were coordinating their largely volunteer effort to try to undermine Microsoft’s Windows operating system for PCs, which generated close to $17 billion in sales last year.

All the fuss at the meeting centered on something called Ubuntu and a man named Mark Shuttleworth, the charismatic 35-year-old billionaire from South Africa who functions as the spiritual and financial leader of this coding clan.

Created just over four years ago, Ubuntu (pronounced oo-BOON-too) has emerged as the fastest-growing and most celebrated version of the Linux operating system, which competes with Windows primarily through its low, low price: $0.

More than 10 million people are estimated to run Ubuntu today, and they represent a threat to Microsoft’s hegemony in developed countries and perhaps even more so in those regions catching up to the technology revolution.

from A Software Populist who Does Not Do Windows, New York Times, January 10th 2009

So what do we have here?

An African country that for years was crippled by apartheid, adopted free market, elected a visionary leader, did not require to throw billions of dollars into a project called MSC and developed a product that can take on the flagship products of the largest technology company in the world. They even displayed a huge amount of patriotism with the founder, even-though an Afrikaner, decided to name his product based on black African culture.  

Contrast this with the "great success" of the MSC.

But then those fan boys will contend, surely the MSC has been mentioned in the New York Times.

And yes they were correct.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS; Malaysia Pushes Flagging Plan for Its Own Silicon Valley

By MARK LANDLER

CYBERJAYA, Malaysia, July 10— When 25 senior executives from technology companies around the world gathered here this week to tour Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor project, it had all the appearance of a somewhat dutiful pep rally for a technology-friendly Southeast Asian leader.

The meeting, however, was far from routine -- either in its lush tropical setting or in the object of the corporate kudos: Mahathir Mohamad.

Dr. Mahathir, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, has been engaged in the fight of his life over the last year. As the Asian economic crisis tore through this normally tranquil country, Dr. Mahathir, 73, imposed widely criticized controls on Malaysia's capital markets, vilified foreigners for causing Asia's misery, and imprisoned his popular former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim.

Many people here feared that the furor would doom Dr. Mahathir's ambitious vision to make Malaysia the technology lodestar of Asia. The Prime Minister's actions baffled some members of the panel of foreign executives that advises him on his flagship project, the Multimedia Super Corridor. The project, which was started in 1996, officially opened Thursday and is expected to take two decades to complete.

If the three-day meeting in honor of the opening did not quite dispel the manyfears, it provided a much-needed psychic boost.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS; Malaysia Pushes Flagging Plan for Its Own Silicon Valley, July 10, 1999.

1999. 

That's more than 11 years ago. 

At that time, I think a Pentium III running 300 MHz on Windows 98 SE was the flagship product. Right now, we can get laptops with Pentium Dual Cores running 3 Ghz on Windows 7.


All together there were 89 entries on the New York Times referring to the MSC. Most of it would be the pro Maha's lecturing the West.

But lets face the facts. The West was spot on.
What actually has the MSC achieved?

And the question we ask is: Why?

Why is it that every single project initiated by the Government seems to fail.



Time we upgrade the Engine in the Government

To me the answer lies in the Operating system used by the Government. Where else the rest of the world moves progressively towards the future, our Government, under the wise tutelage of the 4th Prime Minister forces all the employees to utilize the Operating System released by Biro Tata Negara or BTN.

This O/S is outdated, low technology and even our current Government Ministers has gone on record to call it "racist." The products of this O/S can be seen in the thinking of bloggers like MarahKu, Parpukari, Chedet, Big Dog and a host of others. The only technology they have running is based on race and what Dr. Mahahtir says.

Of course, he can and try and expand his ideas by roping in a lot of business people from the major software firms to give him "advice." But as he had once said, sometimes the role of the "advisor" is to take "advice"; especially if the "advisors" have ulterior motives like using the MSC as an excuse to sell their products and services.