We are happy to announce that Formis Network Services Sdn Bhd (FNS) won two awards from Hewlett Packard recently.

The first was for the "Top Performing Partner" in HP Personal System Group-Commercial Products category. The award was presented at the Partners Connect - Achievers' Club 2009  in Singapore.

The second award was by the Solutions Partner Organization  Hewlett Packard (M) Sdn Bhd for the "Commercial Workstation Top Corporate Reseller FY2008". We want to thank all of you who have made winning these awards possible.

25th April, Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club - A dinner do was held last week as a gesture of thanks to our business partners after we 'close the books' for the last financial year.

We managed to gather 18 business partners, they include CMG Online, Patimas Computer Services, Teliti Computers, iPowerbiz and others.

The event was graced by the presence of our own Executive Vice Chairman, Dato' Mah and IBM Malaysia's Managing Director, Mr. Ou Shien Waei.

We took the opportunity to also present the First Solution IBM Blade Challenge 2007 Award.  It is a reward program which we launched in August and ended in December last year. 

The highest earner, Patimas Computer Services walked away with trip for two to Gold Coast, Australia. In order of priority, rewards also goes to Formis Network Services, Teliti Computers, I-Tech Network and Digital Energy Services.

Above from left:  Ho Hon Kit of Patimas Computers receiving his tickets to Australia.  En. Salehuddin of Teliti Computers hugged by Bahtiar Talib of FSSB after receiving his tickets to Bali, Indonesia.

Picture below:  IBM Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. surprised us during this event by awarding us a pristine crystal trophy to commemorate our achievement in the area of Services Sales Leadership - IBM Global Services.  Ms. Tiew - FSSB General Manager is flanked by Loh Siao K'ng of IBM on the left, Dato' Mah of Formis Resources Bhd and Mr. Ou Shien Weai - Managing Director of IBM Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

First Solution has held a partner reward trip to business partners who earned tickets through meeting certain easy criterias through their transactions with us in 2007.

15 of our business partners spent 3 days 2 nights together in Awana Kijal, Trengganu last 4th to 6th April.

They were hesitant with Awana Kijal's signature team building activity going through obstacle tests in the jungle, yet it ended up with laughters all the way till the final dinner.

We hope to be able to delight customers better the next round.

IBM Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. held an appreciation event at Mardi Gras, One Utama to all its business partners last 17th March, 2008.

First Solution received two awards for revenue to IBM clocked within the year 2007.  They are:

• IBM Global Services - Business Partner Leadership Award 2007,
• IBM Systems Technology Group - Highest Growth Distributor Award 2007.

What came across our minds is our supportive business partners who helped us achieve this recognition, not forgetting, our own internal team who worked hard towards this.

7th November - First Solution (FSSB) and IBM Global Technology Services (IBM GTS) held a Hari Raya Open House event in Borneo Rainforest Cafe@ Sunway for our Public Sector and SMB partners and end users.

We just realised that it wasn't easy to find a non enclosed venue near Putrajaya to hold a semi formal function such as this.

We are glad that we had the opportunity to meet guests outside our normal circle of channel partners.

A new offering was announced, they are all in one package which include multiple match of the following:

i. IBM Director (user friendly software to monitor everything about IBM servers)

ii. IBM GTS

iii.IBM System x/BladeCenter

The offering will end in March 2008 and comes with incentive for project closure.  To find out more, call our Pre-Sales team at 03-2026 7818 or email to config@first.com.my

Formis Systems & Technology Sdn Bhd (FST) is pleased to announce its appointment as a VIP Solution Partner of VMware for Malaysia.

VMware is the world’s leading provider of virtualization solutions for x86-based servers and desktops. VMware delivers technology designed to substantially lower IT costs, provide more flexibility in choosing operating systems, and offer a more automated and resilient systems infrastructure capable of responding to variable business demands. More information about VMware is available at its corporate website : www.vmware.com

This is an important milestone for the continuing growth and success of FST. We strongly believe in providing the highest level of services and quality information technology products in our business practices.

Should there be any enquiries about VMware products or services, please do not hesitate to contact FST @ 03-2070 3388 or email to fst.sales@fst.com.my

Formis Systems & Technology Sdn Bhd (FST) was one of the Silver sponsors that participated in the EMC Forum 2007 held last Thursday, 2nd August 2007 at Mandarin Oriental, Kuala Lumpur.

This year's theme (EMC Info Station Unplugged) was a fresh perspective to discover more about information. Besides our own booth, FST was also present at the Unisys booth where we showcased the latest Unisys ES7000/one server.

It was a successful event where everyone had an enjoyable time. At the end of the day, six lucky participants walked away with lucky draws sponsored by FST.

If you wish to know more about Unisys or EMC products, please contact FST @ 03-2070 3388 or email to fst.sales@fst.com.my

THE LAUNCH OF IBM POWER 6 TECHNOLOGY - 26th JUNE 07

IBM POWER 6 Technology was launched. The audience get to learn the latest POWER 6 technology and win great prizes during lucky draw session . FSSB sponsored a unit of PlayStation 3 on best slogan submitted during the earlier Leadership Virtualization session Held on the 6th of June.

IBM Presentation Room - packed like a can of sardines.

Chris of FSSB presenting a unit of PlayStation 3 to the lucky winner, Adrian Yong of AIA Insurance.

 Stay Tuned for the Next BIG BANG of IBM System p Event on August 8th 2007 !

To find out more on IBM System p call Saravanan at 03-2026 7818 or access config2u.com for any enquiries.

Say ‘goodbye’ to green screens.  Coming up next is ‘nxgen’, a new generation of General Insurance System (GIS).  FORMIS BASS is adopting 4J’s Genero Business Development Suite (BDL) to deploy our GIS application to GUI and the database to an independent platform.  With the release of 4J’s Genero, the same client server application can be deployed via internet access with no changes in the source codes.  Thus, the application is web-enabled.

4J’s www.4js.com held a roadshow seminar at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel, KL on 27th June 2007.  FORMIS BASS’s customers who were invited are looking  forward to the release of  nxgen-GIS in Q4 2007.

(Picture) - Our General Manager, Mr. Michael Tay with the CEO and founder of 4J’s Mr. Jean Georges Schwartz.

12th June. Diversified Gateway Berhad organized an event for its partners and customers showcasing Foundry Networks - The power of performance. 

We had a positive crowd. Mr Wing Hong and Mr Frankie from Foundry Networks presented on their products which impressed our business partners and customers.   

There were even live demo where Foundry Networks showcased their hitless upgrades with zero packet loss. (For some of the viewers out there, hitless upgrades are simply an upgrade to a network core switch CPU without having downtime to the network.) 

Photographs of happy organisers and participants  (on top) and  MLX4, the product from Foundry Networks ( on the right).

May 18th – 10th Floor Menara SMI.

First Solution Sdn. Bhd. (FSSB) and NCB TechVision Sdn. Bhd. (NCB) with the support of Applied Business System Sdn. Bhd (ABS) and Oracle held a Live Demo session to educate the Financial Sector audience on a breakthrough Two Factor Authentication Software which brought security measures for the Internet Banking Environment to the next level.

Hmmmm? Next level?

Have you heard of any Authentication Software that is token and on-time password algorithm supported?

This is how NCB's product called mySecuID proves its innovative and cost effective potential. Above all brings peace of mind towards both the internet banking users and providers from 'Man-In-The-Middle Attack' threats.

LIVE DEMO COMPONENTS

Magician:  Raymond Chin

Software Application : mySecuID - Multifactor Authentication Software

Hardware : IBM System pTM

Hardware Operating System: AIX 5.3TM ML04

Database: Oracle DB 10g Enterprise Edition & Oracle RAC

Application Server: Websphere Application Server 6.0

The above infrastructure were stationed in IBM Plaza Bandar Utama. The terminals in Menara SMI were connected to it via Cisco VPN connection.

Above: Mr. Raymond Chin, founder of NCB presented an amateur David Blaine act to the audience.

IBM Plaza, May 15th : It wasn't just boring slide presentations and snoring back rows when First Solution Sdn. Bhd. (FSSB) held it's second Blades Day event at IBM Plaza today. Business Partners were exposed to the latest in IBM BladeCenter technology via a workshop and entertaining hands-on session with the IBM Blade and BladeCenter. Speakers included Rizal Yunus, Saiful Jazri from FSSB and Kai Sum from IBM.

The day went on and despite overstaying the reserved classroom and having to relocate to another smaller room, spirits were still high as the event had just begun the more exciting Blades Day Games; a tradition kept since the last Blades Day event. This time, participants were given the task to assemble a mock BladeCenter in the fastest time, with the main attraction being the grand prize - a scale model IBM BladeCenter.

Article by Rizal Yunus, Product Executive - FSSB

This picture looks familiar to you?

Yes, this is the cinema.  ININ (www.inin.com) was having its "New Rules for IP Business Communication Seminar" in the cinema hall @ Golden Screen Cinema, Berjaya Time Square.  FORMIS BASS, the authorized Reseller in Malaysia had participated and invited their customers to the seminar. 

Mr. Gary Blough, Executive VP Sales, ININ HQ, flew in all the way from Indiana, US to welcome all the guests.  He was followed by Mr. David Toh, Country Manager ASEAN, ININ, who shared the trends in Call Centre space, and how to turn customers' call centre into a more effective, customer-focused and multimedia-packed IP contact centre.  Must say that everyone enjoyed the session and its insights, not to mention the soon-to-follow sumptuous spread and, of course, the highlight of the evening – the Spider-man 3 movie.

To position itself as the leader in Dynamic Warehousing solution, IBM had the FSS Solutions Insights for Financial Sector event at The Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur recently on 8th May 2007.  FORMIS BASS was invited to showcase its innovative solutions, built on top of IBM software solutions. 

The event generated a lot of interest among the participants. FORMIS BASS’ Insurance Portal in particular attracted the crowd, as it is able to help customers gain convenient and customized access to their business information and applications.

There were ample help from colleagues from FORMIS BASS in the initial preparations to ensure a smooth event and ultimately, in addressing the keen interest and questions from the crowd.   The event ended at about 2pm, with many tired but happy faces.

Other than diversifying into software application business, First Solution (FSSB) is also setting our footprints in the area of services, particularly, to support the IBM Wintel Servers nationwide.

We managed to gather service partners from 13 states all over Malaysia last 19th of April in IBM in order to provide their first IBM System X Technical Principle training. Stephen Low (second row - fourth guy from the left), the IBM System X IT Specialist, conducted the day long session in such an interactive and lively manner.

There will be many successive training to lead them all towards advanced level in the near future.

The highlight of the day was when the Managing Director of IBM, Mr. Ou, (second row, second gentleman from the left) dropped by to say hello and spent some time to be photographed together with everyone involved in the training session.

Mr Stanley Seow, Packeteer's Country Manager for Malaysia, is seen here handing over a plaque to recognize Continuous Network Advisers (CNA) as their Officially Appointed Reseller in Malaysia. Mr Lum JN, General Manager of CNA was then having a coffee break with Stanley at a Packeteer event. 

With this appointment, CNA is the only Value-added direct partner of Packeteer in Malaysia, working along with Transition Systems, who is currently the only officially appointed Distributor of Packeteer.

CNA is currently completing their implementation of Packeteer for a Broadband IPVPN upgrade of LHDNM, working as partner to TM and Meganet.

An email from Joanne Cheah came on April 12 entitled "Exclusive Invitation to Raman's Farewell..." So off I went with Patrick Lee of FST on Friday the 13th. It was an exclusive invitation alright! We were practically the only outsiders there; the rest (50 of them) were EMC Malaysia staff. This party was organised by EMC staff for their longest serving boss in Malaysia. (Ok, at least Freddy won't feel too bad for not being invited.)

 The event started off with a video montage of Raman's years with EMC, a speech by the departing boss and some parting words from everyone present there, including Patrick and I. The finale was in the form of a "cake in face" for Raman.  Raman then finished off the event with the traditional kok and yam seng obligation to appease the crowd.  Yes, there were tears, from the skies, as the event was taking place.

This event deserved a post on our site because; an invitation to EMC internal event showed the close rapport and relationship that has been established between EMC and Formis Systems & Technology.  It also showed how EMC employees' appreciation of the leadership that K Raman has provided EMC over the past three and a half years. It was the employees way to tell their boss that he had done a great job.

Not only will EMC Malaysia miss K Raman; as their partner, we too shall miss him in EMC.

Editor's note: Pixes updated April 23rd, 2007.

Formis Systems & Technology Sdn Bhd (FST) starts our new financial year with a kick-off meeting held on 13th April 2007 at 10th Floor, Menara SMI. All of us were excited to see how FST did for the last financial year. The meeting started off with all the Head of Department (HODs) presenting their new directions for the new year. 

Last but not least, our General Manager presented to the staffs what he has in mind for all of us and a very interesting clip about ABC......Always Be Closing and AIDA...Attention...Interest.....Decision....Action!!!!

We later on proceeded to TGIF for dinner and drinks. The night ended with all of our stomaches filled up to the maximum!!!

Three staff from Formis Solusi Indonesia (FSI) - Veronica, Sonny and Ruddy attended a 2-days UNISYS training held on the 2nd & 3rd of April, at Formis Training Centre in Menara SMI , Kuala Lumpur. The training is a milestone for FSI and Unisys to establish the business in Indonesia.

The training conducted by UNISYS was fun and very useful.

We want to thank to our colleagues in Formis Systems & Technology and our friends in UNISYS, namely, Mr. Ron Tan, Regional Director, Mr Izudin, Business Development Manager and Mr. Stephen Ho,Technical Director.

Besides all the knowledge, we also brought home some umbrellas, business card holders and some chinese snacks from Petaling Street :)

Veronica flanked by Stephen on her right & Ruddy on her left.

The photograph on the right was taken during our tea break capturing (from left to right) SN Eraka (FST-Pre-Sales), Stephen Ho, Veronica and Sonny Yahya (FSI- Technical Manager).

22nd March (Thursday) - IBM Partner Conference @ Sheraton Subang

Finally, our principal let us have a Free Of Course! free booth at their exhibition. That means there's money on feelgood tactics!

Not just that, we don't have to do all the sales pitch mumbo-jumbo. Instead, we were just required to shout our company's name and just share which of IBM products are under our portfolio.

We had a merry time spying competitors booth catching up with our partners and at the same time discover new ones.

It is so much easier to talk after you break the ice with a little game.

Look at the gorgeous Wheel of Fortune and all that goodies! Whole loads of biz cards was collected. Wish they were money.

If you want to take part in any exhibitions and tired of thinking how to entice people to visit your booth, come to us. We can rent it to you cheap, cheap!

While you ask, you must listen to what's config@FIRST and SolutionCentre@FIRST first!

During the recent event which IBM held for all its reseller at Sheraton Subang, we saw a taller figure on the stage delivering the opening speech.

A familiar face!

I remember when First Solution was appointed as an IBM distributor in 1997, Ou was then the Country GM of IBM World Trade Corp.

But what many of us don't know about is, he started his career as a Trainee System Engineer with IBM way back in 1981. 10 years later he became the Director of Operations. Then, from year 1994 to 1996, he held the position of the GM of Banking, Finance and Securities for IBM ASEAN/SA.

Ou Shian Waei's last position in IBM before he joined Lenovo ASEAN/SA was as the IBM ASEAN/SA GM handling Banking, Finance and Securities sector. Voon Seng Chuan took over the seat after Ou left.

I only got to steal a very short chat with him.  Ou has a total of 26 years of experience in the IT industry and obviously love being able to come back to Malaysia.

Of course Mr. Ou! The bestest view of sprawling Damansara in a spanking new office in your old neighbourhood.... what a dream homecoming!

Formis Systems & Technology (FST) succesfully held a teambuilding event together with EMC and FST's 2nd Tier partners on 8th and 9th March 2007 at Guoman, Port Dickson. Some of the partners who attended were from Hicom Teleservices, Siemens, Jardine OneSolution, Advantage Systems, Fuji Xerox, InfoConnect, Formis Computer Services and Formis Network Services. Overall, the event was a great success where EMC product updates were presented to the partners, case studies activity and SWAT camp activites were conducted.

The official signing ceremony held at JW Marriot KL this morning was witness by a handful of personalities from the local IT industry. Among those present were K Raman, Managing Director for EMC Malaysia, Ron Tan, Country Manager for Unisys ES 7000 and CSA's Lee Boon Hoo.

Signing on behalf of FST was Rudi Nazaruddin, Vice President for Formis Group while BMC Software was reperesented by the Managing Director for South Asia, Peter Goh. According to Patrick Lee, General Manager for FST, business with BMC has started since April 2006 and todate they chalked up about RM 1.0 million in revenues so far. Next financial year, FST expects revenues from BMC business to reach between RM 4-5 million.

From left to right: Patrick Lee, GM of FST, Peter Goh, Rudi and Alex Lim, Manager Business Partner BMC Software

Genie Network Resource Management Inc., a network appliance company from Taiwan launched their Genie ATM range of products  for the South East Asian region today. The launch was hosted by their local representative, Genie Network Solutions Sdn Bhd (Genie) at Mutiara Crowne Plaza Hotel  Kuala Lumpur.

Seen here activiting the launch are (on the left)  Mr Richard Liu who is the SR VP Product Marketing of Genie Network Resource Management Inc., and Mr CK Wong, Managing Director of Genie.

Genie ATM is a flow-based network monitoring system. It offers alternative to existing products in the market which utilises link-based technology. Flow based approach will offer customers with larger network substantial savings over link-based systems.

Genie is currently working closely with Diversified Gateway Berhad to market their products in Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.

Adam Chang joined us in December 2006. He waswith Brooks Automation, a U.S based Software Consulting company and ended his tenurethere holding the position of Regional Sales Manager. With Brooks, Adam was exposed in the arena of handling the IT end user market which coversthe manufacturing industry.

Before joining FSSB, he was attached to IBM Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. as the Software Sales Manager for Industrial and Distribution Sector.

In FSSB, Adam is Head of Channel Sales, call him if you need help in engaging your clients with IBM products.

Another ex-IBMer, Christopher Lee is quite an all rounder in the IT industry. He has exposure in all arenas; the end user, reseller, distributor and principal environments. Chirs was in IBM specializing in p-series hardware (unix) before he joins First Solution.

He is heading both the product and marketing teams carrying the title, Head, Product Management and Marketing.

We hope, with these new additions, First Solution will be able to scale new heights .