Why VMware Regional Office for Asia South not in Malaysia?
Posted by craig 
- on October 9th, 2008 in Industry News | 5 Comments »
VMware had setup their regional Asia South office in Singapore quite some times ago. Personally, I am wondering should this be the correct decision to be based in Singapore which is seems to be a higher cost sustain area, and the IT market in that area are just not focusing enough compare to Malaysia. The reason of saying this, is not because myself is a Malaysian.
1 of the good example, IBM had ship their regional office to Malaysia from Singapore previously, because they saw the potential market grow in this country as well as more talent source in Malaysia for IT related area. Many of the IT giant are setup the IT hub, data center as well as corporate office in Malaysia to enjoy the TAX free holiday as well as cheaper real estate cost and man power resources. There are HP, IBM, DELL, SHELL, EDS, HSBC, Prudential and etc around in Malaysia. Guess what, most of them are even having their production data center in Malaysia itself.
Now we go back to VMware, virtualization is growing in Malaysia, but the present from VMware are more relay on the partner in here. Training are not provided as what been provided in Sinagpore or Australia. Most of the time, even in singapore training center, the attendees are not Singaporean. As economy crisis now, to attend a training in Singapore will be 3 times more expensive for someone who attending a training in Malaysia. If I not mistaken, they have less than 10 employees in malaysia for VMware itself. It just not big enough to attract the confident of the potential giant customer from Malaysia market if you do not present yourself strong enough as your competitor.
Some customer are willing to go with Microsoft Hyper V just because the support, present and Microsoft Malaysia. As you can also see the Teched having in Malaysia every year for SEA, I believe VMware should consider their option to ship the conference location to Malaysia instead of Singapore. Of course, we do hope VMware will consider a VMworld Asia in the future and be held in south east asia.
Tags: Corporate Office, Dell, eds, HP, hsbc, IBM, Malaysia, Microsoft, shell, VMware
5 Responses
VMware is in the mist of hiring, and by next year they should grow beyond the 10s. Singapore was where the regional started, and of course they have Citibank, Mogan Stanley and many large banks anchor there with regional contract sign and distributed here
Just like Shell or BMW and all others.
But, Malaysia market is definitely growing with >150 customers on the last count but only a handful with >500 servers for real consolidation…
Not very agree with your point of view, the market in Malaysia is big, but the present and confident had been show stopper for those banking and financial sector to consider. I believe if you compare Maybank, CIMB, PBB and etc, their number of system and data center is much more bigger than BMW and SHELL DC in Malaysia.
The reason of some case they sign in singapore, is because there is no present here in Malaysia. Even it sign in singapore, in most of the case, the environment here will not adapt to it as present is not strong in here. Personal experience we do see this kind of situation happen for multinational corporate. They will not put risk on the production environment with weak support from product vendors
There are no business reasons to move regional HQ from Singapore to Malaysia. The low level business in Malaysia could not sustain the HQ cost and also the issue of trying to get expats in to work would be insurmountable. The salary packages would also be an issue, why take a job in MY for 8000 RM when you can get 12-15000 SGD for the same position? How would you get talent here? No, Malaysia will be a local market.
Getting a work permit for Malaysia is costly and hard process, Singapore is done in a week and the country itself attracts talent. Blame the Malaysian goverment if you will but it wouldn’t make sense moving a regional HQ to Malaysia, who is here from a strategic viewpoint? Petronas? Who else? IBM can move because of their low level production and mass employment. IBM brokered a deal with BN to be able to sidestep the rules and bring expats in cheaper and easier. The vmware volume would never come up to that point.
The Malaysian market is primarily a SMB market and that is also a low volume market that is not really sustainable and even the LE companies do not decide for purchases in MY. As one example, the largest user of vmware in MY would be Shell, their design center and PO center is Holland.
do not under estimate the talent in Malaysia as there are plenty of talent still prefer to be stayed here too. Not necessary Singaporean or people in Singapore can deliver the solution today, we do have numbers of talent in Malaysia will able to deliver the same quality of work as others country did.
Our view is not regarding the foreign worker as there are many talent from the local itself could deliver the quality of work.SHELL is only 1 of the major company using VMware here in Malaysia, but they are not the biggest IT center in our area.
just recommended u a training partner in KL last week so enjoy it by calling her la. She will gv u good price for the training in June and July