Society and business in the 21st Century
Last week’s zero day exploit is just getting worse and wise heads are advising users to ditch Internet Explorer.
This is good advice and I expand on that on the IT Queries site today with some alternatives to IE.
I tied the zero day exploit into my Smart Company column on Tuesday. It illustrates why you shouldn’t be diving on to the net straight after starting your computer from a two week break.
Tim O’Reilly’s Twitter feed put me onto Peter Schwartz’s Death of Web 2.0 article.
It’s an interesting idea the future of web2.0 technologies rests in the hands of social networking sites like Facebook.
Facebook incurs most of Peter’s wrath and I can understand that countless hugs, vampire bites and who knows what else is banal, but 16 year olds getting sick of this sort of thing doesn’t affect the business model.
The real question is whether Facebook can make money from those kisses and “most people like you” surveys.
Personally I think they will struggle because, as Peter points out, people aren’t prepared to pay for this stuff.
Whether this means Facebook is doomed remains to be seen, however it’s clear the site is not worth 15 billion dollars and online advertising is going to decline with the rest of the economy.
I suspect Peter’s right about Facebook being way overvalued, as was MySpace, Second Life and countless other web 2.0 properties, but that’s simply the effect of the hype that surrounded this space over the last few years. It really has nothing to have nothing to the underlying web 2.0 technologies.
Peter has a good point about the sustainability of many of these sites and it’s going to be very interesting to see how the business models develop as try to convince users these services are worth paying for.
But to call the web 2.0 as being dead simply because some web sites fail is a bit of a long bow.
What may be true is the term “web2.0” is dying. That probably wouldn’t be a bad thing as it was a bad, overused label anyway.
AppleInsider is speculating about the possiblility of a $599 Mac netbook.
If Apple were to do this it would be a strategic mistake and damage their business.
The key to the Mac’s success is the point of difference they have to rest of the computer market. This difference allows them to achieve higher margins.
If Apple want to get down and dirty with Asus, Dell and HP they’ll find their products and margins will be dragged down with to their levels.
What’s more, it’s a marketplace they won’t win as other players have better low cost models. For instance, no other brand has a successful worldwide chain of branded stores.
The idea driving the netbook push is “Apple can’t justify charging double”. That’s true and there’s no doubt Apple have been overcharging in recent times. So there is room for some price drops.
But cutting prices to meet other people’s price points would be a suicidal move from Cupertino.
A far more sensible strategy is to accept sales are going to drop and focus on their core market, sacrificing a bit of margin won’t hurt either.
Sure, Apple’s profits will take a hit but they’ll still be profitable while their competitors struggle to make pennies on $500 systems.
This is the key to survival in the downturn, not mindlessly slashing your throat to meet artificial price points.
It’s a lesson for all businesses in this economy. Focus on your core market and your margin. Giga Om has a good guide to “competitive differentiation”.
This is a presentation I gave earlier this year to the Forest Computer Pals group.
We looked at the pros and cons of Vista and whether it was worthwhile for people to make the jump to the newer system.
Gartner Research has an article on selling IT services in an economic downturn.
There’s some good advice there which applies to all service businesses, not just the tech sector.
Probably the most important advice is the final point: Make your own opportunities.
Those who run with the pack and just try to compete on price or simply cut costs are going to be in great trouble.
The businesses that have a point of difference are going to be the ones who thrive over the next few years.
We need to be thinking about our products, our image, our pricing and the way we tell people our story and why they should use us and not the guy down the street.
This article originally appeared in the November 2008 Sensis “Small Business, Big Opportunity” newsletter.
There are few areas in business that change as fast as the Internet, particularly when it comes to business connection plans. What was good value two years ago can be pretty ordinary today.
Now we’re in uncertain times it’s a good opportunity to review what your Internet provider is giving you for your money. The right plan can help your business get the most from the Internet.
It’s often said there are three factors in an Internet plan: price, speed and reliability. You can choose any two of them.
I’d like to say price shouldn’t be the deciding factor, but in reality none of us have bottomless budgets. So the first step is to look at what you currently spend and decide what you can afford.
Budgets can vary dramatically between businesses. A $50 a month plan is fine for a home based business while tens of thousands per month isn’t out of the question for a larger business with heavy needs.
Regardless of your business size, forget the super cheap consumer plans. You need a supplier you can rely on. Business grade providers will also offer important add on features like fixed IP addresses and priority support.
Nothing breaks a technology consultant’s heart more than seeing a business struggling with a substandard Internet connection. The lost productivity dwarfs the fifty or hundred dollar a month saved from scrimping on connection charges.
So having set a realistic budget, we have to choose between speed and reliability.
Reliability is non-negotiable. The net, and in particular email, is a key business function and telling customers “sorry, the Internet is down” simply doesn’t wash anymore. As businesses move more towards Voice over IP, software as a service and web 2.0 applications, always-on fast Internet becomes essential.
This leaves us with speed. Internet speeds are split into two parts; download, the data that comes into your system, and upload, the data that goes out.
Internet plans usually state their speeds along the lines of 1500/256 which in this case means the download speed is 1500kbps and the outgoing speed 256. This is called an asynchronous connection which is the “A” in ADSL.
Home plans usually use ADSL connections because web surfing downloads far more data than it sends but office applications like email, remote access and Voice over IP need a higher upload speed.
So if you have lots of people working remotely, or you’re making phone calls over the Internet you’ll have to consider plans that have higher upload speeds.
There’s also data allowances, these can be tricky for all Internet subscribers as the fixed price plans shape the connection, meaning they slow you down once you go over the limit. For businesses that rely mainly on email, these plans are fine.
If your business Internet needs are more demanding though, the alternative is excess use plans where you are charged once you exceed the limit. This can mean horrendous bills if the wrong plan is chosen.
The good news with data allowances though is this is one of the areas that has dramatically changed in the last few years. So this is an area where the canny business can get more value for their Internet spending.
Even if your Internet Service Provider won’t come to the party on reducing your prices, there’s a very good chance you can negotiate a better deal in data allowances and speeds to help your business have the edge in these uncertain times.
Vodafone’s $70 a month bundled laptop deal sees them joining Optus and Telstra in offering these plans. To date, there’s been almost zero uptake with these products as the dealers don’t seem to know or care about them.
Let’s see if Vodafone and Dell can do a better job of marketing these packages.
For consumers, it would pay to shop around on these deals as Vodafone currently offer the 5Gb data plan with a free modem for $39 per month.
Over a 24-month period (which is what we’ll have to assume the plan is without any further information) then the package costs $1,680. If we subtract the data component of $936 (24*39) that “free” netbook will cost $744.
Not bad, based upon Dell’s list price of $699 that’s a 3.2% APR, but you can be sure Dell and other netbook vendors will have better deals on their computers next month.
It always pays to do the sums closely before committing to these contracts.
