Groupon Says No to USD 6 Billion...

I am not sure that many people would have the testicular fortitude to say "no" to Google and USD 6 billion. However, the founder of Groupon, Andrew Mason, has apparently done just that. Groupon is an online coupon site that has reportedly reached a very impressive 35 million users. Simply, that many daily users is going to be of interest to Google as it looks to crush its competitors and to beat its way into more spaces in the online world.

Mason has allegedly turned down Google's offer because he was not comfortable with what was going to happen to Groupon post-acquisition, particularly the direction that the company would take and what would happen to Groupon people. So, rather than take the plunge, Mason told Google to go away. This is probably not the end of the deal, but it would seem that Mason is now holding all the cards, or at least the best hand by some way.

Google and, the CEO, Eric Schmidt are going to have to part with a little bit more of the reportedly USD 33.4 billion in cash that they have on hand for acquisitions. It would also seem reasonable to suggest that Mason requires a few other assurances from Google if this deal is to be re-started and concluded. This is a distinct possibility because the numbers game so far suggests that Google was prepared to go all out to get Groupon. The USD 6 billion offer, combined with the supposed incentives factored into the deal, meant that the Groupon acquisition was set to double the previously Google record for an acquisition of USD 3.2 billion for DoubleClick.

Nevertheless, the cards will not remain in Groupon's favour forever as other imitators will undoubtedly rise from the internet coupon dust. Google may opt to throw cash at a coupon start-up if it cannot convince Groupon to sign off on the acquisition. Yet, even Google must realise that Groupon is the best alternative with respect to immediate growth potential. A start-up is always a much more risky proposition, particularly when Groupon is reporting that with projected growth this year it is expecting sales of some USD 500 million.

This might be one worth watching as it Groupon seems like it is willing to go the IPO route if an acquisition is not finalised. However, even if an acquisition is finalised, it is not a done deal because there are plenty of concerns about whether this deal would be bad for consumers. US regulators are sure to run the critical eye over the deal.

I am wondering whether I would have had the testicular fortitude to say no to USD 6 billion. Then again, I would not know how to start spending it once I had it. There are only so many things once can conceivably buy and enjoy, right?

[Potentially] Causing Panic is a Crime?

Is the reporting of the owner of an Indonesian television station to the police for allowing a broadcast that suggested that Mount Merapi, an Indonesian volcano on the island of Java, was going to erupt with even more intensity an attack on free speech and the freedom of the press?

The Indonesian Broadcasting Commission has a brief to ensure that Indonesian broadcasters maintain some standards. However, it is questionable as to whether its brief includes reporting broadcasters to the police for the content of a show that suggests that an eruption of an active volcano is likely to be more intense than it has been previously. Using that logic any TV or radio broadcaster that reports a tsunami warning where the tsunami does not eventuate should also be reported to the police for causing unnecessary panic and telling lies, shouldn't they?

Harry Tanoesoedibjo is the owner of Media Nusantara Citra (MNC) which includes in its stable of interests RCTI, Tanoesoedibjo also owns Global TV and MNC TV along with a wide range of other print and broadcast media interests.

The KPI has determined that Tanoesoedibjo has breached a number of articles of the Broadcasting Law, including articles 36. Article 36 sees Tanoesoedibjo liable for a jail term up to five years and a IDR 10 billion fine for spreading misinformation (lies). In addition, the KPI is relying on Article 54 which in essence allows them to pursue the owner of a recalcitrant broadcaster.

The gist of the crime is that a program on RCTI, Silet, reported on 7 November 2010 that Mount Merapi was gearing up for an even larger eruption than those that it had recently experienced. The eruption according to the Silet report was not expected to happen until the following week. This would reasonably be of concern to people living in and around Mount Merapi as the Silet report also suggested that the magnitude of the eruption was likely to be the end of the closest major city to Merapi, Yogyakarta.

The Silet report drew the ire of the KPI and the KPI decided to ban RCTI from broadcasting the program until the Merapi status had been downgraded. However, RCTI decided that it would repackage and re-brand the show as "Intens" and front it with a new presenter. It goes without saying that this move annoyed the KPI and this is the reason that the KPI has acted as it has, like a petulant little child who got picked last for the playground soccer game at lunchtime.

What is silly about the reporting of Tanoesoedibjo to the police is that only Tanoesoedibjo has been reported. All TV and radio broadcasts at that time were presenting content of a very similar nature. Why has Tanoesoedibjo been singled out and targeted and the other have not? Is it personal or political or related to a business dispute?

Or is this a simple case of the KPI overreacting and over-reaching with respect to its brief?

This case seemingly is destined to set a poor precedent going forward for broadcast freedom and predicting the ferocity or lack thereof in relation to unfolding natural disasters.

HIV and Indonesia: Personal Thoughts...

In light of the previous post, I am feeling a little in the ranting and railing mood.

HIV / AIDS is a scourge. It is the scourge of our time. We must dedicate all the resources that are required to ensure that we defeat. The decisions that need to be made are human ones and not political or business ones. The idealist in me believes that what I seek is possible. Yet, I am a realist and that reality is that politics and business will always play a role in how we as a community craft decisions for the greater good. So, it is in that frame that I would advocate increased resources being directed to education.

The simple truth is that if we cannot find a vaccine or a cure in the immediate term for whatever reason, then we have a responsibility to educate our youth, and anyone else who needs it, to ensure that they have the knowledge necessary to protect themselves from infection.

In the Indonesian case, this means that some hard decisions need to be made. Sex education and personal development education must become an integral part of the Indonesian curriculum. This is the case, even if it means standing up and staring down those who oppose such moves. A cold hard reality is that educators and government bureaucracy can no longer bury their collective heads in the sand and pretend that our children are going to abstain from sexual activity, including high-risk sexual activity. Forewarned is forearmed.

This educational process will need to start with educators themselves. Educators need to have the requisite content knowledge if they are going to successfully transfer that knowledge to students. Once there is a "core" of trained professionals, then these people can go out and educate others and our children. The process has to be uniform.

It is my sincere hope that I am uniformed on this matter. It is also my sincere hope that UNAIDS and the National AIDS Commission of Indonesia in association with a wide array of funders already have these programs in place and running.

There is a definite need for leadership on this front. Hopefully, the government of Indonesia can step up and take the lead.

The Ugly Meter...

I do not own an iPhone, but now that I know that I can pay USD 0.99 and buy an application called the "Ugly Meter", I might just have to splash out and get one. The concept is an interesting one; face scanning technology that maps your face and then gives it a rating of somewhere from 1 to 10. I am no techno wizard, but I always thought that this would have to be a 3-D thingy in order to get some accuracy to the scanning and mapping. Perhaps I have been watching too much CSI and NCIS and Law & Order.

Anyways, the ugly meter seemingly scans and calls most people ugly. So, it appears to be an equal opportunity ugly meter and makes everyone ugly. It is hard to work out how best to use the ugly meter. I can see that if you can resist the urge to scan yourself and just scan all those around you, then there is a chance that this application will be good for yourself esteem and body image, well at least your face image. Then again, if you cannot resist that urge and you scan yourself and score a woeful ugly number then your hard-earned self-esteem could be shot in no time at all.

Yet, if trial runs are anything to go by this application could be a real winner. Brad Pitt, often cited as one of the beautiful people and one-time sexiest man alive, has found out that age does in fact weary him. Mr. Pitt scores a pretty ugly 8 on the ugly meter. When Brad Pitt scores an 8 it is almost worth buying the application just to see if you can score a 7. If I scored a 7 then you can rest assured that everyone I know will know that I am just that little bit "hotter" than Brad Pitt! But Mr. Pitt's better half scored a lot better. It just goes to prove that old adage; opposites attract.

Then again, knowing the reaction of my mirror when I stand in front of it, a ten is not outside the realm of possibility! Or better still, the application just laughs and says "Mate, you're so ugly that it is not even worth a score...but, 27!"

Apparently, the developers of this here "ugly meter" are doing beautiful business. They managed to sell some USD 10,000 worth over the past weekend. I really need to whack on the thinking cap and come up with an iPhone application that people will find amusing.

Indonesia to Ban Blackberries?

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have moved to ban Blackberry messaging, email, and web browsing services. The belief is that the way Research In Motion (RIM), the owner of Blackberry technology, encrypts this information is a serious threat to security.

The suggestion is that terrorists can use Blackberries to wreak havoc and mayhem. Alternatively, this may just be a case of "big brother" wanting to ensure that it has access to every single thing that you do on your mobile.

Not wanting to be left behind in the draconian law stakes, Indonesia is mulling a ban on Blackberry services on the grounds of security. The Indonesian Telecommunication Regulation Authority (BRTI) will be taking the lead in determining whether a ban should be put into place. The idea of a ban is not surprising, and the "national security" card was expected at some point. The move to ban Blackberry services is just part of a much broader assault on the freedoms of ordinary Indonesians to go about their business without government interference.

It should not be to long before all houses are built with glass or perspex walls and curtains are banned in the interests of national security. After all, terrorists might plan their heinous crimes in darkened houses with drawn curtains, and heaven forbid (even with 72 virgins awaiting for some) we cannot have that!

But, on a more serious note, and Blackberry related, it is estimated that there are some 1.2 million Blackberry users in Indonesia. The vast majority of these users are law abiding citizens using their devices for business or pleasure (such as social networking or downloading Indonesian celebrity sex tapes). A ban on Blackberry is likely to encounter stiff resistance, and not only from those downloading porn, but from regular Indonesians who rely on Blackberry services to go about their business. The plan, if it is such, will also harm business and presumably impact on investment.

Interestingly, Barack Obama still uses his Blackberry. My guess is that the encryption services offered by RIM are only the tip of the iceberg on his Blackberry. I would reckon there were probably a couple of addition layers of encryption and other unknown state-of-the-art security features attached to his device.

As an aside, I will need to do a little research. It was not all that long ago that Indonesia was talking about ousting RIM and Blackberry from Indonesia by banning the devices (aka smartphones) if RIM did not open a representative office in Indonesia and go about setting up a mirror site in Indonesia to improve services and decrease end costs to Blackberry users. The research relates to whether that ever went ahead, as my understanding is that there is not a mirror site. I have not read about RIM opening a representative office. I do recall I wrote about this before, so I guess I go back into the RAB files and see what I can come up with.

Anyway, to all my Indonesian followers, friends, and colleagues who are Blackberry users....Big Brother is coming!

Indonesia "135 Million" vs. Tommy Soeharto "0"...

The most recent decision in a Tommy Soeharto related case has seen him lose some USD 135 million. This should make a significant dent in his financial position. I am not sure that it is enough to push him to the brink of bankruptcy or destitution, but it should be felt (hopefully it will be felt!).

The Supreme Court finally overturned itself and decided for the Indonesian government in the long-running PT Timor Putra Nasional case. The company, PT Timor Putra Nasional, was a fraud from the start. The company was established with a view to producing a national car by a national car maker. However, the company did nothing more than import cars from South Korea and re-brand them. It was a fraud because the company was benefiting from subsidies and other facilities because it was creating a national industry that was intended to supply jobs to Indonesians and to move away from the reliance on car imports.

In contrast, as hindsight tends to be 20/20, the reality was that this was nothing more than another venture from a Soeharto child designed for personal enrichment under the protection of the iron-fisted rule of a dictator, who just happened to be Tommy's father.

The case went back to the Supreme Court because the Ministry of Finance presented two new pieces of evidence that were not presented at the earlier trial proceedings. These two pieces of evidence were letters from Tommy and the PT Timor Board of Directors guaranteeing payment to the government. This decision, according to Nurhadi, spokesperson of the Supreme Court, ends the appeal process. The decision is final.

An earlier Supreme Court decision in this case had awarded all the assets held by Bank Mandiri to Tommy with any interest that had accrued while the case was being heard.

The case was all over the place for so many reasons. It started with PT Timor defaulting on loans of some IDR 4.05 trillion during the 1997-1998 financial meltdown. In 2003 the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) stepped in and took over the assets and managed them through to an eventual sale. For reasons only known to IBRA its due diligence mechanisms failed to uncover that Tommy headed up the company, PT Vista Bella Pratama, who they sold the PT Timor assets to for a heavily discounted IDR 444 billion. This was a pretty significant return on the original investment for Tommy.

In legal moves in 2008, prosecutors argued that the deal had to be illegal because Tommy controlled both entities. The suit claimed the difference between the two amounts. The case was settled out of court with the government taking over all of PT Timor's assets and the IDR 4.05 trillion debt.

The Supreme Court has seemingly relied on this settlement and the new evidence to overturn the earlier decision they reached in the previous hearing of this case.

It remains to be seen as to whether this is some sort of seminal moment in the pursuit of ill-gotten wealth by the Soeharto clan. However, this clearly is a significant victory for the government.

Arak, Bali, and Death

Arak (photo courtesy of here - this is not the nasty stuff that is described later) is a bit of a local tradition in Bali, as it is in many places throughout Indonesia. Arak is a locally fermented spirit, which in the opinion of this author is good enough to run your car on, and is quite often outside of the quality assurance checks that most other producers are required to comply with. Needless to say, as happens all over the world, in order to make things go a little further and to ratchet up the profits some unscrupulous producers add all sorts of nasty stuff to their brews.

In this case, and after some 25 deaths, tourists are being warned not to drink arak from unlabelled bottles or roadside stalls. Hopefully, the authorities are also warning Balinese not to drink arak either. It seems that a local batch of arak has been mixed with methanol. Four foreigners have succumbed to the poison and died while 21 locals have also been hospitalized.

The police have managed to catch the culprit / producer and are now doing the investigation. The investigation is supposedly to determine whether the methanol was deliberately added or it got into the batch accidentally. I am not sure how you accidentally get something like methanol into a batch of arak, especially so when one considers that methanol is generally used in anti-freeze among other things.

So, I guess the best advice to locals and tourists is to avoid arak and go with spirits, local or imported that come from labelled bottles. Although, not wanting to be a party pooper, I am pretty sure that it would not be hard to whack some homemade brew into a labelled bottle.

Cheers.

Learning the Lingo -- Indonesian

Language is an important feature of Indonesia and what it means to be Indonesian. So, it is hardly surprising that there is a movement to codify this with a law on language.

The Bill on Language has been in and out of favour for some time as other pieces of legislation deemed either more important or more urgent being considered and enacted in preference to it. Nevertheless, the bill has never totally gone off the radar and a recent workshop on the bill sort to develop a more detailed discourse on the needs for a law on language. The bill specifically regulates the use of Indonesian and other languages.

However, the most interesting issues relate to how the bill mandates the use of Indonesian in all official representations of state and the requirements for all foreigners seeking to work and live in Indonesia to have a standardized level of Indonesian language skills.

The bill in most respects is not all that controversial and even the points of interest noted above are really not controversial in the sense that they are likely to result in deadlock or sink the bill in the consultation and discussion phases. The idea that the Head of State must use Bahasa Indonesia in all formal engagements is likely to resonate with ordinary Indonesians. Furthermore, Indonesian, and in particular proper and correct Indonesian, is a source of pride for Indonesians. Although in a practical sense it is probably important that the Head of State be able to speak English in order to have the option of presenting in English where practical and necessary.

The idea that foreigners must pass an Indonesian competency exam is reasonable and in most cases reciprocal. Indonesians are generally required to speak, read, and write at an acceptable level of English in order to work or study overseas. Therefore, it would seem to make good sense for Indonesia to require the same level of competency in Indonesian for those foreigners wanting to live and work in Indonesia.

It is conceivable that some people will see this bill as a threat to the ease of completing the functions of State and in doing business in Indonesia. However, the bill still has plenty of hard yards to hoe before it reaches the House of Representatives (DPR) and is put into the Committee process leading to a plenary vote.

The bill seems to be making progress however it is currently not a priority. The draft is current as of August 2008.

Provisions
The Bill requires the use of Indonesian in all public and private work environments. Article 11 even requires that all brand names, buildings, advertisements, and company names be in Indonesian.

This is not the first time that measures such as these have been proposed or used. Over the last decade there have been various attempts to compel the use of Indonesian. The most oft cited example of this is the case involving Bakery Holland. Bakery Holland was forced to Indonesianize its corporate name, the solution was simple - Bakeri Hollan, neither of which would seem to be proper and correct Indonesian or for that matter proper and correct words in any language.

Cultural and Ethnic Diversity
The Bill simply acknowledges the cultural and ethnic diversity that is Indonesia but would seem to restrict the use of regional languages to very limited situations. The bill permits the use of foreign languages only in forums that are international in nature and substance. There is a need for a national language. However, there remains a question as to whether this must come at the expense of regional languages and dialects. It must be noted that breaches of the provisions will result in administrative sanctions.

Arguments that the restrictions placed on the use of regional languages do not reflect the spirit of ‘unity in diversity’ seem to ignore the fact that there are no express provisions outlawing the use of regional languages and dialects. To the contrary, regional languages are permitted including how these languages are to be maintained is clear based on Article 27. However, considering the emphasis on ensuring the development of Indonesian for all spheres of use the issue will be one of how the regions will fund and develop the maintenance of their regional languages where there may just well be an overwhelming emphasis on ensuring meeting mandated standards of Indonesian.

Nevertheless, proponents of the bill note that the idea of Indonesia having a national language is something that is mandated not only in the Constitution but from a much earlier time, specifically the 1928 Youth Pledge.

Foreigners
The Bill requires all foreigners working in Indonesia to be proficient in the Indonesian language. In principle this is not an ill-conceived demand, the question is the workability of the proposal and the uniform standards that it will require to be put into place. From a business and investment perspective, all future labor and human resources hiring decisions as they relate to foreign staff will require that the prospective expatriate staff meet the required levels of proficiency.

For example, before a language school could hire an expatriate native speaker language teacher that teacher must first be proficient in Indonesian before they could be offered the position. It is accepted that communication between the expatriate and the local staff would be greatly enhanced if the expatriate knew Indonesian however the knowledge of Indonesian is not critical to the ability of the expatriate to perform their employment functions.

That said, it is important that there is a legal requirement for the transfer of knowledge from the expatriate to the Indonesian counterpart. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that this transfer of knowledge would be greatly enhanced if the expatriate could impart that knowledge in both Indonesian and the foreign language. The Labor Law and the implementing regulations envisage expatriate staff provided expertise, imparting that knowledge to local staff, and then having that local staff take over the role of the expatriate.

Indonesian Proficiency Tests
Foreigners
The Bill mandates that all expatriate employees and foreign students will have to have the requisite knowledge of Indonesian before being permitted to work or study in Indonesia. This will require them to sit and pass the Indonesian Proficiency Test (Ujian Kemampuan Bahasa Indonesia / UKBI) however what score they might have to achieve to 'pass' has not yet been set.

It remains unclear whether the test will be required for expatriate residents of Indonesian who are not working and studying, particularly for the ever-expanding group of expatriates retiring to the warmer climes and quieter surrounds of Bali among other Indonesian locales.

Indonesians
Just so that expatriates do not think they are being unfairly singled out for language proficiency tests, all Indonesian public officials and State employees will have to possess the requisite knowledge levels of proper and correct Indonesian - this may seem easy enough - but anyone watching local news bulletins with interviews with public officials will note that perhaps this is going to be a challenge for some Indonesians as well.

Official Representations
The Bill stipulates that for Indonesians that all speeches in written or oral form presented in Indonesia or abroad in an official capacity must be done in proper and correct Indonesian. The effect, the President in any speech that he makes whether it be, opening an international conference in Indonesia or making a speech addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations, these speeches must be in Indonesian.

As noted earlier international conferences in Indonesia may use a foreign language as the lingua franca yet it remains unclear whether an Indonesian official opening the conference would be permitted to use the foreign language to open the conference, particularly in light of Article 13.

On face value this seems an excessive requirement. This requirement might be directly linked to the controversy over a former Miss Indonesia's participation in an international pageant where she referred to Indonesia as being “a beautiful city”, an honest mistake or otherwise; even native speakers can make mistakes in their own language. Or it might simply be that Indonesian is a source of national pride and as such must be used at every possible opportunity.

Sanctions
The sanctions for breach of the provisions include written and verbal warnings, administrative fines, withholding and cancellation of permits, and the suspension of services until compliance is achieved. The impacts are obvious in regard to investment and foreigners. Nevertheless, one of the other aims of the Bill is to redress many Indonesian problems, such as a weakening of national pride and patriotism, which are considered to result in the deterioration in the use of proper Indonesian.

Enforcement
Yet, it would seem that the practicalities of regulating language use in the private and public spheres is only going to increase the red tape and bureaucracy in an already overburdened, over-bureaucratic State apparatus, which lead to claims at the recent seminar on the Bill that it was nothing more than a paper tiger or an unloaded gun.

Nevertheless, it must also be considered, although not explicitly stated, that Article 19 of the Bill would imply that the Government has an obligation to enforce the provisions and consequently to ensure compliance.

Publishing
Finally, the use of Indonesian is compulsory in the writing and publication of scientific papers and articles in the mass media, and films. Taking this to the logical extreme the inference is that all non-Indonesian language material must be translated or dubbed into Indonesian for local publication and dissemination.

The issue here is not the intent but rather the enforceability of such provisions. Presumably the Indonesian language requirement does not apply to Indonesian scientists and academics intending to publish material about Indonesia in foreign publications, once again this is an enforceability issue. Another example would be subscription based television programming; do the provisions entail that all programming content, free-to-air and subscription based, have to be in Indonesian.

Services Provided in Languages Other Than Indonesian
Another interesting question that the Bill or subsequent Government Regulations will need to address, perhaps in the Elucidation to the law, is the status of Indonesian produced English language news services – will they be required to include subtitles?

Conclusion

In conclusion, the intent of the Bill is a valid one, the promotion and development of the National Language. However, the codification of this intent is problematic and this piece has highlighted but a few of these, of particular concern is the enforcement of the provisions.

This increased bureaucracy and the ever-expanding intrusion of Government into the private corporate and private spheres is perhaps an issue of concern. This is particularly the case where the respective post-Soeharto Governments of B.J. Habibe, Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati, and currently Susilo Bambang Yudhyono have sort to distance themselves from the authoritarian nature of the past through the promotion and emphasis on good corporate governance and the human rights and dignity of individuals to be free from excessive intrusion by the Government - the emphasis here is on smaller, more efficient government rather than an unending expansion of the big government of the past.

Talking

To talk is our chief business in this world, and talk is by far the most accessible pleasure. It costs nothing in money: it is all profit, it completes education, it founds and fosters friendships, and it can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any state of health.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)

Australian Cows in Lampung

A little factoid just out of Lampung!

The province of Lampung has imported some USD 116.5 million worth of Australian "pedigree" cows during 2007. Unfortunately, for bean counters there were no figures released in terms of how many head of cattle this was but rather the more useful figure of that the imported cows weighed a collective 67,737 tons.

For those against the live export of animals this will surely be an issue of concern. But for Australian farmers, particularly those breeding pedigree cows, the Indonesian market looks like it may continue to be a profitable one!