Monthly Archives: December 2008

10/12/2008 Posted in Economic Development, My businesses, New business, New Zealand, Strategy 1 Comment

Testing the Made from New Zealand widget

By Ben Kepes

I got an email from the [mfnz]Made From New Zealand[/mfnz] guys sayign that they have just released their new widget aimed at getting comapny information to show after blog posts (yup – much like crunchbase for for NZ companies. Check out my entires – [mfnz]bizchat[/mfnz], [mfnz]Cactus Climbing[/mfnz] and [mfnz]Diversity[/mfnz]. It

10/12/2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 3 Comments

We’re Not All Rogues!

By Ben Kepes

With the recent press around the proposed 90 day trial period for new employees in New Zealand (and well done to Rod for picking up on this as well), it seemed an opportune time to republish a piece I wrote for Unlimited magazine a few months ago – when the

08/12/2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, Governance, New Zealand, Strategy Leave a comment

Governance? What Governance?

By Ben Kepes

I am astounded. I’ve just read the wrap up of the Otago District Health Board fraud case. For those of you who haven’t caught up with it – former CIO of the ODHB defrauded the board of close to $17million for supposed IT risk mitigation charges (this from a entity

05/12/2008 Posted in Business, Governance, IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 1 Comment

Diligent Nears the Deadpool

By Ben Kepes

It had to happen – news that Diligent is close to out of cash, has fired a huge chunk of it’s staff and has no real idea if its search for cash will succeed. Apparently they; will run out of cash at the end of April unless…able to access new

04/12/2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, New business, New Zealand, Strategy, Web x.0 5 Comments

Bizchat is live….

By Ben Kepes

It’s been a long time coming! For some time now I’ve been alluding to a community site I was involved in creating. We’re finally ready to peel a few layers of the onion back. Bizchat has arrived on the world and awaits its members. So what is bizchat? Well in

02/12/2008 Posted in Coffee, Society 17 Comments

My Thoughts on Coffee

By Ben Kepes

A post over on bwagy‘s blog got me thinking about coffee. Ben asked why people think that Starbucks is struggling in New Zealand. he put it down to; Star Bucks ignorance to adapt to the local market A commenter chipped in with his vision (if seven words constitutes vision )

02/12/2008 Posted in IT, SaaS, Strategy 1 Comment

Sage Upping the SaaS Ante

By Ben Kepes

We’ve been waiting for a really compelling on-demand accounting offering from one of the big boys. Thus far we’ve had Intuit deliver QuickBooks Online (CloudAve review here) which got a "nice try but back to the classroom" grade. MYOB delivered the first generation of the BusinessBasics Online product (Diversity review

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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