Date: 23 June 2012
Venue: Naza Hote, Tanjung Bungah Penang

“Do you come to work or to be successful?” This soul searching question was tossed out by our trainers at the recent Exabytes team building which took place at Naza Hotel, Tanjung Bungah on June 23. The event was a day filled with fun and inspiring indoor and outdoor games on the beautiful beach in Tanjung Bungah. As it was slated to kick-start at 9.00am, Exabees who were divided into 6 teams with 6 very motivating team slogans and logos created by themselves set foot on the venue before 8.45am.

Check out our slogans:

Team A – Fly like a bee & brave like a dragon

Team B – Together we can! Together we can do more!

Team C – ONE team ONE spirit ONE win

Team D – Born to Win

Team E – We blow all barriers

Team F – Victory is OURS

Indoor activities for the day included Guess the Picture (know more about your colleagues), Treasure Hunt, Build the Tower while for outdoor activities, our trainer had planned for us Treasure Hunt, beach games and fruit eating competition.

Our first game of the day required a small amount of artistic talent from us; Exabees were asked to draw their own portraits on a piece of paper using their non-dominant hands. Each portrait will then be passed to other participants so that they could make a guess as who the person was. An easy game had turned to a hard and fun one when many Exabees chose to draw animals instead of their own faces to represent themselves. Next, we learnt from the trainer that in fact, we are what we draw.

Soon we moved on to the second game. In this game, each team was given plastic blocks resembling the shape of human beings to build a human tree. A game that demanded good patience and great teamwork, the human trees needed to be ‘built’ and stand alone without having contact with the table. Fastest team to complete the feat would win this game.

Next, lunch was ready to be served. It was time for us to enjoy the delicious food prepared for us by Naza Hotel. We savored the delicious cooking while chatting and having a good time with each other.

After lunch, we were involved in the very exciting treasure hunt which wasn’t the usual one as everyone needed to be blindfolded. In order to win, participants must run back to their own checkpoint blindfolded. The game began when all team members were fully gathered. A drawing was picked by each team randomly before we went out looking around the hotel to find our ‘treasure’ according to the drawings. Furthermore, it was compulsory for every team to go out and come back in one complete team after the search.

Finally, we were greeted by the last game, the 7-legged race. Initially only two members in each team had their feet tied up together. To increase the level of difficulty, when the duo finished the run, an additional member was tied to the duo. This increased until all seven members completed their run.

The exciting one-day team building almost came to an end when the clock struck five. Not exactly tired, we anxiously waited for the announcement of winners. The teams with the highest scores would bring home the prizes and at the same time, each participant would be given a souvenir, Exabytes team building mug as well as KFC voucher. Before we headed for our dinner, our winning team, team C (Valkyrie) with the highest score and the best teamwork stepped forward and gave a sharing on how they were able to overcome all the challenges and stood out from the rest.

Congratulations team C (Valkyrie) for making us proud!

Last but not least, a thousand thanks to our event OC and event trainers for making Exabytes team building so memorable and meaningful. Thank you again for picking the beach as the venue so that we could enjoy the sea breeze while playing various interesting games and strengthening our teamwork.

Good bye Exabytes team building 2012 and we look forward to team building 2013!

Date: 5 July 2012
Venue: Berjaya Times Square Hotel, Kuala Lumpur

Exabytes eCommerce Conference day 2 began with full anticipation. After a long night rest, participants and Exabees were ready for another full day of learning and sharing. Registration and networking started between 8.30am – 9.15am before Felix Lee, the head of Easy.my took the stage to begin the first talk of the day on Easy.my features. Easy.my, a brainchild of Exabytes is a hosted eCommerce solution which allows users to create their online stores and sell on Facebook instantly. In the presentation which was accompanied by a demo aimed to give the audience a hands-on experience in building their own web stores, many were impressed by the easiness and the special features of Easy.my which included the integration of Facebook account into online store, 2-click easy installation, integrated shopping carts and payment gateways, auto-generated letterheads, professional invoice and receipt design, drag and drop feature, self-insert logos / images and many more. 

Date: 4 July 2012
Venue: Berjaya Time Square Hotel, Kuala Lumpur

Be greeted by Easy eCommerce Conference 2012, a platform for in-depth eCommerce discussions, knowledge exchange and networking with numerous famous industry heavyweights!

Last Wednesday, over a hundred participants together with 15 Exabees flocked to Manhattan 1 Ballroom at Berjaya Times Square Hotel, to meet over 20 eCommerce gurus face to face in the most interactive discussion of eCommerce.

Participants arrived with the strongest desire to learn the latest in eCommerce, while the eCommerce gurus were there to share their most personal experience in eCommerce based on their own success stories.

The Launch of the Very First Multi-Location Cloud in Malaysia by Exabytes

On last Tuesday, Exabytes launched the very first Multi-Location Cloud Hosting in Malaysia that provides the choice for customers to choose the location of their cloud servers in Kuala Lumpur, Cyberjaya,Singapore or theUnited States. Everything from ordering, billing, provisioning of the cloud services are fully automated via online and customers can buy a cloud virtual server and have it up and running within 10 minutes. At the same time, the MOU signing ceremony between Exabytes and MDeC also took place before an audience that included over ten pressmen from different publications.

The time was10.30am; more than a hundred guests had made their appearance at Cyberview Resort and Spa, Cyberjaya to get first-hand information on the first Multi-Location Cloud inMalaysiaas well as Exabytes MSC Cloud Program.

The event officially kick-started at 11.00am sharp. Addressing the audience first was founder and CEO of Exabytes, Mr. Chan Kee Siak, who later presented to the attendees the Live Demo of Exabytes Cloud. According to Chan, the partnership between Exabytes and MDeC plays a crucial role in supporting MSC Malaysia Cloud Initiatives – SAAS Acceleration program and it is part of Exabytes’ corporate objective to develop the Malaysian ICT sector in line with the maturing local market of more savvy providers and consumers.

Taking over the stage was Mr Dinesh, Director of Infotech Industry Cluster at MDeC. In his keynote speech, Mr Dinesh stressed that cloud is a critical enabler forMalaysia’s ICT sector and for the economy as a whole. The MSC Malaysia Cloud Initiative is in line with the targets of MSC Malaysia, which is lowering the barrier of entry for ICT companies and SMEs alike. “The initiative and partnership will pave way for cloud solutions to become more available and accessible to MSC Malaysia SMEs, and will undoubtedly make them more competitive globally”, he added.

Subsequently, it’s MOU Signing Ceremony between Exabytes and MDeC. A strong impetus to growth, the partnership is set to help greatly in achieving the following objectives:

• 60 Online Solution Providers on the Cloud by end 2012
• 6000 New *Digital Enterprise by end 2015 (*Malaysian SMEs utilizing ICT solutions and conducting business online)
• 1500 new jobs for engineered positions by end 2015
• 1% share of (Cloud Computing) global market to be contributed by MSC Malaysia companies by 2015

This is followed by the photo session for Exabytes and MDeC before the presentations by two ISVs (independent software vendors).

The first vendor to share his experience with cloud technology is Mr. Billy Loo from Imaginixe.com. Before the adoption of cloud, the company’s self-hosted HR application could only be sold to large enterprises. However, since the conversion to SaaS Platform using cloud, Billy is able to market his application to SMEs and increase his revenue significantly.

Next, Mr. Yong, the IT Director from SEGi University stepped forward to tell us the expenses incurred as well as the problems encountered by the University’s IT department in the past before they adopted cloud in November last year, when Exabytes first launched its cloud hosting services. According to him, the university is glad that they have made the right choice to shift its in-house IT burden to Exabytes and reduce its IT expenses by hosting on dedicated server or server co-location.

Under Exabytes MSC Cloud Program, Exabytes will offer RM3,000 of Cloud Hosting Credits to all MSC Status companies. These companies may use the RM3,000 credit to buy any Cloud Hosting Package suitable for them. The credit is valid for 6 months, subsidized by Exabytes.

For MSC Status Companies who has developed Software and which can be converted to Cloud Based Software As A Service (SAAS) model,  MSC Malaysia will subsidize an additional RM15,000 of Cloud Hosting Credit amounting to a total of RM18,000 of Cloud Hosting from Exabytes and MDEC. On top of the RM18,000, Exabytes will also help the MSC Status companies promote their services to its 60,000+ SME Customers during road shows and exhibitions. That adds an additional RM13,000 of marketing value to the MSC Status companies.

According to CEO Chan, cloud hosting / computing is not limited to just large, ICT-strong organizations. Rather, it can rightly benefit SMEs even more as it (cloud computing model) advocates a very cost-effective way to utilize IT and technology to support business activities.

Q&A session was later conducted before the much awaited lucky draw session. The lucky winner would bring home a 21” Dell LCD Monitor sponsored by DELL. CEO Chan was invited to the stage to present the prize to the luckiest person  of the day. Finally, the event ended at around 2.00pm, amid lunch and networking among Exabees, members of the press and our valuable guests.