Monthly Archives: May 2007

May 12, 2007 Posted in Business, IT, New business 4 Comments

Homegrown competition for Xero????

By Ben Kepes

Just saw this – could be interesting – seems it is akin to Xero but without the high profile backers and founders. Also this as posted on this forum. The plot thickens????? The only thing of substance I could see in the offer doc is the that founders suddenly become

May 12, 2007 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Governance, IT, New business, Strategy Leave a comment

Xero IPO

By Ben Kepes

I just finished the not too easy task of reading the Xero share issue documents. The first interesting thing is that Xero chose the IPO versus the VC route for funding. The Chairman’s report makes some mention of the limited VC funds in New Zealand but I’m not sure if

May 10, 2007 Posted in Business, Economic Development, IT 4 Comments

Telstra clear sucks…….

By Ben Kepes

In response to Andy Lark’s recent post about Verizon and Mauricio Freitas‘ post about TC – I thought I’d serve up an article I wrote recently after a long and annoying TC experience. Read on….. A recent blood pressure elevating experience I had has made me think about customer service

May 10, 2007 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Governance, Manufacturing, Society, Strategy Leave a comment

Domestic vs offshore manufacturing

By Ben Kepes

An interesting article here that came out of the Better By Design conference last week. The gist of the argument was that, in order to remain globally competitive, NZ manufacturers have no option but to move production offshore. Now we need to qualify this argument – if we want to

May 10, 2007 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Manufacturing Leave a comment

My god – some good news about manufacturing

By Ben Kepes

This just in on the wire – some positive news about domestic manufacturing. Now all we need to do is get some of the politicians to read it and maybe they’ll remember that, believe it or not, it is still viable to manufacture here and make a profit – all

May 9, 2007 Posted in Business, Business and the Environment, Economic Development, New business, Society 2 Comments

Solid energy buys Canterbury Biodiesel

By Ben Kepes

Announced today – Solid Energy purchased Canterbury Biodiesel. Great to see Biodiesel’s being recongnised as an important, valid and viable energy source for the future. The sooner New Zealand increases it’s tiny current level self-sufficiency in terms of fuel – the better. Now some of those who protested against the

May 9, 2007 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Governance, Manufacturing, Strategy Leave a comment

Domestic vs offshore manufacturing

By Ben Kepes

An interesting article here that came out of the Better By Design conference last week. The gist of the argument was that, in order to remain globally competitive, NZ manufacturers have no option but to move production offshore. Now we need to qualify this argument – if we want to

May 6, 2007 Posted in Business and the Environment, Compliance, New business, Society 2 Comments

Rod Oram on Carbon Zero…

By Ben Kepes

In today’s Sunday Star Times, Rod Oram wrote this opinion piece about what an opportunity Carbon Trading (or at least a carbon trading market) would be for New Zealand. While his rationale is sound – the fact that we are geographically isolated, need a new business idea that we can

May 4, 2007 Posted in Business and the Environment, Society 1 Comment

Let’s play spot the incongruity…..

By Ben Kepes

I couldn’t resist snapping a pic of this the other day. For those that don’t know, the bumper sticker protests against Solid Energy‘s coal mine at Happy Valley. The car on which the sticker is stuck is a Porsche 911, possibly one of the least energy efficient methods of getting

May 4, 2007 Posted in IT Leave a comment

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes!!!!!!!!!!!

By Ben Kepes

Yippeee – for those of you that thought that broadband Nirvana existed stateside and that we’re the only ones who get sub-optimal (actually not even good enough to call it sub-optimal) service and product here – read this post on Andy Lark’s blog

The Author

Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance 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. More on Ben

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