Author: Paul Wallbank

Will the iPhone see Australians embrace mobile Internet?

Reports the iPhone has triggered a rise in mobile Internet use in the US raises an interesting question on its effects on the Australian market.

Early this year Three Mobile touted their own report which found Australians were reluctant to do surfing the net on their phones due to the risk of copping a monster bill.

Sadly this belief is quite fair when you see some plans charging up to $3,000 a Gb if you go over a 5Mb monthly allowance.

While Optus has sweetened their plans slightly by offering better usage allowances on their iPhone plans, all the providers have done little to improve their mobile phone data offerings.

This stingy attitude to data by the Australian mobile operators is going to continue to cramp the growth in the Australian mobile Internet market.

Until one of the players drops their restrictive plans and outrageous excess use charges Australians will quite rightly shy away from embracing mobile web surfing.

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The Sydney Apple Store

Apple’s new store in central Sydney is certainly impressive. Ron Johnston’s opening speech mentioned how it’s their second biggest store after London and has the largest plate glass windows in the world.

Sydney Apple Store interiorThe plate glass windows are the key to how this store works. It showcases Apple’s products beautifully and invites passers by to step inside and play with system.

That openness extends to the fact you can play with the systems. One of the things that’s always frustrated me with computer stores is that they don’t display what the systems are capable of. The Apple store does.

Also notable is the stock display; there’s no stack ’em high clutter that’s typical of many computer stores. The stock is laid out beautifully and takes advantage of the space.

The attention to detail is reflected in the staff as well. They are friendly, trained and knowledgeable. Again this differs from most computer stores where the staff are commission driven part timers.

All of this gives the store an atmosphere of restrained competence. These products that don’t need a hard sell.

Sydney Apple Store Genius BarOn the top floor is one of Apple’s masterstrokes: The Genius bar. It was mentioned that this is the biggest Genius Bar of any Apple store but I’m not sure about this. Once again, the geniuses were well trained and presented.

One impression I did have was this area was a bit spartan and I expect there’ll be more facilities like couches, water dispensers and possibly even a coffee vendor in this area for people waiting for their turn with trainers or geniuses. It could easily become a focal point for Mac fans to gather and simply talk Mac stuff.

Overall, the Apple Store is a very well thought out and set up operation, as it should be given Apple’s attention to detail and the fact this is the 215th Apple store.

It’s a great flagship for Apple’s Australian operations and is going to be very interesting to see the role the store plays in the iPhone release next month.

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The Australian iPhone release

iphoneApple’s announcement the iPhone will be released in Australia through Optus and Vodafone sets the stage for a good fight in the mobile phone sector over the next twelve months.

Leaving Telstra out of the deal is going to put a lot of competitive pressure on the big T, but their advantages in brand name, market position and mobile coverage gives them plenty of scope to fight back.

Another interesting angle on this is the pricing. The $199 and $299 US dollar prices will probably translate to around half the price of the comparable Blackberry and a third of the Nokia smartphones. This is really going to make the incumbents sweat.

So we’re going to see some terrific deals over the next few months and the carriers and handset manufacturers jostle for space in the market.

If you’re looking at buying a mobile phone the best advice is to wait a month or two.

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Telstra’s $0 plans

Telstra’s new bundled plans offering a free laptop with their wireless plans is a good move to improve take up of wireless Internet.

It’s surprising none of the providers haven’t offered these deals sooner given entry level laptops are cheaper than mobile phones and these plans have proved an resounding success in the mobile industry.

As with all these deals, the devil is in the small print. You may be getting a “free” laptop but the cost of the wireless broadband will easily make up for this. The total price of the plan over the 36 month contract is $3,564 which would buy you a lot of laptop.

36 months is a long contract and we can expect to see prices drop and better deals appear as the other companies respond.

Also, a $700 laptop is a pretty basic beast many business users will find doesn’t meet their needs.

Overall, this is an interesting deal that’s going to radically change the business market. However I’d recommend most users sit and wait to see what other deals become available.

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Budget 2008

The new Federal government’s budget shows Canberra as lost on IT and communications issues under this government as it was under the Howard administration.

An interesting development was the continuation of the Australian Broadband Guarantee.  This flags the likelihood that all the proposed broadband rollouts are really still born with the 4.7 billion proposed being absorbed into the general 20bn building Australia fund.

It seems the obsession with controlling the Internet will continue with the trial of ISP based filtering to go ahead. At least we’re getting a few more details on how this will work, although I’m still not convinced our Federal politicians have any inkling of the scope of resources required to run this program effectively.

The changes to software depreciation rates and fringe benefit tax rules for laptops are a negative marginal effect which shouldn’t really change much.

Overall, this budget is best described as “mostly harmless” to the Australian tech scene.

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Kevin Rudd’s war on the Internet

Australian Internet providers must be wondering what they did to upset the new government. Not only does the Rudd government want ISPs to filter the Internet, they are now considering forcing them to police copyright infringement.

This idea that ISPs should monitor their customer’s usage is bizarre, not only will increase ISPs overheads but it will also mean thousands of users will be accused incorrectly of having copyrighted material on their computers.

The frustrating thing with this flawed proposal is that it protects the incompetent and greedy record labels while nobbling the telecommunications infrastructure most industries increasingly rely upon.

Rampant corporate welfare, favouring sectional interests and ignorance of the growing role of the Internet and communications were some of the reasons the previous government was thrown out.

If the Rudd government repeats these mistakes, then we can only conclude the problem is endemic in the Canberra public service and beyond the scope of either political party.

Hopefully both the Australian and British governments will throw these proposals in the bin, but it’s a worry that the new Labor administration seems to be following in the steps of its Liberal predecessor.

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The razor gang goes down a tired old path

Lindsay TannerOne of the great features of the IT industry is how incoming ministers and Managing Directors stand up and announce how they can save some improbable amount of money on their IT spending.

It always ends in disaster and usually ends up enriching one of the big multinational consulting outfits.

The finance minister, Lindsay Tanner, has fallen into the trap his Liberal Party predecessors fell into by announcing a program to find “double dipping” and waste in IT services.

The most delicious part of his announcement is that he will probably use external consultants to find this waste.

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