Singapore IDA SIP Grant (Reviews)

Think Gold Internet – Package Review

ida1000sip — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 07:38:48 +0000

Are you ready to grow your business? Need an effective approach to reach out to more prospects? Now You Can! Start your business website with savings of up to 37%.
by Think Gold Internet (Ed Borhan Pte Ltd)

Limited Offer: 50 Customers

Benefits	Home Biz	Start Up	SME
Domain Name with your own brand (e.g. www.yourshop.com)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unlimited email accounts (e.g. yourname@yourshop.com)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Training: Update your website yourself with no programming!	Yes	Yes	Yes
Template Conversion: Choose from over 100 open-source designs!	>>	Yes	Yes
Template Design: Your very own unique design with a touch of class!	>>	>>	Yes
Usual Price	$2,285.00	$3,185.00	$4,935.00
OFFER PRICE	$1,497.00	$2,397.00	$3,297.00
Savings	$788.00 (34%)	$1,070.00 (34%)	$1,820.00 (37%)
SIP PRICE	$497⁰⁰	$1,397⁰⁰	$2,297⁰⁰

500 MB Web Space (Single Domain)		1000 MB Web Space (UNLIMITED Domains)
Yearly @ $35/month	$420.00	Yearly @ $65/month	$780.00

Terms and Conditions

Offer is exclusive to TGI Intel Alert subscribers only.
Upfront payment is required to confirm order.
Domain name subject to availability, eligible for SME Domain Name Reservation scheme.
Website must be launched within 45 days from date of order.
Ed Borhan reserves the right to make changes to the above information without prior notice.

Review

These guys are pretty sleek! They are not actually partnering with any of the 3 IDA-appointed vendors and are not even using the IDA SIP subsidy. Instead, they have come up with a range of Business Website Plans and applied the S$1,000.00 discount of each of the plans!

You could already be excited to receive an automatic S$1,000.00 discount by now! Let’s look at what is up on offer. Their cheapest package is the Home Biz plan which costs S$497.00 after discount. That is a decent price for a basic website. The thing is, usually, such a price stands for a website that consists of less than 10 static pages with barely any cool features.

But the offer seems to be fully loaded; inclusive of domain name, unlimited email address (usually you get 5 to 10 email addresses only) and training to update the website. A quick check on their website shows that the package also gives you unlimited number of pages, updates, users and templates. Gosh, that’s a buffet of unlimited stuff!

Ok, so let’s cool off the hype as we scrutinise the details. You still need to pay for hosting, which comes in 2 options; 500 Mb for a single domain or 1,000 Mb for unlimited domains. Let’s take the cheaper option (500 Mb) and the total cost will be S$917.00.

Although Think Gold Internet isn’t utilising the IDA subsidy, let’s just apply the conditions and subsidy. Based on conditions, the package may not (not sure about this) be eligible as it does not offer broadband services. If we were to apply the subsidies, the cost would be 50% of S$420.00 (hosting) and the balance (S$1,000.00 – S$210.00 = S$790.00) will offset the website plan. This means, you would have had to pay S$917.00; which is their offer price.

Perhaps if broadband was included in the package, you would have to pay slightly above S$400.00 more. Then again, if you are in an office, you would probably already have broadband. And if you are not yet operating in a proper office, you may not need broadband.

Apparently there are only 36 slots left for the offer. You can purchase online at http://thinkgoldinternet.com/LatestNews/tabid/89/Default.aspx

PS: Think Gold Internet seems to be a product of Ed Borhan Pte Ltd (www.edborhan.com)

PPS: They have an interesting SMART payment scheme too with referral commissions to offset instalments.

AceLink Solutions – Package Review

ida1000sip — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:35:23 +0000

Shave 50% Off Your Singtel Broadband Subscription & More With The IDA’s SIP Grant
by AceLink Solutions

Promotion Period: 17 June ’08 – 18 Aug ’08

For a limited time only, from now till 18th August ’08, Singtel is rolling out it’s Business ADSL SIP Promotional Package. Here’s what you can be expecting…

ADSL Broadband Speed	1.5 Mbps	4 Mbps
200Mb Email Hosting
50Mb Web Hosting
Desktop Security Software (10 Licenses)
Offsite Backup & Restore (10 Users)
Monthly Subscription (GST included)	$89.10	$268.20
Monthly Direct Rebate (12 months)	$41.64	$83.33
Total Savings Over 12 Months	$499.68	$999.96

Note: Domain registration and website design available at special rate.

Review

The offer for the broadband services is actually very good! Especially if you take up the 1.5 Mbps, you get 50% off! So that’s awesome.

So the subsidy grants that you can cover 50% of broadband cost, 50% of web hosting cost, and 80% of development cost. In this case, the package has utilised the first 2 (broadband and hosting).

Let’s look at the conditions. In order to qualify, the criterias are:

You do not already own a website
Your purchase includes the development of a website or web pages for your business
You have not claimed under this initiative before

The package does not comply with the 2nd condition yet. However, there is a statement at the bottom of the offer: …website design available at special rate.

The subsidy has a cap of S$1000.00 for each of the first 5,000 SME. Taking up the 1.5 Mbps package means that you will still have just a little over S$500.00 to subsidies from your web development cost. If that makes up 80% of your development cost, you will need to spend at least S$125.00. Add that to the discounted cost of broadband and hosting, and you would be actually forking out about S$700.00.

If you take up the other package…well, perhaps you would not get much of a website, if any.

A decent deal if you require very basic online presence. It’s not clear though whether AceLink Solutions offer the web development package at a price of S$625.00. If they do, you should be able to get a few static pages, maybe a little fancy Flash animation and that’s it.

You should be curious though on what they would be offering after 18 August…

Visit http://www.acelinksolutions.com/sip.htm

PS: Strange, AceLink Solutions website is under construction :p

Open Review of SIP Packages

ida1000sip — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:09:48 +0000

Here at IDA 1000 SIP, you get a review of the various packages related to the IDA SIP subsidy scheme. Only 3 vendors were appointed by IDA; namely DP Bureau, iCell Network and SingTel), but other local vendors are also offering their packages. Some vendors are partnering with the selected 3, while some offer independently.

Share unbiased views of the packages and realistic expectations so that you get the best package to suit your business needs.