|
 |  | |
|
|
about Asia Buzz
Asia Buzz: Rubbery Figures
The Net world is just full of them
By ERIC ELLIS
May
9, 2000
Web posted at 1:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 1:30 a.m. EDT
When I was a kid growing up in front of an Australian television, I used to love a show called Rubbery Figures, an antipodean version of the popular British political satire, Spitting Image. The show stretched the truth about society, and that was its appeal--viewers didn't take it seriously and we all got a good laugh.
|
|
 ASIA BUZZ
|
Asia Buzz: Virus Alert
Do not read this article!
- Monday,
May 8, 2000
Culture on Demand: Groove Baby Groove
Working out of the office now takes on a very different meaning
- Saturday,
May 6, 2000
Letter from Japan: Achilles Heel
Japan's entrenched xenophobia is its downfall in the New Economy
- Friday,
May 5, 2000
Asia Buzz: Going Once, Going Twice...
Third generation mobile phones could lead to Asian industry shake-up
- Thursday,
May 4, 2000
Asia
Buzz: Below the Belt
Starring Philippines President Joseph Estrada in this low budget, B-grade film
- Wednesday,
May 3, 2000
|
|
 ASIAWEEK
|
|
|
I was reminded of the show again this week, perversely, as news filtered in about the devastation wrought by the Love Bug virus in our Hostage-to-Microsoft online world. Not that the bug was funny--anything but--but as the hysteria spread, so did the figures, the rubbery figures of how much the two losers in the Philippines had cost in trade, commerce, time and man-hours.
|
INTERACTIVE |
|
Ticked off at Asia Buzz? Turned on? Talk back to
TIME
|
|
According to whatever you read, or who ever you spoke to, the Love Bug has cost us anything from $1 billion to $10 billion. Samir Bhavnani, an analyst with a U.S. research firm, Computer Economics, reckoned it cost $2.6 billion by last Thursday, doubled by Friday and would double again by today. It may well, but how would he really know? How would anybody really know?
It reminded me that the Net world is full of rubbery figures and Big Numbers. In recent years, we've all seen the millions in clicks, billions in users and trillions in market size trotted out by anyone with a dotcom after their name to justify too much venture capital, too much market capitalization and way too much hype.
Of course, it sounds great in a press conference when some nerd in Coke bottle glasses is propped up next to a sleek investment banker in Armani to talk about the upside in the future B2B, B2C, WAP, MP3 (buzz terms continue ad nauseum) markets. I mean, of course some dodgy website in Kuala Lumpur put up by cronies is going to master the $1 zillion market for online widget sourcing.
Big Numbers look fab in newspaper headlines, particularly newspapers where facts and reality aren't always an issue, like many of the ones found in Asia. But I've got Big Number Fatigue big time and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there like me--probably a good few who are missing heaps the Big Numbers that adorned their share portfolio two months ago.
I mean, what is International Data Corporation? And what's with Forrester Research? And where did Media Metrix come from? These companies have almost become household names, employed by everyone from the clueless CEO justifying his late-in-the-day Web strategy to a clueless husband justifying his top-of-the-market investment in tech stocks. But how do they really know what's going to happen?
Hey, even Bill Gates' Big Numbers have proved a bit rubbery. For about a day there, Oracles' Larry Ellison was richer. I'm sure Bill was cranky about that. Already there's Rubbery Figures emerging in the part of the Net World that matters--the profit part. PCCW's Richard Li offered a few a while back when he touted that his Net plays were showing about $1 billion in capital gains. Oops!
And the market hasn't been too impressed by Cisco's numbers, or Amazon's numbers for that matter, market darlings both. We in Asia are used to Rubbery Figures and thus, past experience suggests, we should be skeptical. Ask any economist worth his or her salt for their take on Asian economic data during the mid-'90s.
And isn't it an amazing coincidence that China manages to bring in its economic output right on the button of state forecasts. As for those Thai and South Korean estimates of pre-crisis foreign exchange reserves... history hasn't absolved anyone there. Ask the IMF what it thinks about Pakistan's latest economic data and, of course, there's that regional classic that almost everyone has trotted out at one point or another--the time-honored "if-a-billion-Chinese-bought-just-one-a-week..." Sometime this week there'll be a billion Indians for marketers to drool over.
Expect even more Rubbery Figures to come.
Ticked off at Asia Buzz? Turned on? Talk back to TIME
Write to TIME at mail@web.timeasia.com
TIME Asia home
|
|
LATEST HEADLINES:
|
Click Here for the latest regional analysis from TIME Asia
|
|
|
