Stories by Len Rust

Mobile market leaders report

Mobile markets around the world are undergoing unprecedented change, and recent entrants holding the third and fourth licenses in their national markets are proving themselves to be strong competitors to established rivals, according to a global study by Analysys.

Australian surfers rely on portals, directory sites

Ninemsn.com.au was the most visited Web site in Australia last year, followed by Yahoo.com.au and telstra.com and the telephone directory sites Whitepages.com.au and Yelowpages.com.au, according to Australian research company Red Sheriff.

E-tailing goes global

To say that online retailing underwent a transformation in 2000 would be major understatement. It was a year of devastating defeat for many pure-play e-tailers, and a year of caution - some would say retreat - for the investment community, according to Ernst & Young.

Communications still the ASP killer app

Communications, financial/accounting and e-commerce services, continue to be the most popular types of applications being accessed from application service providers (ASPs), according to a recent study from Zona Research

Most CIOs will increase IT spend this year

Fears of an impending economic slowdown are not necessarily reducing IT procurement budgets at Global 2000 corporations, where 65 per cent of respondents expect to increase IT budgets by 13 per cent in 2001, according to Gartner Group

Global Net population heads for one billion

More than 1 billion people will have Internet access by 2005, according to a recently-released report from eTForecasts. The company claims 414 million people had Internet access at the end of 2000 and predicts that figure will almost triple to 1.17 billion by 2005. This growth will be driven by increasing penetration in Asia, Latin America and Europe.

Middlemen hamper e-commerce

Traditional intermediaries such as retailers, distributors, brokers and other middlemen are threatening the development of e-commerce in the US

2001: a turning point for ASPs


This year will be a turning point for application service providers as they rethink their business models and battle to be among the survivors in this fast-growing market

Online marketplaces spend big on infrastructure

Business-to-business Net market infrastructure spending in the US will grow from $US2.1 billion in 2000 to $US80.9 billion by 2005 as Net markets begin to drive much of the future spending on technology and services required to integrate an enterprise's business partners into a collaborative commerce environment

Did someone really say that?

The holiday period is time for me to clear the decks ready for the next 12 months. It's a time when the piles of press releases, videos, CDs and brochures have to be scanned for relevancy, predictions and outlandish comments before they're shredded. This past year's euphoria over dot-coms and telcos made it extremely hard to say what constituted rumours and what constituted incorrect facts, but some of the more outlandish quotes should not be allowed to fade into oblivion. Here's a roundup of some of the choicest pickings

Study: Dot-coms should cut operations, not marketing

Dot-coms seeking to become profitable should focus on cutting operating costs instead of sales and marketing costs, according to a study by Getzler & Co. Inc., which specialises in corporate restructuring.

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