Telecom's Ferrit

Ever since I arrived in New Zealand at the end of 2003, Telecom has never been far from the news.

This morning I had a quick look at Telecom's online shopping site, Ferrit. I have wondered previously where this sits in Telecom's overall strategy. I still cannot work that one out. I have been searching for the 'value add'.

In the UK, BT recently launched a portal aimed directly at the SaaS Applications Marketplace. It is called BT Applications Marketplace. It seems to have the strategic value that Ferrit is missing.

It provides SaaS application developers and ISV's with a route to market, by targeting the UK's SME business base. Given their take-up of SaaS applications, this drives the demand for broadband and the other network services that BT provides. That's my idea of 'value add'.

In the UK, Microsoft UK has worked closely with BT to populate the Applications Marketplace portal with applications from their Partner base. Is such an initiative possible here? As Telecom adapts to a new future, one certainly hopes it might.