Are you scared yet?
Computer security companies stay in the spotlight by regularly publishing research reports. These are lapped up by hard-pressed media outlets happy to relay scary stories involving huge sums of money without spending valuable resources gathering the raw data. A suitably frightened public then toddles off to buy antivirus software or similar. It’s a business model.
Norton scored a healthy whack of free advertising when its CyberCrime 2011 was covered in huge depth by the NBR and more briefly at Techday. It even made onto the airwaves at Radio New Zealand. Google notes hundreds of stories quoting the report which means Symantec’s market research investment paid off in spades. I wonder what would happen if researchers ever found computer security was less of a problem?
Not what I’d call a Renaissance
Everyone knows local technology distributor Renaissance has struggled since Apple began selling direct through an online store, then appointed Ingram Micro as a second distributor. Despite the company’s letter to shareholders, the problem is about more than just Apple.
As the results show, Apple sales are down 8% on the previous year while the overall business sales dropped 14%. The Christchurch earthquake didn’t help. Shareholders have been warned not to expect a profit until 2012. Comments at the bottom of Chris Keall’s story in the NBR suggest the company either has a terrible strategy or no strategy at all.
End of the PC era?
Could we be living through the last days of the personal computing era? It’s not a stupid question, desktop sales have been declining for some time while more people access the internet through mobile phones than through conventional computers.
I’ve no idea whether the traditional PC will stick around for much longer – there are things that work much better on a conventional desktop than on a tablet, but that may not be important. A number of computer makers, including Acer have high hopes of Intel’s new Ultrabook format. They are certainly attractive and keenly priced devices which are more useful for certain jobs than a tablet.
Not the news
Just in case you’re wondering, it’s not news when a company or product is moved into one of Gartner’s magic quadrants. Nor is it worth reporting when someone wins an award from an obscure overseas publication – no matter how often words like ‘prestigious’ are used in the announcement.
Other stories
Greg Adams (Reseller News) The benefits of wasting time
Ben Kepes (Diversity) Salesforce for Quickbooks for Salesforce for Quickbooks….
Darren Greenwood (Reseller News) Dust clears for Small Business IT
Henry Cooke (Stuff.co.nz) NZ alternatives to Spotify
David Maida (NZ Herald) Many are still out of the LinkedIn loop
Computerworld Immigration NZ website gets upgrade
Stephen Bell (Computerworld) Fronde engaged for NAIT Plan B
People movements
Reseller News Ricoh Consulting Services hires Paul Molloy
Products, reviews
Siobhan Keogh (PC World) Acer launches Aspire S3 ‘ultrabook’
Pat Pilcher (NZ Herald) Dell XPS15z laptop
Harley Ogier (PC World) Duke Nukem Forever
Cameron McMillan (NZ Herald) Rugby World Cup 2011
Do you think anyone in the media considered the fact that $388bln is 5% of world GDP, or something more than the worldwide revenue of the entire software industry?