MyEmail: Still many questions unanswered

'Billions have been spent in the computerisation of government agencies over the years and they cannot even push us simple emails?'

Idris Jala defends 1Malaysia email

Gunena: The two-pages advertorial by Pemandu still don't answer the question why a separate email platform is required to communicate with government agencies.

We have been e-Filing for income tax using our own emails, so what is the issue? We can check out balances of EPF via the agency's website. And Idris Jala want us to believe agencies like EPF, LHDN and JPN do not have a computer database or competent IT personnel to make a simple script to send notices to rakyat's existing Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail account.

If Tricubes needs a bailout say so, don't bull around and waste public funds.

Not Convinced: The practise of 'online bill presentation' has been going on for the last decade. There is nothing new here. Companies charge about 5 sen to 8 sen not only to deliver the email. but more importantly to track whether it was delivered (as opposed to getting stuck in spam), whether the user opened it, and if opened, what were the interactions by the user.

Alternatively, the standard practice is to create a user account, whereby users can log in to check details. This avoids security issues linked to sending email.

The idea of creating a special email for purposes above is unheard of. All of a sudden, Minister in the PM's Department and Pemandu chief executive officer Idris Jala turned the MyEmail project into one of 'bill presentation', and saying everybody is wrong and he is right.

Anyway, if it is bill presentation, there are so many players in the market who can do it for a lot cheaper. But with growing use of phishing to gain access to accounts, most companies are moving away from email to the second option above.

Idris also goes to great lengths to say that everything is voluntary and that government agencies have the option to do whatever they want. If so, why is the government spending so much money to defend the project (two pages in the Star alone costs RM60,000).

Why was Mampu (Malaysia Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit) involved? What was the tender about? What did Tricubes 'win'? Idris should release all the information in order to be transparent.

Krishna: I have a few nagging doubts about some of the points made by Idris.

Firstly, why does he not reveal the names of the other four companies that were considered in the tender exercise? Was there an open tender or was it by invitation? Why pick a company that is about to go under and what is the company's record in handling a project like this?

How will Tricubes get the confidential information that is to be forwarded through their emails? Will the company's employees have access to the database and pull out the information themselves? If the data has to be pulled out by the employees of the data owners, why do they not send out the email themselves?

Have we carried out a survey on the percentage of the population who have access to emails? How will the information be forwarded to those who do not have emails or cannot handle emails?

What gives the government the right let a non-government employee handle my confidential information? What guarantee can the government give that my confidential information will not be compromised?

Dingy: The simulation carried out by selected agencies were based on ideal situation where all household have Internet access. The saving mentioned will be opportunity cost to Pos Malaysia for their loss in income and for the nation, there will be an increase in unemployment.

Has our Internet literacy reached 100 percent? Is Najib going to bring down the cost of subscribing to the Internet? The charges are too high and the majority cannot afford to subscribe. So could Idris Jala solve this problem by asking his boss to give free WiFi to all Malaysians so that MyEmail can be successful?

I believe Najib would say no because it would affect Telekom's TMnet and Unifi services. MyEmail project will affect Pos Malaysia so is that okay? Let's be frank. The project was designed to save Tricubes, which is facing financial problems.

Tkc: Billions of ringgit have been spent in the computerisation of government agencies over the years and they cannot even push us simple emails? It is not a question of spending 50 sen per email or saving trees - the real issue is wastage and incompetence.

Mokhsein Abdullah: The big question is why Idris Jala is replying to queries since it was reported that PM Najib Razak himself said Tricubes must take the initiative?

Najib reportedly said, "Let them give their explanation. Not everything is on me. Because it is their proposal so they should sell it to the public. It is a private sector initiative and it does not involve public money so let them take the initiative to explain."

So who instructed Idris Jala to go on this frolic? Taking up full-page advertorials in the mainstream media is not cheap. Is it being paid for by the rakyat's money? Or if Tricubes is paying for it, why is Idris Jala their spokesman? It's getting more and more curious.

Lim Kuan Keat: If this is a purely private initiative, why is Pemandu aka the government shelling out money for advertorials to defend this project? Shouldn't Tricubes be the one to clarify the matter?

But if the government can claim that spending 50 sen per sent email is 'cost saving' as compared to using standard free email, then I guess anything goes in this Bolehland.

Abil: The majority of Malaysians are very skeptical of government's privatised projects such as Syabas, where consumers and stakeholders are not even allowed to have access of the agreement between this water company and the government. Hence, the rakyat have an aversion towards any privatised project sponsored by government because there was no openness in the past and many believed that these projects went to government cronies.

It is the government's policies that need to changed and be more transparent so the rakyat will have faith in the government.

Habib Rak: What Tricubes is offering is intermediary service. Idris, of all persons, should know better that 'intermediary or middleman processing' is the weakest link in any chain of service. To extract efficiency and improvement, we must get rid of intermediaries.

Why are you introducing a new layer is beyond comprehension? For decades now, corporations have embarked on implementing ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planning Applications), for example, SAP (Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing).

I trust that you are very familiar with these. What ERPs offer are seamless integration and ridding of as many intermediaries as possible. How on earth, having been exposed to ERPs, can you fall for this scam scheme by Tricubes is puzzling.

Further, how on earth can there be no financial and other resources cost to all agencies that are forced to use Tricubes, when they need to set up an implementation team and do integration to hand over data to the middleman? Certainly you know it does not happen automatically.

Last but not least, the cost savings assumption is very poorly factored.

Patriot: I am no IT expert or from that field, but I am thinking out loud as to why reinvent the wheel when most web browsers or service providers provide the email for free of charge? Certainly, I smell something very rotten. - Malaysiakini