The sub-prime crisis is real enough in the US, along with the Northern Rock bank failure in England, while here in New Zealand we have our own mini-cooked version with the collapse of 19 finance companies in the past two years and the Blue Chip fiasco.

However, the talk of recession in the ICT industry with a downturn in spending, well that’s stretching it a bit. A recent US-sourced story expressed in almost wonderment that ”Fifty-five percent report plans to increase IT spending”, though in the story both Forrester Research and IDC anticipated a spending slowdown.

I’m not, although I don’t have a raft of data, surveys and crystal ball gazings to back that claim. Quite simply, I base it on the fact ICT is now so heavily embedded in our business and personal lives in every way, shape and form that it is just not possible to stop spending on ICT. Yes there will be some belt-tightening in the consumer market, (though not too much with those mortgage-free and child-free Gen X and Gen Yers) - but I don’t see anything more than the smallest blip of a downturn in the commercial sector.

Really, the scenario of a sharp spending decline in ICT is just the ‘dogs of gloom' talking.

For example, you're a CIO and there’s new software or an upgrade that can break down your product data sales in key markets overnight. Previously this took up to five days. Are you going to cry poor, when you know your competitors will buy the upgrade and its sales team have access to that information four days before your sales team?
You’re the MIS manager at an insurance agency when a new call centre hardware-software configuration is announced. The vendor, in a startling demonstration, shows how it will make your staff 20 percent more efficient. Going to cry poor?

These two examples show why I don’t think there is a slowdown coming in IT.

The ICT industry, understandably, is geared to keep coming up with ‘must have' hardware, software and smartphone products - whether it's a new laptop, software upgrade, virtualisation update, cloud computing app or a new product for the gamers. (Six million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV were sold in its first week of release!)

And let's not forget that phenomenal device from Apple, the home of gadget innovation, the iPhone. Damn the price of food, the spiraling cost of petrol and the latest credit card bill.

When it lands, the 3G iPhone will sell like hotcakes.

Posted by Rodney Fletcher May 28, 2008 3:31 PM | Comments (0)

Once again there are various groups berating the release of the latest video game - Grand Theft Auto IV.

Citing the game’s violent content and the perceived effect this will have on society and families; many have called for the game to be banned.

It is of course completely within their rights to hold this view and to express it, and therein lies the irony in their argument.

Calling for entertainment or information sources that you do not agree with to be banned is tantamount to curtailing other people’s - in many cases hard won - freedoms.

And the same people calling for such bans would be as vociferous in their protests if their own forms of expressions are banned or censored.

Without singling out any groups, imagine the outcry if religious services were to be banned.

I for one would join those protests - regardless of my own religious affiliations or which religion is being targeted, because freedom of religion is a basic human right.

So is freedom of expression and freedom of choice.

Games are a form expression, just like music, books, movies, poetry and prayer. And the right to choose to buy and play a certain game, regardless of how offensive it’s content is to those who would not even wish to play it themselves, is an inalienable right.

Of course as a journalist I am riled by any whiff of censorship - especially since I grew up in Apartheid South Africa where just about anything that threatened the Christian Nationalist agenda was banned.

Having said that, I share the same concerns about the current levels of violence in society many of those who oppose games like GTA 4, hold.

However I do not believe solving the issue is as simple as banning a single game.

Humans are and have always been violent creatures - we have a litany of wars that proves this.

The causes of violence in society are far wider than violence in games, music, movies or books.

Violent games don’t create violent societies - violent societies create violent games.

Posted by Louis Van Wyk May 1, 2008 1:00 PM | Comments (1)