Orchestrate change
While it's essential to look to China and India as large markets for
hi-tech, it would be unwise to overlook Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam
The Hanoi Opera House, built in 1911, normally hosts classical
orchestras
and warbled tributes to Ho Chi Minh. But on August 28 the ornate
building
was transformed into a hi-tech palace--an enormous flat screen was
suspended
over the stage, displaying 3- D software. The slick production starred
Intel
Corp. chief executive Craig Barrett. In a chat with REVIEW correspondent
Margot Cohen, 63-year old Barrett proved upbeat about his firm's Asia
prospects and insistent on Internet freedom, though he drew the line at
disgruntled ex-employees who invade Intel's e-mail system:
- Intel has a strategy of "innovating out of recession". How will this
play
out in asia ?
The Asian market continues to be very strong for us. We continue to
innovate, in good times and bad times. So we just continue to invest. I
don't really think this particular slowdown is much different than the
previous nine that I've lived through. You always feel terrible when
you're
in them. Sometimes I feel like they'll never end. But they always do
end,
and they tend to end fairly abruptly.
- What are the potential hitches for your business in China ?
Right now there are some limitations on intellectual- property
transfers.
[But] since China has come into the World Trade Organization I'm much
less
concerned about their respect for intellectual property. So I'm just
optimistic that the Chinese market will continue to grow, but it's not
the
only one. The Indian market is about four years behind the Chinese
market.
China is turning into a major manufacturing centre and India is turning
into
a major software centre, so they are taking different areas of expertise
and
building up capabilities. If you look at Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam,
there is huge opportunity in terms of the growth of the market with the
build-out of the Internet.
- Compared to your last trip to Vietnam in 1999, has anything changed ?
I think the government mindset is much more solidified. You see the
creation
of a ministerial post in charge of [the Internet], an IT plan for the
country, an emphasis on IT education in universities . . . you need to
have
a proactive government that wants to drive the technology, use the
technology, and put the technology infrastructure into place. Those
things
seem to be happening here in Vietnam.
- Yet the vietnamese government has announced tighter supervision of
Internet cafes.
I absolutely understand the issue of pornography. I understand that
every
government has the right and the duty to protect young people from that
sort
of content. But I don't know of any government that has been successful
in
trying to control the Internet for information access. Mainland China
has
tried about half a dozen times and basically has said, "We can't control
this." National barriers have basically come down as far as the flow of
ideas and information.
- In a case pending before the California supreme court, Intel argues
that a
disgruntled ex-employee has "trespassed" because he sent critical
missives
through Intel' e-mail system.
What about those who worry about a chilling effect on free speech ?
I don't think there will be a chilling effect. Look at what the Internet
allows people to do. He can have his own Web site . . . he can make his
message available to anyone in the world. We don't have to provide him
the
capability to use our IT facilities to distribute his message.
By Margot Cohen - The Far Eastern Economic Review - September 12, 2002.
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