DI Live! IT Executive Insights

Digital Investor's news roll & commentary

Australian companies group at ATRE 2006 Beijing

ATRE 2006 starts today in Beijing, and Digital Investor and Business Strategies International (BSI), working together, who are committed to helping Australian early-stage technology companies grow and succeed internationally, brought a first-ever "Australian Team".

We are proud to be working with the following clients to enable and assist in their participation in ATRE 2006:

AURA is Australia's leading mobile technology service provider specialising in interactive wireless marketing, mobile ticketing and m-commerce. AURA has a team of industry experts who are globally recognised as some of the pioneers of mobile barcode solutions used for ticketing and coupons.

Contact: Adam Dunne, adam@aura.net.au www.aura.net.au

InterAcct Solutions are the global leader in the provisioning and delivery of USSD solutions to mobile network operators. Our Ezy-Info product suite allows operators to deploy extremely quick direct dial interactive data services to all their customers today via their existing handsets.

Contact: Chris Eyles, chris.eyles@interacctsolutions.com www.interacctsolutions.com

Webit Technologies has created some of the world’s first online registration systems for Fortune 1000 companies. Most recently Webit received a 24th ranking in the Australian Business Review Weekly, 2006 BRW Upstarts Awards.

Contact: Felix La Spina, Felix.LaSpina@webitgroup.net www.webitgroup.net

Digital Futures China is a China-based company which holds exclusive territory rights for the Australian pxidigital digital print and digital media distribution kiosk, in association with leading technology, financing, and franchising partners.

Contact: Leigh Baker Leigh.Baker@digitalfutureschina.com www.digitalfutureschina.com

Digital Investor works with its early-stage clients in IT, telco and mobile content to achieve and sustain profitable growth. BSI, using its Investor Forums and unique network of 300+ high net worth individual investors, accelerates capital acquisition and business expansion.

We wish to thank Red Herring/DASAR for their enthusiastic support for our mission to bring the first Australian group of companies to ATRE.

---

What's your view of Asia's potential dominance in mobile and software development?  Post your Comments.  How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632 (direct); +1(817) 382-4453 (SkypeIn USA); +852-8199-0189 (SkypeIn HK);

"We hired Walter to complete a technology audit, but he gave us much more -- he has the ability to identify business opportunities that benefit all sides, creating networks of customers, suppliers, investors and intermediaries. His breadth of knowledge and willingness to push himself beyond the brief are tremendously valuable." Zenon Pasieczny, Director, Saphet Capital Management

---

Asia sets the stage for massive mobile and software leadership and sales

Two items in Finance Asia's A Week in Tech caught my eye as particulalry important signals for the West and countries such as Australia.

In Korea The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) revealed its grand plan to construct a "mobile paradise,'' a special district, where people will be able to enjoy a seamless service from the world's latest wireless technologies next year.

Dubbed the M1 (Mobile No. 1) project, the special district is kind of a free technology zone that will create a new mobile environment and be the testing area for up-and-coming wireless platforms. Included in the available techniques will be all mobile broadcasting systems like DVB-H developed by Nokia, Qualcomm's MediaFlo and the home-grown digital multimedia broadcasting.

The place will allow individuals to use for free every next-generation telecom platform such as time division-synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA), WiBro and a global system for mobile communications (GSM). Under the programme, MIC said it aims a 100-percent mobile literacy here as well as substantially expanding the country's presence in the global market.

An MIC official said the new project is looking to come up with products worth W576 trillion ($591.6 billion) by 2010 and create additional value of W266 trillion ($273.2 billion) within the same period.

That's an astounding objective, but such objectives have been set by Korea and the MIC before, and met.  Korea has developed major planks of its economy around such bold moves and it looks like the pace is excellerating, leaving in the dust countries where IT and telecommunications rank low on the political agenda.

China is on the same path with software, as we have mentioned before, and Finance Asia reports:

With software companies in China’s Henan province accumulating nearly Rmb5 billion ($621.1 million) in sales revenues during the past five years, observers are saying the software industry in the area has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the country. Observers also say the industry exhibits the most potential. From 2000 to 2005, the software industry in the province posted an average of 50 percent growth in sales revenue every year. The province has four software parks, and serves as host to more than 400 software developers. Henan province said it aims for targeted sales revenue of Rmb20 billion for its software industry in 2010.

This is also the tip of the iceberg as China sets itself on a path to chase and pass Indian in software development and services.

---

What's your view of Asia's potential dominance in mobile and software development?  Post your Comments.  How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632 (direct); +1(817) 382-4453 (SkypeIn USA); +852-8199-0189 (SkypeIn HK);

"We hired Walter to complete a technology audit, but he gave us much more -- he has the ability to identify business opportunities that benefit all sides, creating networks of customers, suppliers, investors and intermediaries. His breadth of knowledge and willingness to push himself beyond the brief are tremendously valuable." Zenon Pasieczny, Director, Saphet Capital Management

---

For small business, telcos don't come to mind for VOIP - survey

When it comes to business VOIP and especially small business it seems that the established telcos are facing a serious marketing and perception challenge - namely that they don't come readily to mind when SMBs are considering acquiring VOIP.

WiFi Planet reports on a survey by John Macario, president and CEO of Savatar, a consulting and research firm.

"Right now it's like a bad date -- they aren't speaking the same language."

In a survey of 300 SMB decision-makers released at the Fall 2005 Voice Over Net (VON) conference, Savatar found there's interest in VoIP, but also a lot of confusion.

When asked which type of provider comes to mind for business VoIP, answers were all over the map:

• nontraditional telecoms, 25%
• equipment vendors, 17%
• traditional telecoms, 14%
• cable companies, 13%
• no one in particular, 13%
• ISPs, 10%
• resellers, 7%
• other, 2%.

Macario said the responses aren't encouraging for traditional telecoms, rating just one percentage point above "no one in particular".

Savatar has reviewed virtually every business VoIP offering on the market and said that the feature-sets are remarkably similar.

WiFi Planet noted the comments of another speaker at VON, Mark Spencer, president of Digium/Asterisk, who said the lesson of Skype is that the users and market value "low-cost, high-performance and ease of use" in VoIP products.

Technorati Tags:
VOIP Skype IP telephony SMB VOIP

---

How do you think that VOIP can best be sold to small business?  Post your Comments.  How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632 (direct); +1(817) 382-4453 (SkypeIn USA); +852-8199-0189 (SkypeIn HK);

"We hired Walter to complete a technology audit, but he gave us much more -- he has the ability to identify business opportunities that benefit all sides, creating networks of customers, suppliers, investors and intermediaries. His breadth of knowledge and willingness to push himself beyond the brief are tremendously valuable." Zenon Pasieczny, Director, Saphet Capital Management

---

Cisco as the plumber

At ATRE 2005 in Beijing, James Haensly, CTO for Avaya Solutions Asia Pacific, was asked to explain the difference between Cisco and Avaya.

Haensly replied that Avaya saw the value in the services and applications innovation on top of the network.  He described this as the water, whereas he described Cisco as providing the plumbing - and "you don't buy your water from the plumber".

He said that Avaya was aligned with organisations protecting their current investments in networks and technology, and improving services through evolution.  He used the interesting phrase of "converging new business processes with communications".

---

Would you buy your water from the plumber?  Post your Comments.  How can I help? How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632 (direct); +1(817) 382-4453 (SkypeIn USA); +852-8199-0189 (SkypeIn HK);

"We hired Walter to complete a technology audit, but he gave us much more -- he is relentless in forcing managers to identify and articulate their value proposition, the singe-most important factor in working out why they even get up in the morning. It's hard to believe how many people ignore this basic tenet of business life." Zenon Pasieczny, Director, Saphet Capital Management

---

Wireless is the killer app for VOIP - Aruba

When Don LeBeau, President and CEO of Aruba Networks, spoke at ATRE 2005 in Beijing, he said that "VOIP is the killer app for wireless and wireless is the killer app for VOIP".

Because of the cost effectiveness of commercial wireless deployment new mobile applications are being developed which again allow enterprises to compete.  That is, just like in the initial days of consolidation of networks into IP-based flexible and cheap fixed line deployments, early adopters are able to take advantage of competitive benefits.

This is much more than the deployment of adoption of wireless consumer technology, which has limited deployment potential - but enterprise grade security, scalability and robustness - out of the box.

LeBeau said that we are on the verge of a new change in the way networks are built, with wireless at the network edge everywhere.

He also made some other points, that Aruba had moved all production to China and saved between 30-50% of costs and actually improved quality, that customers are finding a ten to one cost advantage in using wireless technology to support office and mobility as compared to previous approaches to enterprise networking.

---

What do you think will be the killer app for wireless? Post your Comments.How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632 (direct); +1(817) 382-4453 (SkypeIn USA); +852-8199-0189 (SkypeIn HK) 

---

First Vonage to SkypeIn to Skype call works without flaw

Skype users would be interested in what might be the first Vonage to SkypeIn to Skype on the desktop call.

It worked!!

This was by no means certain since my Kansas-based colleague was calling (me in Japan on business) using Vonage through his cable company - and Vonage has been suffering from mysterious blocking from various cable/ISP operators.

After securing my new US SkypeIn number (817) 382-4453 (a 12 month subscription is €30) I called my colleague on Skype and asked him to call me back.

He then used his VOIP Vonage service to call my US SkypeIn number, and it lit up my Skype incoming calls on my laptop.

My observation:

The incoming call via Vonage/SkypeIn was of much weaker strength and poorer quality then the usual high quality of Skype-to-Skype. (Since I had just called him on Skype directly I had a point of comparison).

Interestingly Skype recognised that I had called this colleague using SkypeOut and that I had recorded his number.  It extracted the incoming Call-Id and executed a lookup in my Skype contacts and displayed the assigned user name that I had given this SkypeOut number.

For a company often criticised for not having a business model Skype is well on the way to a $50m+ revenue rate by end of 2005.

---

What do you think will be Skype's revenue by the of 2005? Post your Comments.How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632 (direct); +1(817) 382-4453 (SkypeIn USA); +852-8199-0189 (SkypeIn HK) 

---

Telcos shift risks to shareholders in grab for outsourcing contracts

Here's an interesting article quoting Mike Ettling, CEO of Unisys Australia and NZ, where he says telcos are taking on financial risks that are unusual to the IT industry as they try to muscle in on the outsourcing market.

Mr Ettling says the Australasian telcos have strong balance sheets compared to their northern hemisphere peers - thanks to the lower prices they paid for 3G spectrum licences in government auctions.

They have been using their cash-rich position "to accept risks in the outsourcing market which the industry as a whole would not accept", he says. The types of risks they are taking on include accepting liability for "knock-on" damages if their customers' businesses are disrupted because of failure to perform.

Unisys has been in the outsourcing business for a long time, like the other major IT players, and Ettling's comments are worth noting by telco shareholders as they pick up risks that the IT industry as a whole believes are unacceptable.  Time usually shows the newcomers to have been foolhardy in their outlook, and poor in risk management.

- read the article in STUFF NZ.

i-mode Content Forum sponsors Mobile Monday Tokyo

i-mode Content Forum has given the first Mobile Monday Tokyo event a new lease of life after a near-death experience.

The iCF is the world's largest and most active business association for i-mode content providers, and President Pascal Lorne, and VP Walter Adamson, have offered Mobile Monday Tokyo sponsorship for the first event of 2005.

This follows the late withdrawal of HP from all future Mobile Monday sponsorship (although HP will be assisting in the backend through their HP Bazaar initiative).

Mobile Monday (MoMo) in Tokyo Tokyo's No. 1 networking event for mobile & technology insiders Monday 7 February 2005 "Japan-Europe Mobile Usage: Are We so Different?" Guest speaker Pascal Lorne, founder of the European Club of i-mode Content Providers, will present focus group results from France and Japan, with some surprising results. Pascal is also CEO of Miyowa, a leading France-based i-mode content provider. Pascal will be joined by Walter Adamson, VP Asia-Pacific of the i-mode Content Forum and founder of i-mode Business Strategy in Melbourne, Australia. "Mobile e-Wallet Usage in Europe: the Japan Model" Guest speaker Norihiko Fujita, Business Development Manager at m-payment provider bitWallet, will present on the potential for Japan-style mobile e-wallet services in Europe. bitWallet is a joint venture that includes Sony and NTT DoCoMo among its many shareholders; the company operates the Edy e-cash service based on Sony's FeliCa technology and helped realize NTT DoCoMo's Mobile FeliCa service.  PLUS: Network with an EU-based mobile executive team in Tokyo for fact-finding, trend-watching and deal-scouting Join us for the first Mobile Monday event in 2005! Watch WWJ's video report from the October 2004 MoMo: Mobile Monday Rocks! Admission: FREE --> Registration: http://www.hpbazaar.com/events Venue: The Pink Cow (www.pinkcow.com) Complimentary beverage and snacks for first 100 attendees; cash bar and regular menu thereafter Doors open: 18:45 Presentations: 19:30 Open forum Q&A: 20:30 Networking: 21:00~ See you Monday, 7 February, at MoMo! Sponsored by: i-mode Content Forum Organized by: Wireless Watch Japan

---

What do you think will be the biggest mobile internet news of 2005? Post your Comments.How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632.

---

i-mode Content Forum Analysis of Australian i-mode Content Revenue

With the recent renaming of iClub Edit to i-mode Content Forum (iCF) and the publication of new Aims and Objectives, they have also opened their campaign for more Australian members.

New members of iCF can enjoy the following activies:

• Peer-to-peer networking to help members make the connections they need to enhance their business.
• Education about mobile content and the i-mode ecosystem, in the form of specific tours and seminars and conferences e.g. World i-mode Content Providers Conference.
• Occasional advocacy on technology and issues in i-mode.
• A knowledge-base providing access to opinions and trends within the membership, primarily through the website www.imodestrategy.com
• Liaison with NTT DoCoMo on matters of broad interest to content providers.
• Liaison with i-mode alliance partners on content issues and trends.

In addition, and of special interest to Australian content providers, and content providers to Telstra's i-mode service, is iCF's unique analysis of content revenue for i-mode Australia.

Learn how the guided hand of Telstra in managing "my menu", plus the expectation of achieving attractive subscription prices, makes the initial projections and opportunities for content providers appear quite favorable for smaller players and new entrants into i-mode.

Join the i-mode Content Forum by emailing or contacting:

• Pascal Lorne - President pascal@i-cf.org +33 670 765 643 (France)
• Walter Adamson – Vice President, Asia-Pacific walter@i-cf.org +61 403 345 632 (Australia)
• Axel Dreyfus - Vice President axel@i-cf.org

Sign up and receive the full 5 page PDF report.

(Or simply post a comment below with your details, and Walter will contact you.)

---

What do you think about the potential of i-mode and content providers in the Australian market.  How will the content market develop? Post your Comments.How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632.

---