Monthly Archives: November 2008

November 19, 2008 Posted in Business, IT, SaaS, Strategy, The Cloud 10 Comments

MYOB on the block

By Ben Kepes

Interesting to read that suitors are coming from far and wide for MYOB. Guinness Peat Group is supporting a takeover for the business in which it already holds a 13.6% stake. It has joined in with another three investors who jointly hold 34% of the company to form a united

Tagged MYOB |

November 18, 2008 Posted in Business 5 Comments

Jerry Yang Having Steve Ballmer’s Love Child

By Ben Kepes

Unconfirmed rumours out of Seattle point to the hidden reasons for Jerry Yang‘s departure from his position as CEO of Yahoo. It seems Yang is secretly having Steve Ballmer‘s (Microsoft CEO) love-child and both parties are unwilling to have a child destined to forever search for its identity within a

November 18, 2008 Posted in Blogging, Strategy 3 Comments

Old Media – Don’t Be So Freaking Backwards

By Ben Kepes

Old media just doesn’t get it – in the attempt to clutch on to what is essentially a sunset industry, they’ll try every trick on earth to lure reader to their sites. The partial content RSS feed is just one example of this – a feed that purports to be

November 17, 2008 Posted in Business Leave a comment

Another One Bites the Dust

By Ben Kepes

And who said the average person wouldn’t feel the effects of the downturn? I’ve just received notice that the SaaS master-class I was due to run in December in Sydney has been cancelled – it seems pressing economic conditions have limited the number of people who want to pay a

November 17, 2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, New business, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 1 Comment

Governments Role in Business

By Ben Kepes

I was alerted to this article which tells of the Australian Government’s funding of 57 research projects to the tune of $3.6 million. Each of the projects was given $64000 to continue development of their projects. The projects where in such diverse areas as online-training, animation and video-ad serving. Reading

November 14, 2008 Posted in Society, Web x.0 1 Comment

Will You Be My Friend

By Ben Kepes

Yeah OK – So it’s most probably an urban myth but I can help but giggle at the story of Hal, a nice enough sounding guy who, having amassed a personal war chest of 700 Facebook friends – decided to congratulate himself by holding a party. How to publicise the

Tagged Facebook |

November 13, 2008 Posted in Society, Strategy 11 Comments

Thoughts on Obama…

By Ben Kepes

Here follows one of my (slightly rare) off-topic posts, this one is political to boot. I listened to Obama’s acceptance speech and was caught up in the moment, I see his election as era-defining and a stark demonstration of how far we’ve come in the past hundred or so years.

Tagged obama, politics |

November 12, 2008 Posted in Design, Efficiency, IT, Society 3 Comments

The Ultimate Proof

By Ben Kepes

I love blog posts that herald the demise of blogging. I mean no one would expect Ford to come out and say that peak oil marks the end of auto companies (even if it does) so why this self flagellation within our industry. Most recently Paul Boutin wrote what is,

November 11, 2008 Posted in Business 1 Comment

Wondering Why You Should Care About “Web 2.0″/”Cloud Computing”?

By Mike Riversdale

A guest post from the inimitable and highly personable MiramarMike If you’re like a lot of people I know both working with IT and those purporting to support those using IT) and are wondering what the big deal is about using a damned browser to do some fancy dancy things

November 10, 2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, IT, New business, New Zealand, Strategy 2 Comments

Wellington IS the World…

By Ben Kepes

Or almost…. On Friday night I had the privilege of MCing the Unlimited Potential Wellington to the World event. W2W showcased two things I consider very important, the application and commercialisation of research, and new business. It was a great evening, I caught up with a bunch of people I

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.