Xero – the product

I’ve been playing with Xero’s demo, which is well worth looking at. You land on the dashboard, which has a nice summary of what is going on. What is particularly pleasing though, in true Don’t Make Me Think style, is that you are not just looking at information, but you are being asked to do …

xtra mail customers are going to Yahoo! mail

The big mail transfer is finally coming… and not before time.  Telecom’s somewhat clueless (and expensive) marketers have managed to mangle thing though, for a start using the name “Yahoo!Xtra Bubble” for the new service. Xtra subscribers will get moved to Yahoo Mail (the Beta is great), and will also get Flickr Pro, a 1 …

Economy class sleeping – emerging reality?

They’ve mentioned this before about this before… and now it looks like AirNZ is going to try it. Economy class bunks. From 2010. “One concept showed berths stacked three-high in a herringbone layout along the sides, and another row stacked down the middle of the cabin.  This is something that will allow tourism to NZ …

Direct Broking versus eTrade – Fees

Fees for trading in NZ stocks seem to be still based on ancient premises – percentage takes and high rates. Here are ASB’s fees – they charge you the same $30 for a $500 or $10,000 transaction. Ditto with Direct Broking, who have a slightly lower ticket clipping rate, but still set the baseline at …

Jasons, vianet and Trade Me.

A new beta travel site from Jasons. Interestingly they are targeting Australia and the South Pacific as well as NZ. They have 168 listings for Wellington. Vianet, Trade Me’s Travel partner, has 80. However, Jason’s site only displays 10 results at a time, doesn’t map them at all. The battle is on. My money (and …

Contact Energy sucks sucks sucks

I arrive back home to find my gas has been disconnected. For the second time. This year. AND my electricity was disconnected once this year. It is no wonder that this industry killed someone – their approach to customer service is  arrogant beyond belief. My bills are always overpaid, and indeed I am over one …

Burger Fuel numbers

2380 investors, $5.25m raised. That’s $2,205 per investor – paltry. A poorer showing given that they even spent money on TVC’s advertising the float. Goodness knows what the total expenses were for the float, but this can’t have been an efficient way of raising the cash – especially as the founders appear to have deep …

pay phones, funny money, income and Telecom

Chicago’s OHare airport is ripping out pay phones and replacing them with power sockets, chairs and counters. Bless them – I’m sick of wandering around (usually american) airports looking for power sockets. Disposable income for “Managers” is largest in Saudi Arabia, small in the USA and generally better in third world countries than first world. …

Xero – 92 cents – what does this mean for burger fuel?

not a great record for Xero shares so far, on very thin trading though. Remember they launched at $1.10, but cost IPO investors $1. If you didn’t get any shares at the IPO, and still believe, then now would be a good time. well for a start BFW has not yet managed to raise their …

10 tips for Telecom’s outsourcing to Manila

I’m actually ok with Telecom outsourcing part of their broadband help-desk support to Manila – as long as they do it right, which, knowing Telecom, they won’t. Here are some implementation tips for them…. Firstly, don’t let the Filipinos pretend that they are sitting in Waikanae or Auckland. That’s insulting to them and insulting to …