This year, 2008, risks being the year of the revolving door if employers continue to focus simply on attracting new staff, rather than developing and retaining current employees. The resulting staff turnover is expected to cost Australian businesses more than $A100 billion over the coming 12 months, according to forecasts by Unisys.
What a week! Investors are bailing out of technology stocks and several companies are seeing the need for new leadership. Things change quickly in this industry.
Trident Global, Prograd, Square Peg, Talman, and Buzka come into the spotlight.
Businesses are in danger of losing control of their outsourced IT projects due to a lack of internal IT leadership, poor business sourcing strategies, inadequate relationship building and a failure to provide the right internal resources and skills, according to a study commissioned by LogicaCMG as part of its Outsourcing Enterprise whitepaper series.
Mobile marketing, which was born in countries such as Japan and South Korea, has taken off in Western Europe and is beginning to grow in North America. As consumers move to flat-rate data plans and adopt mobile messaging, and as new platforms for advertising-supported mobile search, video, and gaming content services arrive, mobile marketing is expected to grow to more than $US24 billion worldwide in 2013, jumping from just $US1.8 billion in 2007.
Australia's gaming industry nearly doubled its sales in 2007 with figures skyrocketing to $A1.3 billion, according to The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA). The figures met end-of-year financial predictions set in mid-2007 and confirmed a new sales record for Australia.
B2C e-commerce sales for the five major markets in the Asia/Pacific region totalled only $US59.1 billion, and Japan accounted for a tiger's share of the sales in 2006. But things are changing. eMarketer forecasts that B2C e-commerce sales in the region will grow 23.3 per cent a year to $US168.7 billion in 2011.
Several of the major US technology vendors earn more than half of their revenues from overseas activities -- companies like Cisco, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM.
Our ongoing overview picks up Live in Australia.com, Waivestar, Windlab Systems, ISPone, Ergoport, and Southern Innovations
IT spending in the retail industry will reach $A1.54 billion ($US1.36 billion) by the end of 2007 and the market will grow at a cumulative growth rate of nine per cent from 2006 to 2010, according to Springboard Research. The market will hit $A1.96 billion by 2010, according to the company's forecasts.
Australians typically have more than 10 online profiles or "virtual identities", according to a survey by Symantec. Interestingly, 20 per cent of Australians believed that their online profile was closer to their true self, than their physical or real-world identities.
Internet access in Australia has nearly doubled since 2001, according to an analysis of census information released recently by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Many technology companies are blaming the current economic uncertainly for slumping revenues, poor profits, and lousy customer loyalty. Too many assume that technology will sell itself again once the political scene has settled down.
This week we look at Ansearch, Emue Technologies, IPScape, M.NET Corporation, PayCorp and Roarz Computing.
While many countries are still considering the introduction of 3G, the industry has already developed 3¼G and beyond, with technologies such as high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA). Linking fixed and mobile together on IP Multimedia System (IMS) is another development, allowing for mobile TV and triple play models according to Research and Markets.