The annual Reader’s Digest trust survey surfaced this week, with some surprising results concerning who and what brands New Zealanders trust, and who we want our children to be.

First things first, customer service and IT helpdesks rank in the middle (22 out of 40) as a preferred profession for our children, one spot ahead of the humble journalist. Down the bottom of the list we find car salesmen, telemarketers and real estate agents. According to the study, these vocations are less desirable for our offspring than for them to become sex workers.

Questioned about what professions we trust, IT support again scores in the middle of the list (23 out of 40), with politicians right at the bottom of trusted professionals, just behind car salesmen and telemarketers. Again sex workers score better than these three.

On the list of trusted companies, Sony scores a ranking of nine overall. The company was also the number one trusted electronics supplier. Vodafone took the top award for telecommunications at 34, while HP took the honours in the computer category, listed as the 41st most trustworthy company in New Zealand. Compaq is the next computer vendor on the list at 67, followed by Apple at 72, Dell at 90, Acer at 98 and Lenovo 114 out of 115.

Overall, IT companies and professionals seem to be a trusted bunch in New Zealand (unlike journalists) and companies like HP has understood how to appeal to the masses.

Trust is an important thing for the bottom line, and something massive multinationals might give a bit more consideration for the future.

Posted by May 31, 2007 1:34 PM | Comments (0)

According to Nielsen Netratings, Reseller News is New Zealand's fourth ranked site for high income households. Perhaps we sould start running features about caviar and truffles.

Posted by Bill Bennett May 28, 2007 6:28 PM | Comments (0)

Threatening open source developers with nebulous patent claims could backfire. It won't be pretty.

Protecting intellectual property is common sense. It's business 101. In the software industry it is doubly important. For Microsoft it is a core competency.

But software patents may not be the best tool to do this. For a start they are highly controversial. And there's a question mark over whether they actually work. We'll leave all that to the lawyers.

However, if Microsoft is seen to abuse software patent laws, there's a risk it will undermine an already shakey system and, eventually, the entire edifice could come tumbling down.

That's problem number one.

Problem number two is more complicated. Microsoft may talk about innovation, but it is consistently out-innovated (if that's a word) by rivals like Google and open source developers. Tying-up rivals with dubious software patent litigation is a defensive move that will only strengthen the growing feeling in the market that Microsoft is no longer in the ascendency.

And there there are the legal counter-strikes. Many of Microsoft's rivals, including those in the open source camp, own software patents which they suspect they company may have infringed. If the patent software gloves come off, Microsoft may lose more than it stands to gain.

While Microsoft has every right to protect itself against theft, it needs to ensure it doesn't undermine its armoury or its moral authority.

Posted by Bill Bennett May 16, 2007 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

This is a bit political for Reseller News, which is an area we usually avoid, but the government's repeated refusal to cut personal taxes could seriously hurt our industry, so it's time to speak out.

By now just about everyone in New Zealand knows they would be considerably better off doing the same job in Australia. Basic wages are higher for most jobs. Skilled workers in technology and similar industries can get a big pay rise just by flying three hours to the west.

Then there are the tax advantages. Australians pay less tax at almost every salary level up to around $250,000 a year. Which for all intents and purposes means just about every Australian pays less tax than a Kiwi on the same salary.

Add these two factors together and a suitably skilled Kiwi technology professional could expect to be seriously better off on the other side of the Tasman. And these days, Auckland house prices are on a par with Sydney or possibly more expensive when build quality is taken into account.

Which is worrying because Australian employers are already deliberately targeting our workers. Every time Michael Cullen smugly refuses to decrease personal taxes, Australian bosses rub their hands with glee and wait for the arrival of more packed airplanes leaving the Shakey Isles.

Meanwhile, Kiwi managers pray for more refugees from Yorkshire or Essex to watch Lord of the Rings DVDs after a dose of rain or a frustrating commute on the M25. Of course it won't work if they ever see the missing footage where Frodo has to fill out an NZ tax return.

Posted by Bill Bennett May 15, 2007 4:57 PM | Comments (0)

Just when most of us are starting to wonder what to get our mothers next weekend, to the rescue comes storage vendor LaCie with the ‘high fashion’ hot pink USB storage device called Skwarim.

Mum can also be a geek!, the company raves in a hot pink headlined press release explaining that once she slips the device into the velvet pouch and then into her handbag, she will become a "computer geek" without knowing it.

Many a word has been written about the trend in recent years of making technology pink if it’s going to be pitched at females, and if Harvey Norman’s recent Mother’s Day catalogue is anything to go by, this shows no sign of waning.

Adorned with pink butterflies, the "Love Your Mum Sale"; flyer offers pink PS2 consoles, pink cellphones and pink iPods. Although a sensible black and silver notebook and a boring white cordless phone made it into the mix, even the Fuji Finepix Raspberry Red camera looks suspiciously pink.

I never went through the ‘pink is my favourite colour’ phase, as some girls I knew between the ages of about six and 14 did. Even if I had gone through it, it would be over now.

What would males think if lots of technology aimed at them was blue? Let common sense prevail and market products of all colours for all people.

Posted by Amanda Sachtleben May 7, 2007 12:22 PM | Comments (0)

Yesterday’s IDC Directions conference revealed a multitude of facts, and undoubtedly planted a few new ideas for CIO’s and general managers. From my understanding, it boiled down to this; there is a massive market opportunity out there, so get off your seats and grab it.

The opportunities IDC spoke about came in several different shapes and sizes. First off, in a survey to find the most influential ICT company in the country, an opportunity appeared in the form of the number of CIO’s answering ‘don’t know’ to the question of which IT provider they ranked the highest.

This is something the industry should look into. There is sufficient evidence that smaller companies, like Axon, can punch above their weight and gain a lot of market doing so. This could be the opportunity some smaller companies have been waiting for.

The second opportunity is one of finding the right audience or target market. According to IDC there is a new ‘breed’ of consumers out there, posing new target markets and challenges.

Along with a new generation of customers comes a new generation of how to sell. Another by-product is the fact that most employers will start looking to employ this generation soon, and in the current IT job market that will be an important factor.

Keep with the trends, and prepare for the future. It might sound corny, but it seems to be more important now than ever.

Posted by May 3, 2007 4:22 PM | Comments (0)

Every week I get bombarded with emails about security updates and security threats from every possible security vendor out there. There are constantly new products coming to market, promising to act as a one-stop shop for all your security needs.

I call their bluff.

There are anti-spam, anti-virus, false positives, false negatives, phishing, IP scamming, bombing, pharming, brute force, keylogging, blackmailing, mobile hacking, identity theft… these are just a few of the threats that are constantly out to get you.

Now, I’m not out to tell you that these don’t exist. There is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise, and you would have to be born yesterday to think that you are secure at all times.

But…

I fear there is such a thing as a social panic in the security industry. A social panic emerges when outlets (media in particular) focus heavily on a subject, and it often creates fear in its audience or target.

The United States has been criticised for creating security-fears in its ‘subjects’, thereby gaining the power to implement tough security measures, bordering on human rights breaches. There is obviously a lot of money to be had in this game.

Let’s put it this way. If we were all secure on the internet, if we found some way to avoid scams, viruses and phishing, then a multimillion industry would crumple in the dust.

Make no mistake; it is in the security vendors’ best interest to instil fear about the number and severity of threats out there. And because those threats are largely invisible and often far too technical for Joe Bloggs to understand, it’s an easy sell.

I’m not asking anyone to throw all caution to the wind and get rid of your current security. Don’t take everything at face value, educate yourself on the different threats, identify specific needs for yourself or your industry and make educated decisions.

Don’t let everyone else tell you what you need.

Posted by May 2, 2007 10:48 AM | Comments (0)