Suntec City to be the <br>'e-central business district' of Singapore

Singapore, 26 January -- ORIGIN Technology, StarHub Pte Ltd, Suntec City and 1-Net Singapore have signed a memorandum of understanding that will transform Suntec City into the e-Central Business District of Singapore for the new century.

The vision for e-BizHub@Suntec (e-BizHub@Suntec)will be more than just a place where companies can house their businesses and ease the path of migration for those aspiring to become dot.com enterprises. Under one roof, this alliance provides all the necessary brick-and-mortar infrastructure and expertise from the combined resources from the four organizations such as:

• Scalability and Flexibility - Convenience of a blue-chip business address with a concentration of resources to help enterprising ventures push out and commercialize new technology applications.
• Integrated customisation of IT and communications technology services and applications to suit tenants' business needs.
• Managed configuration of business systems to facilitate future business growth.
• Pooling of IT resources not only with existing but incorporating those of new companies moving to Suntec City, offering their own expertise and technology applications.
• Lowering of capital commitment and financial burden to start-up companies.
• E-marketing centre - the most happening e-business hub to be.

The number of IT and technology firms taking up tenancy at Suntec City has been steadily growing, and the next logical step is to create an e-business hub here. With its blue-chip downtown address, many more of such companies will be attracted to Suntec City.

With the amount of IT energy generated from within the hub, venture capitalists will also be attracted to e-BizHub@Suntec. Their presence would pose a greater attraction to start-up companies based here. Essentially, e-BizHub@Suntec will attract: - Established IT companies. - Companies wanting to establish dot.com status - e-business start-ups - Businesses providing e-business support (eg. Legal, accounting, financing, Banking, Business Centre Services, etc?

ORIGIN's role in e-BizHub@Suntec ORIGIN's core service offerings are Enterprise Solutions, Professional Services and Managed Services . These services are complemented with ORIGIN's Data Centers, ORIGIN's Support Centers, ORIGIN Global Network and Global Software Engineering Centers.

ORIGIN's Asia Pacific headquarters at Suntec City is home to more than 170 ORIGIN consultants, and is a showcase of the latest state-of-the-art technologies; including the Management CockpitTM , sophisticated data centers as well as their own dedicated power generators and telecommunication exchanges. "ORIGIN has always been at the forefront in providing top quality IT consultancy services to established enterprises, and with this four-party tie-up, we look forward to extending our expertise to help traditional companies cross the bridge into the IT era," said Mr Quah Siew Heng, Managing Director, ORIGIN ASEAN. "Of course, with this deal it also allows us to extend a helping hand to new e-biz start-ups." Through its complete range of business and IT solutions, ORIGIN is ready to support the varied needs of any e-BizHub@Suntec tenant; from one-person start-ups to the sophisticated enterprise data systems requirements of large conglomerates.

StarHub's role in e-BizHub@Suntec e-bizHub@Suntec City will be wired up to StarHub's state of the art, broadband fibre optic cable infrastructure with the built-in diversity to offer a range of telecommunication, internet and e-business services. Its new generation network infrastructure will provide true fixed and mobile converged services on an integrated platform with high speed digital capabilities and built-in diversity to deliver innovative voice, data, mobility and multimedia services to Suntec City's tenants. "StarHub will provide aspiring dot.com companies both the brick and mortar to develop and grow their e-business initiatives.

"As an innovative provider of info-communication solutions, we have aligned ourselves with key players to pool our expertise and resources to offer businesses a convenient value proposition nucleus," says Mr Richard Lee, General Manager of Corporate Customers. StarHub, an integral partner in this alliance, offers new and existing tenants at Suntec City a physical avenue to launch their products at e-station - a one-stop and possibly the largest on-line edutainment centre in Asia, catering to leisure, educational and commercial needs.

StarHub Internet, as a key business enabler, will provide a range of services through its quality content portals (http://www.mystarhub.com.sg and http://www.starhub.net.sg) as the strategic cyber- gateways for these companies to launch their e-commerce strategies. Suntec City's role in e-BizHub@Suntec Suntec City as a business location is already attractive on its own. By establishing e-BizHub@Suntec, we can provide both start-ups and traditional companies crossing the e-business bridge closer to industry's leaders with the technical know-how to assist in their development.

The networking potential at e-BizHub@Suntec for such companies is tremendous and will also be e an invaluable asset to any technopreneur. Said Mr Wong Ah Long, Chief Executive Officer, Suntec City Development Pte Ltd, "As a real estate developer, we recognise that there is an urgent need to be a brick and click company.

The future of commercial real estate developers lies in the synergistic marriage of both the physical and cyber real estate." 1-Net's role in e-BizHub@Suntec As the infrastructure provider for Singapore ONE, the nation-wide broadband network, 1-Net will provide broadband connectivity to e-BizHub@Suntec. This is part of 1-Net¹s objective to encourage businesses to use and deploy broadband content and services so that Singapore can be more competitive globally. 1-Net will install a new central switch and extend the Singapore ONE backbone to Suntec City. This is a very high capacity switch, and will be one of four used at the core of the Singapore ONE network. "With Suntec City sitting directly on the Singapore ONE backbone, each tenant can connect directly to Singapore ONE at a substantially lower cost since there is no need for a leased line connection from the public network," said Mr Mock Pak Lum, Chief Executive Officer of 1-Net Singapore. Tenants of this complex will enjoy flexibility and complete scalability with virtually unlimited bandwidth."