I’ve been disturbed with the news regarding RIM vs Indonesian Government. Many news and comments are only telling from one source, without necessarily bring the whole context. My wife advise me to write it down, so here we go, my first non-technical post…
From what I understand, Indonesian Government demanded (1):
- opened branches in Indonesia;
- offers after servicing;
- blocks negative content;
- recruits Indonesian workers;
- and cooperates with local content developers so as to use local software and components
- open a data center in Indonesia
- open access for wiretapping if their customers have allegedly been involved in a crime
I believe these originally were raised on early 2009, or could be mid 2008. Only after the government pushes them very hard, by threaten to ban the service several times(8).
On 8-Jul-2009(3) BlackBerry finally agreed to open service center. Only after the government force them to do so. Many Indonesian backed the Government on this (9). But, if we check to the BlackBerry website today(4), you may see that most (ALL?) are inside ‘boarding house’, which owned by operator or distributor. If you compare with Nokia(5), they use dedicated places. As per today, Indonesia is RIM’s biggest market outside North America(2). It’s very strange that RIM couldn’t offer dedicate service center.
In several news(1)(6), we read that government has clearly stated that RIM has to open data center in Indonesia. But, I’m not sure where the missing link is, as RIM blamed the govt(7).
As Indonesian who spent sometime in Europe and now living in Middle East, there’re other issues that make this become complex:
- Most of Indonesians don’t trust their corrupt government. So, any policies are seen by most Indonesian as another way to do corruption, which is not necessarily true.
- In Indonesia, customer is NOT the king. The after sales practice in Indonesia is very poor. It’s not easy to return/exchange a defect item back to its distributor. Compare to Europe, you can do that easily. Most of Indonesians are accustomed with this practice. That makes very easy for producer, like RIM, to exploit this Indonesian weakness.
- Most westerner point of view, seeing it as a ‘ban of freedom’. It’s not always true. After 1998, Indonesian Reform, the press here is very open. It’s too open, I must say. The government and/or even the public couldn’t control them. You’ll see any news, from fact-based to rumor-based, are jamming the Indonesian news ways. Most of Indonesian news that I read, only show the ‘cut version’ of the news. Not the whole fact, nor context. So, it deliver wrong message to the reader un/intentionally.
- Twitter and Facebook are the best way to express most Indonesian freedom. Many causes are successfully delivered through these media. It’s easy for most Indonesian to send any videos.
- Wire tapping is double-edged sword. Indonesian Government can capture corruptors by doing so. But, as there’re corruptors inside the government itself, they can use it as a way to manipulate the data, and defame the clean ones. This made most Indonesian suspicious to the government move.
- Comparing the Indonesian case with Middle East, is non-sense, as the culture and need are completely different. For most oil-rich Middle Eastern, job is not really the case. For Indonesian, there’re 100 million+ potential job seeker. Government has to bring more jobs to its citizen. The list of demands above is related to jobs. This is not unique case; even the US government tries to create jobs.
In my view, this is as simple and complex as a normal company try to reduce cost and gain profit as much as possible. But, the main problem is, RIM always tries to push it further. And by looking back on how RIM treat its Indonesian customer:
- opened service centers only after the government push them very hard,
- and only resulting ‘boarding’ service center
RIM reputation is in the stake.
The main RIM advantage as global gadget company in North America, they have easy access to media all over the world. In contrary, Indonesian Government is only has access to local media which only publish the ‘cut version’ of the news. That’s too bad!
As Indonesian who works in IT world, I back my government to open the data center in Indonesia. It will not only open more jobs to my fellow Indonesian IT/Telco communities but also develop the human resource there. As of wiretapping, I believe many trust and clean officials are still exists within Indonesia government body. If I can’t trust my own government, then who else?
01 02 03 04 05 4. http://id.blackberry.com/bec/location.jsp06 5. http://www.nokia.co.id/dukungan/perbaikan-dan-daur-ulang/lokasi-care-center07 08 09 10
