The EdgeWatch

The EdgeWatch is a monthly newsletter created by Microsoft's Emerging Business Team for internal distribution to highlight the latest trends & companies found at the "edge" of technology, business & entertainment.

I found out about this in an email received on Saturday morning. Following on from Pingar's recent Microsoft recognition, the platform's exposure has been enhanced further. The following is an abreviated version of an article published in the most recent issue of EdgeWatch:

Pingar is a SaaS technology platform that addresses the major problem content owners’ face today - expensive premium content that generates very little revenue. The Pingar algorithm, developed at University of Waikato, New Zealand, enables premium content owners to monetize their content right down to the paragraph or sentence. The target market segment includes online content owners wishing to monetize their premium online content (to replace old subscription models) and global advertisers wishing to target online users by their demographic profile (to improve their online ROI by more effectively targeting their online message).

The SaaS Platform enables both sets of global content owners to monetize this premium content via a combination of contextualised search (in Partnership with FAST) , dynamic publishing and targeted user profile advertising. Pingar's dynamic publishing technology ( via Microsoft XPS Publishing servers) and demographic user-based Bid engine increases both content owners’ revenue and significantly improves Advertiser’s ROI. The core online publishing technology manages content distribution, enforces intellectual property rights and delivers revenue streams to content owners. In addition, the profile matching technology enables advertisers to target and bid for personal demographic profiles to map their offline campaigns. The technology delivers search results, extracted and collated from multiple original online data sources and presenting it to the end user in one, downloadable custom report. Target industries include Financial Services, Content Publishing and Government.

It's good stuff.

Journey of Dreams

On Friday night, Jacqui and I were invited to attend 'The Journey of Dreams', a charity art auction.

The event was hosted by Kate Jones Maddill, the hugely talented Tauranga-based artist. A number of works were auctioned and over NZ$44,000 was raised to assist 9 junior members of Te Puke tennis club to attend the Pat Cash International Tennis Academy in Australia.

During the evening, I was introduced to the Hon Margaret Wilson MP, Speaker of the House of Representatives. I learnt about her post-Parliamentary appointment with the University of Waikato and her desire to remain based in Tauranga. The penny dropped and I guess this is a discussion we might have again.

Our good friend Frank Vosper was on fine form as MC and auctioneer. As was Grant Fox who talked about 'Dreams and Attitude'.

A great start to the weekend.

Farewell then, Bill

Today marks Bill Gates retirement from full-time duties at Microsoft. I hope the timing of his departure and Pingar's recent invitation to join the Microsoft Start up Accelerator Program are not in any way related.


The Future, according to Bill


The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, his philanthropic enterprise, will now be the centrepiece of his time. He will be fundamentally shifting his focus from achieving his dream of "a PC in every home" to helping realize the vision of "healthy people in every country". Here, he talks about how he plans to help make this dream come true.

A new 'standard' for our times?

PR - The Story

Last night's Bay of Plenty Times

Defining a PR & Communications strategy has always been an important part of the Pingar story. Identifying the target audience is more complex.

Microsoft's Pingar announcement a couple of weeks ago was a key milestone for the company. As previous posts have indicated, it created interest from a range of different sources. Communicating the message to those sources has seen coverage in a range of different print and web media: From The Dominion Post to the National Business Review.

Last night's piece in the Bay of Plenty Times was a 'good news' regional story. It sat beside another great piece - a story on Mark Redpath's Pipeclenz who have secured a major contract with Shell Oil. The two stories have a lot in common. Stories about Tauranga-based businesses achieving success offshore.

Putting a value on PR can be a difficult exercise. The test, I guess, will come over the next few months as both the product and the service rolls out.

India Market Forum - Tuesday 15 July

New Delhi - The Changing Face of India

NZTE sent out the details for their Fourth Market Forum to be held in Tauranga this morning. The line up of speakers is impressive.

The panel include Paul Vaughan – NZ Trade Commissioner For India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Maldives. Paul is joined by Mr Vijay Kumar of Reliance Retail, V J Crishna, of the NZTE India Beachhead Program and Godrej Group, Robert Barker of NZ Innovative Farming Systems Ltd, Mr Srinath Sridharan of Corporate Strategy, Wahkawan and yours truly.

HBI Software, Bangalore and Tauranga can at times seem a long way away. The India Market Forum will bring all the potential this important and growing market has, to the heart of the Bay.

You can register by emailing Angela Wallace at NZTE for details.

4 Days + 1,200 Kms

Driving past Mt Ruapehu....

Jacqui and I have just returned from Wellington. It is a long drive, but then that's New Zealand.

Ever since Microsoft announced that Pingar was now part of the Startup Accelerator Program, opportunities have sprung up. The meetings in Wellington reflected that.

In a couple of postings last week, I spoke about Tauranga's software development base. Wellington has one too. There will I guess be many more trips to the capital over the next few months. Finding potential partners in the Windy City will be high on my list of objectives.

It is an interesting comparison to Auckland. Being only 2.5 hours drive from Tauranga, Auckland clients can be managed by Tauranga-based partners. Wellington cannot.

The tyranny of distance once again kicks in.

Origen Technology

As one Tauranga software business takes to the road to Wellington today, another gets great coverage in last night's Bay of Plenty Times.

Origen Technology are one of New Zealand's largest developers and suppliers of computer software systems to local territorial authorities. Origen employ 22 staff who produce a suite of software modules that operate back office council functions.

I know Roy Simpson who runs the show. Origen has already established its foot print in the UK and I guess will look to make that a more significant part of their strategic global roll-out. It is another example of a Tauranga-based software developer making great things here and looking to market them over there.

Hat therefore suitably doffed to Roy and his team in Durham Street.

Wellington Bound

'Windy' Bound Tomorrow

I cannot believe it's Wednesday!

According to my blog, Monday and Tuesday did not happen. I mean, I try and blog every day but for some reason (one reason actually) nothing happened. So that is that.

Tomorrow (that's Thursday), I am off to Wellington. It's some time since I last hit Lambton Quay and a series of appointments await. Following Microsoft's Startup Accelerator press release last week, the word has hit the fan, so to speak, and immediate opportunities have emerged. So Lambton Quay it is. And Willis Street, I think.

I can say that I have given a couple of press interviews over the past couple of days. One question was common: 'What is it like managing Pingar, an online software business, from a centre such as Tauranga"? Only journalists based in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch would ask.

It was a variation of the theme I constantly encountered in London earlier in the year. "Why New Zealand?", they asked. "Why not?", I replied. And that really is that.

www.politics_in_tauranga.com

Will he... Won't he?

I am not talking about Winston Raymond Peters and the 'Will he...Won't he' debate that surrounds the Tauranga electorate. Others I suspect will.

It's a slightly unusual Monday morning tomorrow. I've been invited by Priority One and Export NZ to meet John Key (above) and other members of his trade team as they spell out National Party policy on all things commerce. I don't expect much detail. If opinion polls are to be believed though, it is quite possible that National will be the next party of Government, so its views matter.

Later in the week, Prime Minister Helen Clark rides into town. You can either lunch with her through the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce or sit down for afternoon tea with her, through the Women's Business Network.

The General Election is expected in October / November. If Winston does re-stand for NZ First as expected, expect more of the same in the coming months.

I quite deliberately do not blog on things 'party political'. The similarities between the current party play in NZ however with the party play in the UK, are not lost on me. For Pingar, both are important markets. Both have Labour Governments behind in the polls with resurgent 'conservative' oppositions. Yet both countries and all the respective parties seem to share a fairly common view on international trade.

It will be interesting to test this perception tomorrow morning.

It's BOP Time

From my recent postings about all things global, tomorrow the focus turns firmly back to the Bay of Plenty.

I have the honour of being a Member of the Western Bay of Plenty ICT Cluster Steering Committee. Not that I have contributed too much just yet. I missed the first two meetings and plan to ensure it is not 'third time' unlucky.

Annie from Priority One has sent out an agenda. The theme seems to be; 'ICT Cluster Strategy Development'. So it will be thinking caps on all round as we discuss our purpose, our vision and our raison d'etre. At 5.30pm, the same group, plus members, will meet up at the Usual Suspects on the Strand for an ICT Cluster informal networking event.

The relief will be temporary. Tomorrow night will be another round of offshore calls and direct engagement. But hopefully tackled from a more local perspective.

The Morning After

Well that's that then.

The speeches are over and everyone has gone home. Pingar is in the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program and a new day begins.

It feels a little weird sitting here in Tauranga today. A lot of effort has gone into developing the long term relationship with Microsoft. Yet at the moment the gong struck (in London), I slept peacefully in New Zealand.

I don't even know if the press release from Microsoft UK has yet arrived in NZ. But I have heard from Tim. It did happen. It was not a dream.

So that's that then. It's back to work again.

Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program

It has been a long time coming. But I can finally unzip a little.

Microsoft is today formally inducting Pingar into the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program.

The Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program is designed to help high potential software startups around the globe get access, guidance and support to accelerate their success on the Microsoft platform. Selected participants receive customized engagement plans to support their software and market development efforts. Accelerator companies are selected to join the program based on their innovation, high growth potential, platform decision and strategic importance to Microsoft. That’s the Microsoft pitch.

What’s my own take on the opportunity?

Pingar's relationship with Microsoft is one that has been developing over the past two years. Our research portal, Smart Analytics, is embedded into both Microsoft Office 2007 and IE 7. We have worked closely with the Microsoft Emerging Business Team over the past few months identifying the synergies that exist between the Pingar platform and Microsoft's longer term road map. That is the background to today's announcement.

Longer term, that engagement will I suspect deepen as we jointly identify new development and marketing opportunities. That is a key part of this Program. It is what differentiates it from other Microsoft Programs I have been part of.

Dan'l Lewin, Microsoft corporate vice president of Strategic and Emerging Business Development will be meeting John and Tim in London today to make the announcement. I hope to publish the formal release announcement to the blog when it becomes available overnight from the UK.

The Tyranny of Distance

It's soooooooooo far away..........

First it was the emails at 6.45am. Then the conference call to the UK via the US at 8.00am. 75 minutes later, I hung up. And then poured a coffee. Tonight, further calls are scheduled to both the UK and India. Welcome then to a 'normal working day'.

I blogged about this quite recently. In part, because offshore engagement does occupy so many of my waking hours. In part also because I am trying to work out alternatives. The 'Tyranny of Distance' is an absolute NZ reality and one that does challenge the concept of normal living.

I owe a lot to Jacqui. My work schedule effects her life balance as much as mine. I'll be thinking about that when I get on the phone later tonight. 'Normal' this isn't. And hopefully my last posting on this for some time. Apologies. It is only Monday. I don't like these grrrr.. moments!

It's Steve Uncovered

This posting is a little out of the ordinary. It is not about my day ahead, my day past or even a hint about things to come. I’m still zipped on that one!

This post is all about someone else’s postings. It’s a kind of ‘blog on a blog’.

The name is Steve Clayton. His ID is Geek in Disguise. He is the CTO of the Microsoft UK Partner Group. The Geek seems to divide his time between Reading, Redmond and the Cloud.

I am a regular reader of ‘The Geek’s’ postings; partly, because they are not too Geekish. That is one of the strengths of the blog. For M/S based fare, it uses non–Microsoft ‘standards’ terminology: Words like Apple, Mac, ‘Ithings’ and even (close your eyes) G**gle.

Yet having digested 12 months+ of the Geek’s meanderings, I am still not totally hooked on whether he is ‘leading’ the M/S debate, ‘reflecting’ it or occasionally ‘following’ it. There is a difference. And that I guess is the dilemma.

One of the biggest challenges of writing a regular blog is resisting the urge to say what you really want to say. That’s because ‘It is still an alpha’, ‘it is still NDA’d’, or it is still ‘for internal circulation only’. You want to let the cat out of the bag, but the Service Contract says you cannot. So you sit on the really exciting bits and try and make the public domain stuff sound interesting.

Stuff like ‘Software as a Service’. Or should that be ‘Software and a Service’. Then there’s the stuff about the ‘Cloud’ and the bits about ‘Facebook’. So the jury is out.

As I guess it is on most ‘business-orientated’ blogs. Right now, I would like to say more about Pingar. I cannot. The same applies to HBI Software in Bangalore. And The WH Consultancy in Tauranga.

Leading, reflecting or following? It’s your choice.

Broadband Today

[Updated: 4th June - An interesting observation in today's New Zealand Herald. Sachio Semmoto, Japanese telecoms entrepreneur advised Helen Clark 3 years ago that New Zealand's broadband service was 'pitiful'. At the recent Japan New Zealand Partnership Forum, he said; "New Zealand will simply get killed if it does not tackle these issues swiftly and build a speedy information highway to connect to nations with which it wants to do business".

Agree. Hats doffed to Sachio.]

The value of the New Zealand telecommunications market fell by 1 per cent in the March quarter, despite subscriber growth in broadband and mobile. Telcos were finding it increasingly difficult to increase revenues, market analyst Tim Shepheard of independent research and consultancy company IDC said today.

Shepheard said the New Zealand telecom's industry continued to be under incredible political and public pressure to deliver cost effective broadband and mobile services to both consumers and businesses. "Unfortunately for service providers, subscriber growth is not being met with comparable revenue growth. The persistent concern of how to drive revenue from broadband services is an ongoing issue for telcos across the board," he said.

Maybe I have some news for Mr Shepheard and the telcos. My broadband speeds are so variable that I have almost given up expecting any consistency. That impacts on my own assumptions about what I can and cannot do with broadband. Some of the services that I might subscribe to, simply wouldn't operate in this environment.

My message is simple. Xtra speed could generate Xtra revenue.

The final 20.7 kms

Welcome to Manukau

Over the next few weeks, the diary indicates a fair few journeys from Tauranga to Auckland.

There are two alternatives: a 2hr 45min drive or a 35min flight. With Tauranga airport only 15mins away, the flight option sounds promising. That option ends when you land at Auckland International (Manukau).

I travel a lot: Heathrow, Singapore, Hong Kong, KL, LA. You name it, I've recently done it. Sadly, Auckland International stands out. Not for its internal services. They compare well. It is the Airport's chronic connectivity with Auckland's CBD that mark it out as being hopelessly out of step. And for a sprawling City the size of Auckland, connectivity with outer suburbs makes it even more remote.

There is no direct train connection and infrequent shuttles. Taxis are the only genuine alternative to the business traveller, making the 2hr 45min drive from Tauranga, the preferred travel option. Auckland Regional Council has apparently raised once more the impact of a direct rail connection between the Airport and the CBD. Not for the first time, an action plan is to be drawn up.

Not for the first time, the same conclusion will almost certainly result. New plan, no action.

10th June 2008

There are some events you just should attend. One such invitation arrived by email on Saturday.

There is however a problem. The photo above says it all.

Last week, I complained that an invitation to attend Europe's 4th Entrepreneurship Day had to be declined. So must the opportunity to attend the event on Tuesday week. John and Tim however will both be present and I plan to update at the appropriate time.

For just 24 hours, these lips will unzip.