Tag Archives: United States

June 17, 2013 Posted in Business 2 Comments

On PRISM, the Cloud and Granularity

By Ben Kepes

Since news of the US data interception program, PRISM, hit the world, there has been the expected firestorm of comments suggesting that this would be the death-knell of the cloud. It’s something of a tradition that whenever anything even remotely related to the internet occurs, open source zealots like Richard

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May 27, 2013 Posted in Business 1 Comment

Xero Rolls Out Payment Services – Closing More SMB Loops

By Ben Kepes

The advent of cloud computing brought with it the promise of increased efficiencies for small and mid sized businesses. These efficiencies were to be created by the very fact that the software, situated as it is in the cloud, is by definition connectable with other products and services in the

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May 8, 2013 Posted in Business 6 Comments

New Zealand Defies International Pressure and Makes Software Non-Patentable

By Ben Kepes

I’m immensely proud to be a New Zealand. Despite being a tiny country at the end of the earth we have historically shown the fortitude to make the big calls before others were willing to do so. The first country in the world to offer women the vote and the

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April 15, 2013 Posted in Business 1 Comment

NetSuite and eWinery Toast a Specific Solution for the Wine Industry

By Ben Kepes

Living as I do smack bang in the middle of a wine producing region, I’m always interested to see smart software being applied to the viticulture industry. Primary product is a very honest industry, but when that primary production is all about selling a product that is often differentiated on

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March 27, 2013 Posted in Business 1 Comment

The Xero Share Price – One Pundit’s Analysis

By Ben Kepes

In recent weeks the share price for listed cloud accounting vendor Xero has risen at an incredibly fast rate. The company, which has around 140000 paying customers globally and is yet to turn a profit, is now valued at close to $1.5B. This is a staggering achievement and something I

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February 21, 2013 Posted in Business 6 Comments

FinancialForce on a Tear

By Ben Kepes

When salesforce.com invested in FinancialForce a few years ago, there was keen interest in how this would help the company grow. There’s never been much clarity around those numbers since the parent company of FinancialForce, Unit4, doesn’t break out the individual numbers of operating divisions. That is a bit clearer now since

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February 20, 2013 Posted in Business 2 Comments

Is Cloud A Revolution Or An Evolution?

By Ben Kepes

One of the reasons for setting up the CloudU program and certificate was a desire to scale the one-on-one work I do helping small and large businesses and the people that work within them understand what the cloud actually is. This is made all the more necessary because of the

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December 16, 2012 Posted in Business Leave a comment

Wave Updates UI, Rolls out Broad SMB Financial Portfolio

By Ben Kepes

I’ve been following Wave since its founding back in November 2010. The company has an interesting approach to the traditionally conservative accounting software space – it’s product is provided to the user at no cost who, in return, receive personalized “Business Savings”, or special deals offered by businesses that pay

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August 24, 2012 Posted in Business 2 Comments

Rackspace Allays Australasian Patriot Act Fears

By Ben Kepes

News the other day that Rackspace (see disclosure) will soon be opening its first data center in Sydney, Australia. This marks the first large scale US vendor to announce a local operation in my neck of the woods – rumor has it that others won’t be far away. The news

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April 23, 2012 Posted in Business 2 Comments

Xero Nabs Intuit Exec

By Ben Kepes

I’ve long wondered how Xero will execute upon its North American opportunity – after all North America is the real goal for the company, and also where they face the biggest hurdles to success. I’ve even been roundly criticized for articulating this question I’ve spent some time with Xero’s US

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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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