Monthly Archives: May 2008

May 31, 2008 Posted in Design, Efficiency, IT, SaaS, Strategy 1 Comment

Microsoft – building a room that Echoes….

By Ben Kepes

So Microsoft has announced its “Echoes” project, a unified communications platform for telcos that, via the windows live service, seeks to; Sync Address book contacts over the air Ensure that IM messages work seamlessly with SMS Windows Live Messenger contacts get local numbers Voice calls from Messenger on PC to

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May 30, 2008 Posted in Design, Efficiency, IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 3 Comments

Diversity TV – Interview with iPayroll

By Ben Kepes

I bumped into a couple of the folks from iPayroll last week. iPayroll [Diversity coverage here] is a New Zealand based SaaS payroll service. There has been a fair amount of chatter around the blogosphere around the role of design vs functionality for software, especially SaaS software – iPayroll has

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May 30, 2008 Posted in New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 10 Comments

Ouch!

By Ben Kepes

The plot thickens – seems an article in the Independent Financial which was apparently critical of Xero’s performance was pulled after complaints from CEO Rod Drury. Hopefully it was pulled for the right reasons (ie factual incorrectness) rather than for any “not wishing to ruffle feathers” reason. Either way it

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May 29, 2008 Posted in IT, SaaS, Strategy 1 Comment

Sage in trouble? SaaS disruption again…

By Ben Kepes

Following on from my previous post about SaaS being disruptive and hence tricky for traditional software players to deal with, news that former chairman of large UK accounting software company Sage looks set to buy all or part of an unamed SaaS accounting company (guesses anyone? FreeAgentCentral? Xero? who else?).

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May 29, 2008 Posted in Design, Efficiency, Governance, IT, SaaS, Strategy 2 Comments

Bad analysis – SaaS and ISVs

By Ben Kepes

ITPro posted this badly titled out article “Software as a service hits a glitch”. In it author Stephen Pritchard confuses SaaS en masse with SaaS delivered by traditional enterprise service vendors. He rightly states that; The problem for SAP – and for other enterprise software vendors looking for a share

May 29, 2008 Posted in IT, New Zealand 7 Comments

This is madness (on VoIP)…

By Ben Kepes

So I decided that, being a bit of an early adopter, a move to naked DSL with VoIP was in order. I dutifully purchased my PAP2T (to convert VoIP to a standard phone) and filled in my application form for WorldxChange’s fusion service (Naked DSL, VoIP combo for $70/month). Horrors

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May 28, 2008 Posted in Design, Efficiency, New business, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 7 Comments

Franchising – the new fool’s gold…..

By Ben Kepes

I write a regular column for Unlimited magazine, one of New Zealand’s most respected publications for the creative business sector. In an attempt to alienate a good proportion of the population my article last month took a well aimed broadside at the franchising industry. For more information about Unlimited magazine

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May 28, 2008 Posted in Design, IT, SaaS, Strategy, Web x.0 1 Comment

Pay for Twitter? Like hell!

By Ben Kepes

Over on Gigaom there is a post ranting on about the problems Twitter faces. Om tells us that the Twitter issues are caused by basic architectural flaws (not my area but difficult to argue against this one). Om explains the problem using Robert Scoble as an example; to put Scoble

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May 28, 2008 Posted in IT, New Zealand, Strategy Leave a comment

Regulation sometimes a good thing…

By Ben Kepes

A few weeks ago Vodafone New Zealand announced plans to lock cellphones to the Vodafone network. Their plan was to charge customers $50 to unlock phones in the event that they wanted to move to another provider. Telecommunications commissioner Ross Patterson waded in and expressed concern saying that the move

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May 27, 2008 Posted in Design, IT, SaaS Leave a comment

SaaS cleans up at CeBIT.au

By Ben Kepes

Great to read of the success of some SaaS players at the Australian CeBIT awards. First up Saasu won the business advantage award.This is the second year that Saasu have taken out the award which is given to the product or service that provides a clear, immediate and outstanding business

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The Author

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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