Saturday, 29 November 2008

Mumbai Thoughts

John and I arrived back from Auckland last night. 'On the road' effectively for the past three days, I had only been vaguely aware of the unfolding tragedy in Mumbai. Watching BBC World this morning, I am now beginning to understood the true extent and impact of the terrorist attacks.

I guess what makes this episode more tangible is that I have stayed at the Taj Mahal Hotel on two previous occasions. I remember well the amazing interior and the sheer luxury of the place. Together with the hugely attentive staff. This is in every respect one of the world's 'Great Hotels'. A couple of blocks down the seafront is the Oberoi Hotel, scene of another of the terrorist assaults. I know it well. I remember the ground floor reception area and lounge that leads to the main terrace. Many a Kingfisher was consumed there.

Today, my thoughts are with HBI Software in Bangalore. Bangalore is a two hour flight from Mumbai, but one thing it shares in common with Mumbai is a heavy concentration of American and British citizens. This is not called IT City for nothing.

India is perhaps the world's greatest democracy. I am constantly amazed how a country with so many religious and regional identities has developed and thrived. It is my sincere hope that the events of the past 72 hours are a one-off incident and not a harbinger of things to come. India deserves better.

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

A Busy Week


Mills Reef Winery - Hosting Tonight's Investor Reception....

Busy? That is no understatement.

John Beer has now been in NZ since Saturday and we have covered a fair number of meetings and events already. And, it is not going to get any quieter, any time soon.

Today finishes with a Pingar Investor Reception at Mills Reef. They have heard about him. Now they can meet him.

Tomorrow the focus is on product as we head for WaikatoLink in Hamilton. And then it's Auckland on Thursday and Friday for a round of nine meetings. No-one is missing out on this visit.

What this week is doing is enabling John to update on all things Kiwi and for Jacqui and myself to update on all things UK. I have blogged on this before, but no matter what comms technology you have, there is no substitute for good old 'face to face' meetings. The week to-date is proof of that.

Saturday, 22 November 2008

US Online Advertising Booms

Following on from my recent posting on NZ Online Advertising sales, it is interesting to compare our local performance with that of the United States.

Once again, the source is PriceWaterhouse Coopers and the IAB. Internet advertising revenues in the US totaled $11.5 billion for the first six months of 2008, with Q1 accounting for approximately $5.8 billion and Q2 totaling approximately $5.7 billion. Internet advertising revenues for the first six months of 2008 increased 15.2 percent from the same period in 2007.

Search continues to lead the sector pack, followed by Display Banners and Classifieds. Search revenue accounted for 44 percent of 2008 second-quarter revenues, up from the 40 percent reported in 2007. Display Banner advertising, the second largest format, accounted for 21 percent, followed by Classifieds (14 percent), Lead Generation (7 percent) and Rich Media (7 percent) of 2008 second-quarter revenues.

It will of course be interesting to check out if this growth has been maintained in the second half of 2008. Against the backdrop of the dire financial market turbulence in the States that will be the real test. My own guess remains that billings will have held up remarkably well. Whilst online advertising in certain sectors such as banking and auto will almost certainly have declined, this will be more than recompensed by the more general drift of ad spend from the offline world to the online one. The severe market turbulence currently in play might just have accelerated that drift.

Thursday, 20 November 2008

NZ Online Advertising Booms

According to the NZ Interactive Advertising Bureau website, all categories of online advertising continued strong year-on-year growth according to the quarterly IAB Insight report – covering Q3, 2008 – which was released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau of New Zealand and PricewaterhouseCoopers yesterday.

Despite a tightening economy, total online advertising was up 22.3% on the same quarter last year, and all categories showed double-digit growth on Q3 last year.

"Online advertising spend has experienced strong growth in 2008, particularly when considered in the context of recent economic conditions. This is indicative of the appeal of interactive advertising, where advertisers have the ability to quickly gauge the market response and act accordingly," says Chris Perree, Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Mark Evans, CEO of IAB NZ says trends in NZ are mirroring those seen overseas. "Year-on-year growth continues at pace in New Zealand. This quarter things have slowed a little from the type of hockey-stick growth curves we’ve been seeing as people stand back and take stock of what’s happening globally, but we’re still expecting strong growth to continue into next year and beyond."

All the feedback I am getting at Pingar reflects the same story. This sector is growing and it is growing strongly. It is often said that economic downturns create opportunities. My own take is that if online advertising can continue current growth trends when times are tough, just imagine what will happen when economies finally free up again.

At a time of growing global pessimism, that is a comforting thought for those close to me.

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

It's the Real Beer

John Beer is traveling from the UK to spend a few days in NZ next week.

As the joint co-founders of Pingar, it will be a great opportunity to update on events both here and offshore. It is going to be one busy week.

It will also help prepare me for my own market visit to the UK in January.

Tonight, there is a scheduled conference call at 21.30 between NZ and the team in London. That's normal. Next week's face to face meetings though will help consolidate what we have achieved over the past few months. It is almost time to unzip.

Tuesday, 18 November 2008

NZ - Australia: A Single Capital Market

Reuters is reporting that NZ Prime Minister-elect John Key said that he hopes to widen a free-trade deal with Australia and develop a single capital market between the two neighbours.

Key, in an interview with the Australian newspaper, said he would meet his centre-left Australian counterpart, Kevin Rudd, to discuss his ambitions at this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.

Key said he hoped to harmonise securities regulation, accounting procedures and some tax legislation to create a single market for investment capital, the paper said. "I am a very pragmatic person, I am measured and I am not going to be guided by blind ideology," he said.

In my experience, new leaders often have their best opportunity to make a really significant impact whilst they continue to enjoy a honeymoon period. Key is undoubtedly in that position now. And creating a single market for investment capital would most definitely meet the definition of 'significant impact'.

I have been at this particular coal-face for some time now. Accessing investment capital in NZ is challenging at the best of times. And these are not normal times. Opening up the Tasman could provide a massive boost to NZ business. Unfortunately, these initiatives normally take some time to negotiate and even longer to put in place. So what is Aussie PM's Kevin Rudd's likely take on Key's thoughts?

Think back to August 19th. Speaking to a Auckland Chamber of Commerce meeting, Rudd said that the CER Treaty between Australia and New Zealand was one of the most forward-looking economic treaties in the world, but it could be improved further. He said he was committed to moving towards a single economic market between New Zealand and Australia, and hoped that efforts to improve the Australian regulatory environment would help New Zealand.

So perhaps there is some scope for some real progress on Key's thoughts for a single market for investment capital. Let's just hope that his honeymoon period lasts for some time yet.

CNBC - The New Coro Street

[Update: And a further 100 point fall in the final 5 minutes. Crazy]

I often complain about time zones, but 9.00am - 10.00am makes for compelling television viewing. On Squark Box, you can see fortunes being won and lost in seconds. Never has 'live drama' been so real and so compelling.

CNBC is the Fox News of the financial world. Squark Box is its signature program. It tracks global stock markets. It is on Channel 95 on Sky.

You know that Wall Street has lost the plot when you tune in at 9.45am. That is 15 minutes before the closing bell. For the past few weeks, all bets have been off as the index has gyrated with no apparent fundamentals driving the moves in this final quarter hour. Since starting this post, the Dow Jones has lost 100 points.

And you think Ashley on Coro Street has anything to panic about? For the best drama on 'The Street', try Channel 95.

Monday, 17 November 2008

International Tax

I arrived home from Wellington yesterday to discover a letter from the United Kingdom's HM Revenue & Customs. It read:

Dear Mr P Wren-Hilton

We have looked at our current tax records for you and now believe we should be asking you to complete Tax Returns each year. On the reverse of this letter you will see why we ask some of our customers, including you, to fill in returns.

I turned over the letter and discovered that HMRC require tax returns if you are a company director in the UK. The fact that I generate no income from the position would not appear to be relevant. So I am looking at the time and potential cost of engaging a UK-based accountant to manage this locally. It makes me think. Will I have to follow a similar process every time Pingar incorporates in different countries? I could end up employing an army of tax accountants and form fillers.

I accept that there has to be a process to manage international tax obligations, but this one appears a little lopsided. I earn no income as a company director. John's visit to NZ at the end of the week could not be better timed. It will allow us to assess my actual role (if any) on the Pingar Ltd UK board. Falling foul of national tax authorities is certainly one precedent I want clipped in the bud. Resigning from this particular position might just be the best option.

Friday, 14 November 2008

Thrive Wellington

Jacqui and I spent yesterday at Thrive Wellington. About 350 people attended a series of excellent motivational presentations. Just the ticket when set against the darkening international financial clouds.

We spent much of the day (and evening) with Gareth Davies from International Business Wales. The timing was good. John and Tim are currently engaged in direct discussions with the Welsh Assembly and its different agencies back in the UK. And Gareth managed to give a good plug for Pingar during his own presentation to the conference.

There are clearly close connections between IBW and the NZ ICT community. That became clear during the presentation. IBW has for the past two years run the Technium Challenge International. And for the past two years, the winners have come from New Zealand. First it was Xero from Wellington and last year it was TracPlus Global, who are based in Dunedin.

There are also a number of other similarities between the two countries. Both countries share similar population sizes, a love of rugby and a lot of sheep. On that note, this posting ends.

Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Azure Assured

The conference call with Tim, John and Jim in London was scheduled for 7.00am this morning. I thought the focus might have been on today's Essential MediaTech 2008 Forum. It went well. The new Chair of Pingar's UK Advisory Board Lord Erroll joined the UK management team at the Forum and Tim's presentation hit all the right buttons.

But it was recent discussions in the UK with Microsoft that really hit my button. And appropriate perhaps that one of the main sponsors at Essential Mediatech 2008 was Microsoft Bizspark.

I have blogged about Microsoft Azure before. However, I only really began to understand its implications for Pingar this morning. In short, once you’re completed the coding of an application, deploy it to 'The Cloud' and run it in Windows Azure and make it available via the internet to your end users. You can then scale compute capacity up or down based on traffic.

This has significant CapEx benefits. It means effectively that you 'rent' server capacity and can tune capacity and bandwidth accordingly. This clearly removes the costs associated with setting up large backbone capacity in terms of servers, bandwidth etc.

I am not quite sure how The Cloud and Azure is distributed globally. I need to check that one out. If Microsoft Azure delivers what it preaches however, it is a big step forward and one of immense benefit to Pingar.

We joined Microsoft's Global Start-up Accelerator Program in June. There is a meeting in London next Tuesday at which Pingar will engage directly with Dan'l Lewin and others from Redmond's Emerging Business Team as part of this Program. Azure will be very much part of that discussion.

And then John Beer hops onto a plane at Heathrow and heads for New Zealand. We have been planning an agenda for some time and I will post throughout John's visit. I expect to unzip further through that trip.

Monday, 10 November 2008

Understanding Scalability

On Friday, I had an interesting meeting at NZTE's offices in Tauranga. The discussion focused on HBI Software and its outsourcing role in Bangalore.

One of the greatest challenges most NZ ICT businesses face is that of scalability. This is partly down to the shortage of skilled software engineers and partly down to the limited size of the domestic market.

More on the outcome of Friday's discussions shortly, but the ability to outsource certain back office functions and IT development work is not one that many NZ businesses have addressed. In part, this is down to a lack of an obvious entry point. Where do you begin to look for offshore partners?

It's a question that I hope HBI will assist answer in both the medium and the longer term. Global engagement of this type is essential if NZ ICT businesses are to seiously grow their business. I do understand the SaaS model, but in terms of the broader IT space, offshoring part of your work process should be considered an essential element of a business model.

'Two Ticks Blue'

My young nephew Henry made the right call. On Saturday night, New Zealand returned a National-led Government.

I cannot think of a time however when the back-drop to a general election was so dark. This is one global financial crisis that is not going to go away soon. So Pingar's focus is on identifying opportunities, managing costs and preparing for at least two more years of general economic gloom.

John Key's 'honeymoon' period, will I guess be short.

Thursday, 6 November 2008

Tauranga CoC BA5

A lot of my focus next week will be on events in the UK. Not least the Pingar presentation on 11th November at Essential Mediatech 2008.

Tonight however, the action is much closer to home. Jacqui and I will be at the monthly Tauranga Chamber of Commerce Business After 5. Tonight it is being hosted by HOBEC at their new offices in The Hub on Cameron Road. It will be good to catch up with people I do not have the chance to see often enough.

I might also have some interesting updates on Monday. I can't be more explicit now - and to be honest even Monday might be a little early. 'Things' are happening though over the next 48 hours. Let's see what I can say over the weekend.

Yahoo Boohoo

So Google has canceled plans for a search advertising partnership with Yahoo amid opposition from antitrust regulators and advertisers.

According to Reuters this morning, Yahoo has expressed dismay at Google's decision, saying it was "disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court."

The U.S. Justice Department, in a statement issued on Wednesday, said it had told Google that it planned to file a lawsuit to block the deal on antitrust grounds.

"Had the companies implemented their arrangement, Yahoo's competition likely would have been blunted immediately with respect to the search pages that Yahoo chose to fill with ads sold by Google rather than its own ads," the Justice Department said.

This is no great surprise. The only question now is how quickly Microsoft will be back at Yahoo's front door. This time however, their offer will be significantly lower than their bid earlier this year. And this time round, it will be much more difficult for Yahoo's CEO to say no. Tough times ahead then.

Wednesday, 5 November 2008

Go the Bay!

Tonight's Bay of Plenty Times 'Bay Money' section headlined 'Dynamic Bay Trio Honoured'.

Local dental manufacturer TrioDent has been named in the top 10 of the country's 50 fastest growing companies - based on percentage revenue growth over the past three years. Tabak Business Services has been judged the Central North Island's fastest growing business services company for the third year in a row in the annual Deloitte/Unlimited Fast 50 awards.

The article also features Pingar. (Read my past few postings to understand why).

It is great that the Bay is home to such innovative businesses. Hats doffed to both Triodent and Tabak.

And also to Julie Gill at Unlimited who co-sponsored Tabak's award. A mole tells me that she has just sold her publishing operation, Infego, which includes Unlimited Magazine, to Fairfax Publishing. Now that's cool!

Pingar in the Media

I have said before that it is often very difficult to be totally transparent when blogging. Things are happening in the background which you know of, but cannot write about. That is surely true at this time at Pingar.

And then the day arrives when something is either signed off or a Confidentiality Agreement terminates and you can actually post something more substantive.

Finally, enough breaking news is available to enable you can prepare a release. That's where JML Communications come in.

And so it is that within the past 24 hours, a couple of great articles have appeared online. One was produced by The National Business Review. The other by IT Week. In the next few days you will also be able to download a PDF of re-Think, the University of Waikato Management School journal. This is being distributed free of charge with copies of both the New Zealand Herald and The Dominion Post next week. It contains a good article about Pingar's R & D work with the Hothouse team at Waikatolink.

Now though we turn full cycle to me knowing new stuff which I cannot actually post about. And so the process goes on. One hint however....just one.

My prediction for 2009 is that this process might just speed up a tad. It is amazing what extra resource can do in terms of assisting execute The Plan. That means more developments, more concluded NDAs and more breaking news. That at least is part of The Plan!

Tuesday, 4 November 2008

GBP - NZD: The Hedge

I have posted a couple of times before about the dangers to Pingar of rapid currency exchange rate moves. The past month or so have seen plenty of those.

So I had a meeting this morning with my man as ASB Bank. We decided that the new Limited Partnership needed a sterling account. This would enable GBP to be moved into NZD at the moment of our choosing.

It means that we will have to open a correspondent bank account in the UK. I guess this might have to be with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ASB's parent bank. The NZ child has no direct formal representation in the UK.

We then began to talk about 'hedging'. Apparently I need to speak to one of the in-house ASB trade experts. It made me think. Is it possible to take a reference on past performance? Or is that covered off by 'client confidentiality' clauses? Maybe the Melbourne Cup offered a better hedging option.

I backed Septimus. Local horse Viewe won. Oops. Back to the drawing board then.

Wellington Bound


It's been some time since I last visited Wellington. So the trip to Thrive Wellington next week is not before time.

The event features a number of keynote speakers. And by all accounts from the 2007 version, it provides a great forum for new ideas.

The visit to 'Windy' will also enable me to catch up with a number of people I have been meaning to contact for some time. A lot has happened with Pingar since my last visit. Gareth Davies of International Business Wales is presenting and I hope to meet up with Julien from JML Communications.

I'll be in town for three days. If you read this blog and fancy a coffee, then drop me a line today.

Monday, 3 November 2008

Cyber Squatting

There is a loan company in New Zealand that owns a domain name which relies on users misspelling one of NZ's major media outlet's URL. I will neither name the loan company, nor the site, because I do not want to encourage traffic to it.

The loan company's website does say however on its home page - 'You came here because you need finance......'

Not quite. I arrived there because some idiot decided to engage in a cheap form of guerrilla marketing. That tactic says a lot about the company and I guess even more about the product.

I find cyber squatting offensive. It feels almost as though the perpetrators are invading my private space. I don't know the return they get, but after 12 years in this business, I still find some aspects downright cheap. Unlike the loans I so desperately do not need, I suspect.

Moving On

I woke up this morning feeling a little flat.

I am putting that down to an absolutely appalling round of golf yesterday. I could not putt to save my life. It was the first time I had lifted a club since February. It has been that kind of year. So I am aware today of body parts not apparent for some time.

It probably also reflects the size of the 'To Do List' compiled over the weekend. It is not short. Throw in the Melbourne Cup, the US elections on Tuesday and the NZ General Election on Saturday and this does not constitute a 'normal' week.

For the moment however, 'moving on' is my main focus. Body parts willing.

Saturday, 1 November 2008

Taking Stock

More time to reflect.

The creation of Pingar LP and the associated first funding round really has taken up a significant amount of my time over the past three months. I am revisiting a number of other priority areas this morning and it is quite scary how old some of the last contacts have become.

Building on what we have now created is going to take some effort. I am compiling lists (I am beginning to sound like Jacqui) in the hope of prioritising my actions. There are a lot of them.

I am breaking down the priority areas into a series of tasks. By categorising each priority area into titles: For example: Product, Sales, Marketing, Investor Relations (that's a new one), Compliance etc, I am able to begin to create some order.

I am now looking at the calendar and realise that Monday is November 3rd. That means Christmas is not far away and this is New Zealand. New Zealand is closed through January. That gives me perhaps six weeks to close off these lists. That is not long.

Which is probably why at 12.46 on a Saturday morning, I am sitting in the office. Alone.