Category Archives: IT

26/11/2008 Posted in IT, PaaS, SaaS, Web x.0 2 Comments

The Future of Accounting – Guest Post, Rod Drury

By Ben Kepes

As part of an Accounting 2.0 series I’m compiling over on CloudAve, I reached out to some accounting software visionaries to give us their take on the future of accounting/business software and how the eco system would look five or ten years out. Well know local (local in New Zealand)

25/11/2008 Posted in IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 3 Comments

Xero gets its first win over the ditch!

By Ben Kepes

Congratulations to Xero who have just announced that the first of the Australian banks has come on board and is providing direct automatic feeds into Xero. As Lucy says; NAB will be providing this integral and innovative service in December for NAB customers using Xero. As soon as the feeds are

21/11/2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, IT, New business, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 1 Comment

What NZ SMEs really need….

By Ben Kepes

Rod posted about their report into productivity gains for the New Zealand SME community. As Rod pointed out – this is an extremely important issues given that; Small Business contributes $50b to New Zealand’s GDP!  We believe online technology is the key to improving productivity in the sector. The numbers

19/11/2008 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

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12/11/2008 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,

10/11/2008 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

07/11/2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, New Zealand, Strategy, The Cloud 4 Comments

Could We Be Getting an Australasian Data Centre?

By Ben Kepes

News that the self-proclaimed Google “Duke of Data Centers” is in Australia holding some high level talks. Despite Google’s staunch “nether confirm nor deny” policy, some leaks seem to indicate potential for a Google data centre to be built in Australia. Clearly Australasia is a little hamstrung partly by the

06/11/2008 Posted in Economic Development, IT, New Zealand, Strategy 6 Comments

The World Isn’t Flat – Let’s Accept That Now…

By Ben Kepes

So the latest OECD rankings are out and the NBR writes about them bemoaning the data caps that all our domestic plans have. They back their concerns up with the following table showing prevalence of data caps on ISP plans in different countries; And what do we notice? Two of

27/10/2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, New business, Strategy 2 Comments

The Best, Shortest Blog Post I’ve Yet Seen

By Ben Kepes

Over on Julian’s blog, J posted a pearler (that’s antipodean talk for a great post) Worlds shortest blog post – "How do you build a world class software product, compete with large players and grow an excellent, loyal user base on a near $0 advertising budget?" It’s fairly easy. Talk,

24/10/2008 Posted in Business, Design, IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 4 Comments

A New Friend in the Playground

By Ben Kepes

I woke up in the middle of the night to take part in a phone conference (NZ 9am is some ungodly hour in India) only to find my time zones were confused and I was an hour to late. The conference was initiated by Telecom New Zealand and was to

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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