Xero offline is coming. Later.

Buried (ok not really buried, but towards the end) in a post by Rod Drury -is a hint that perhaps Xero will be available offline next year:

Next year we’ll see the introduction of off-line functionality inside the standard browsers, so new scenarios start to open up. ….These clients will access the server based logic we are all building now.

So not Xero, but browser driven. There is also

I think we’ll see more parts of applications delivered for the mobile web or even as mobile applications.

So perhaps we will be doing our accounts on our mobile phones? At the least current technology should let us do it on our iPhones.

But, before we get too excited, it is alas, all too true that we are in early days:

I’m certainly not precious on doing everything on the web but before we go to far in introducing rich clients we need get the applications written for the server first.

Offline Xero is one of the three critical things missing to me from the Xero product – the other two being (introductory at least) cheap pricing and seamless import/export from other products like MYOB.

The low or free pricing is to drive trials, and the export – well just remember that MS Excel only really took off (as someone was telling me recently) once they bought in the “Export to Lotus 123” feature.

Meanwhile the development team is hard at work at building up the feature set – to no doubt match then exceed MYOB and other competitors. They are also, I infer, working to keep it easier to use than bits of paper and excel spreadsheets.

But the low tech potential customers will not move n big numbers until they can use tailored Xero versions for targeted industry groups, like, say, the Trades. Other’s to add to the list could be Accountants (eat their own dog food), Trade Me sellers (import transactions), and taxi drivers.

Green luxury flying

So Singapore airlines is going to have 14 first class suites, and an enhanced business class (also on their 777’s) on their A380 which will be plying the Sydney to Singapore route. That’s cool, and perhaps the quietness of the plane may tempt some of the corporate jet crowd back to commercial.

singapore airlinesLuxury cabins, however, still do not solve for the increasing mess that is airport security and waiting time.

But what is very cool is the mere 2.9 litres per hundred passenger kilometres that the A380 consumes. That’s more efficient than my F650 motorcycle, which topped out at a staggering 3.3 l/100 km in Canada, North of the Arctic circle. Of course the motorcycle can carry two, but then again it cannot ride across oceans.

Lots more pictures after the fold… Continue reading “Green luxury flying”

Where I’m working in Perth: KNR

Wondering where I am working in Perth?  here is a site overview KNR GM Brett Swayn gave to analysts last month.

BHPBilliton

The ‘Go for Green’ effort is referred to in the pack.

The pack uses publicly available information, so is a bit scarce on details, but it’s the best I can share. Notice the focus on Zero Harm – this is not just for external consumption, but a way of life inside the plant and BHPBilliton. A very good thing, and something that makes me feel very comfortable working there.

Here is the end product, currently US$32,000 per ton cash price:

Nickel

Yale earns 28% return on endowment

Another stellar year for the Yale University endowment – a 28% return, following the previous year’s 22.9% return.

That means the endowment will cover 37% of Yale’s net revenues next this year. Imagine that – Yale is on the path for the endowment one day to be able to cover all the costs for the university.

The cool thing is that Prof. Dave Swensen, who runs the Yale Investment Office (since 1985), has shared his secrets of how to consistently make money while minimising risk.

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment (for personal investing)
Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment, Fully Revised and Updated 

It’s fantastic to see the legacy that Dave is creating, when he could have sold out to the private sector years ago. That legacy comes in at 17.8% annual return for the last 10 years, which was done without a crazy or sector-exposed risk profile.

Another cool thing is that some of those now $22.5 billion of funds funds will build a new and double -the-size Yale School of Management campus.

Nobel Prize for Auction efficiency

Trae Me and eBay customers can breath easy – the Nobel prize wining trio of Hurwicz, Maskin and Myerson are fans of auctions as the most efficient way to clear a market when information is not freely available to all. (Actually – their work helps to understand which auction mechanism is best in which situation.)

The theory shows auctions are typically the most efficient way to sell private goods to a given set of potential buyers (WSJ)

We all knew that of course, which is why Trade Me is so big, but it’s nice that some folk got a Nobel for the Mechanism design that that explains it all.

here’s the more prize press release and explanation of their work:

Mechanism design theory, initiated by Leonid Hurwicz and further developed by Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson, has greatly enhanced our understanding of the properties of optimal allocation mechanisms in such situations, accounting for individuals’ incentives and private information. The theory allows us to distinguish situations in which markets work well from those in which they do not. It has helped economists identify efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes and voting procedures. Today, mechanism design theory plays a central role in many areas of economics and parts of political science.

and for the real background, read the, err, Scientific Background.

NZInstitute BB report: Digital media benefits are underestimated

Continuing a series of comments on the excellent NZ Institute Broadband report, we turn to page 8: Digital media.

NZ Institute estimate $800m in extra benefits, with the tree showing $680m to $1.03bn. Here’s the top half:

NZ Institute

Let’s look the right hand sides.

Current cost base = $2.1 billion.

The source for this is unclear, but stats NZ is listed as one of the sources, so let’s assume that this is derived from the total revenue from digital media companies in New Zealand.

But, err, what is a digital media company? Is Stuff a digital media company? (it is after all part of Fairfax, a media company, and is in the Fairfax NZ “Digital” group). The box further down the page shows numbers from film and video games, and also shows ‘over $2bn” for film, so are we to assume that ‘Film’ is the Digital Media space? If so then the report misses the online media space, which is growing really quickly, and is also suffering from the shonky broadband.

But back to the definition, which is mainly film. The next assumption is that 80% of the revenues from these film industry companies is costs. But is that low margin fair? It seems not to me when you take Peter Jackson’s various successful empires into account, empires which no doubt have much higher margins.

Moreover, are the numbers sustainable, or do they assume that Peter Jackson will keep delivering LOTR scale hits? Without digging deeper into the source data, I’d assume that the actual historical costs are lower than $2.1bn, and suspect that the revenue over the next few years for film will be lower. (While sincerely hoping that they are higher, and that Wellywood can keep growing.)

Productivity gains: 15-20%

These gains are all about reduction in time to move and manipulate data, not about increased sales, which is tracked further down the page. If this productiviety gain is true, then I’m shocked that the cost structure of the movie industry is so biased towards the movement of data.

Indeed, it is surely is a relatively small part of the industry costs, 3 simultaneous locations LOTR productions not withstanding. Perhaps Weta Digital has big costs in this area, but surely what data transfer solutions they have now are adequate for most of their work, else they would have flown the coop years ago.

I’m also dubious about ‘productivity gains’ as this implies that people will be able to do more in less time. I would imagine that people are not currently sitting idle watching data move at a snail’s pace, but are concurrently working on whatever data that they have on the local servers, and at local speeds. The increased broadband speeds will certainly increase speed of delivery to the internal and external customers by reducing waiting time, but not necessarily increase the amount of work done per individual, or even the costs (aside from BB costs).

NZ Institute

The second half of the tree estimates growth benefits from better broadband. I feel it is really understated.

Firstly, let’s bring back the online media industry. Last year the ASA tallied $65m of online advertising, and the latest numbers imply we’ll hit $120m or more in 2007.  That’s pretty good, but over in the UK the online penetration is over 10%, which would imply over $220m in online advertising income.

I estimated in a conference presentation a few months back that the difference in speed of online advertising penetration between here and more advanced countries has meant the industry lost $500m or so of income over the last few years (total, not annual. Annual would be about $160m last year). That income would have spawned any number of innovative online media companies, some no doubt with world wide appeal.

This to me is where the growth is – not just the transfer of advertising spend, but the creation of companies fueled by NZ dollars that can compete around the world. This is the sad loss we have suffered, and will continue to suffer unless something is fixed.

But back to the tree, which is film focussed. Frankly I guess that the film industry here gets by on reputation, not speed of delivery. However, I’m willing to bow to the industry experts and accept a 5-8% kicker. This could be in Weta Digital (and spin off’s) post production work perhaps.

3 reasons why old media is not doomed

A couple opf folk sent me a link to a post on Louis Gray’s blog,  link, which shows the relative decline in Alexa ranking of the news websites.

Sites that used to be among the top visited sites in all the Web have plummeted, as fickle Web visitors have turned their attention away from the brands they once relied on to new brands that have taken their place, including, unsurprisingly, Facebook, YouTube, and major blogs, like TechCrunch and Engadget. 

I know that my own viewing habits have changed – engadget is far more engaging than, say, Wired, and ThinkProgress more readable than the NYTimes.

I don’t see Facebook and the other social networking sites as competitors for the news content based sites, so to me the decline in fortune is really about the increasing power of the super-sized blogs versus old media.

But old media is striking back.

Wired has a few good blogs, and has really changed its format, while the venerable NYTimes of course just opened itself up, and the economist blog Free Exchange is becoming essential reading.

While new media is great at getting better formats, old media does have three critical advantages:

1: Massively strong brands. The NYTimes and The Economist will command respect for many years to come.

2: Highly skilled writers, sub editors and opinion writers. These institutions attract the best talent, and the people of talent like to work together. They also have very strong editorial standards , forged through years of providing us what we like to read.

3: Lawyers. Yes – old media has been dealing with Libel laws for years, and tends to be a bit slow in adopting faster new media partially for this reason. However, newer faster forms of media may find themselves in the libel firing line as they generally do not exercise strong control over editorial and comments. Did you know for example, that you can be sued in New Zealand for writing something in Australia, on a blog hosted in the USA? As long as it is ‘published’ in NZ (i.e. available on the internet) you can have your month in court.

Trade Me: one million served

I missed the first time, but it seems Trade Me exceeded 1 miilion listings yesterday, October 13th, according to the TM message board.

Right now the site is running at just under 1m, but expect it to steadily grow.

Trade Me Homepage

Amazing.

Meanwhile eBay Australia has  just over 1m items for sale located in Australia.

eBay AU

Remember that eBay Australia do charge a listing fee, but really eBay Australia by rights should have 3 or 4 times the listings of Trade Me.

This is a classic symptom of why eBay is scurrying to try to refind its auction mojo these days. A lot of what they are trying to do reeks of Trade Me, and for good reason.

10 ways NZ Government can help NZX

There are more tales of companies leaving the NZX, and the question is asked (via a workshop) whether the Government could step in. I really fail to see what more this Government would materially do to solve for a market that is simply too small. Not that there aren’t any possibilities, just that most would be unpalatable for this Government.

Cullen has already started Kiwisaver, and distorted the capital gains rules to skew investors towards down under markets, both of which will bring more investor money.

So here are ten more things the Government could do:

1: List a big chunk of remaining the State Owned Enterprises, including more of  Air NZ.

2: Change the laws that currently require too much paperwork before people can invest or move money. Let me apply and get a brokerage account instantly.

3: Push for a full merger of NZX with ASX  – which has critical mass, and global companies listed. This would also mean the Australian owned NZ assets would be back in the “local” market.

4: Lower the corporate tax rate for NZ publicly listed companies (and other companies). This needs to be a dramatic lowering, not a few percent. Think Ireland.

5: Bring them back – lower the top personal tax rates and bring in other measures to attract and retain some of the Kiwi diaspora. This talent will help create the next wave of companies.
Along with 4 and 5, make sure we lose the disjointed tax system where the top corporate tax rate is different from the top personal tax rate, thus creating a booming industry in tax avoidance, at the expense of time and money spent on helping industry boom.

6: Legislate, or push NZX to insist, for much greater depth and frequency of disclosure for companies listed in NZ. Back it up with real teeth.

7: Legislate against insider trading and dealing – NZ has a reputation for cozy deals, and it is time that reputation was eliminated. Mandate what boards should do when an offer is received. Make sensible, not SOX level, corporate governance procedures – simple,  friendly and transparent. Think Delaware.

8: Cajole Fonterra into listing. We all want a slice of those payouts, and we could create some very wealthy farmers along the way.

9: Double the dollars and efforts around all levels of education. This investment always pays in the long run.10:  Finally, but quickly, drop a billion dollars on decent broadband infrastructure. Just make sure we do not end up beholden to one supplier of technology or service.

Why did xtra go Yahoo! and not MSN?

Mauricio wonders why xtra!Yahoo?

I guess one might never know the full story on why Telecom New Zealand decided to terminate the partnership between its Xtra ISP and Microsoft’s MSN content provider here in New Zealand, instead running into the open arms of Yahoo7.

I guess not – but MSN’s current offering –  msn.co.nz – sucks the big one in NZ – look at their site – it really does. (comment away if you agree. or not)

MSN has a better presence in Australia as they are aligned with Packer’s nineMSN and getting news, other content and traffic from Chanel Nine – which makes for a richer though still spartan experience.

Yahoo also sucks, but not as badly. They are losing traffic and ad share in Australia, and having a bit of a shakeup as a result.

Both sites seem to believe that editorial is optional, and that you can prosper on a mixture of email and lousy search. You can’t.

Both sites are dependant on giant US (and Australian) based companies, that really don’t care about NZ. We see that.
It does surprise me how lousy Yahoo! has been downunder – I’m a big fan of their US based site. It will be interesting to see what happens next in Australia.

News Corp to go carbon neutral by 2010

Rupert Murdoch, via Samefacts

Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can’t afford the risk of inaction…

Today, I am announcing our intention to be carbon neutral, across all our businesses, by 2010…

Our strategy everywhere is the same: first, reduce our use of energy as much as possible. Then, switch to renewable sources of power where it makes economic sense. And, over time, as a last resort, offset the emissions we can’t avoid…

We can do something that’s unique, different from just any other company. We can set an example, and we can reach our audiences. Our audience’s carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours. That’s the carbon footprint we want to conquer.