Australian Insurers IT investments: Australian insurance
companies expected to spend around $5.2 billion on IT this calendar year, up
2.8% from 2011. [CR: How does this
compare to other industries? I would imagine the technology spend will continue
to increase, offset by efficiencies gained from the investment for a neutral to
positive profit impact.]
Apple acquires fingerprint scan company: Apple acquires
AuthenTec for $US350 million to gain fingerprint authentication and encryption
security technology. Future potential is to act as an alternative or replace four-digit
pin login or digital signatures. Last week Samsung said it would use AuthenTec
in new devices, a relationship now not expected to go ahead. [CR: Shows how fragile
the technology infrastructure is. A single
decision by Apple can wipe out or create whole industry segments. Also speaks
to the elephant in the room of security of devices that can be easily left on
trains, stolen, or lost.]
Toll Holdings to build 3000 online shopping pick up points. To offer
package recipients a choice of delivery times, weekend deliveries, and
alternative weekend location parcel pickup.
Seen as one of the company’s key growth areas. PwC report shows online
spending to double by 2016 to $27 billion. Annual spend on logistics portion of
e-tail in Australia is just over $50 million, toll holdings has 5 to 6 percent
of that market, looking to double market share. To partner with the Victorian
Newsagents Association, which will offer e-tail product called Nagent and a
product called Nparcel. [CR: question for your business – what areas of the
economy are growing, what assets do you have internally to capitalise, and what
external partnerships do you need to make it happen?]
Parliamentary inquiry into IT pricing: Politicians and
consumer advocates publically slam tech vendors foe charging more in Australia
than overseas. Vendors avoided Monday’s inquiry, spoke through the Australian
Information Industry Association, which cites local taxes, warranty conditions,
and the need to recoup research and development costs. [CR: I attended a
business session this morning that noted Australia is the third-most expensive
country in the world to live in and Sydney is the most expensive city in the
world. Perhaps looking at software and
music cost discrepancies is like staring at the fly splattered on the grill of
the car getting ready to run you over.]
Telsyte survey of businesses allowing personal devices: Does
your organisation allow staff to use their own personal devices and public apps?
Smartphones 54%, Notebooks 43%, Media tablets 40%, Applications 28%.
Zynga stocks drop 40% last week: On back of report that
revenue was up 19.1% year on year but company reported a net loss of $US22.8
million compared to net profit of $US1.4 million in Q2 2011. Three reasons
given: 1) changes to Facebook algorithms that benefited new games but penalised
older titles; 2) delayed launch of Zynga’s newest game The Ville; and 3) under
performance of “Draw Something” game. Next step is mobile: On Facebook, four of
the top five games are Zynga’s, on iPhone only one is. [CR: Zynga was first in, but the market is
getting saturated and getting harder to stand out. I hear in the three reasons for the $22.8
million loss (let that number sink in)... that they no longer have the unfair
advantage and the market is saturated in their segments. How to differentiate
is the question, and doing more of the same is not the way.]
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