What is happening in the market these days? A couple of months ago, B2B ventures were doing about as well as the cigarette machine in a Port Kembla pub.
This month, they're back in business, baby. Well, they are according to IDC, who says that while Business-to-Business spending made up about 60 percent of online spending last year, it is expected to account for 85 percent in 2005.
IDC categorises B2B into three sectors: e-distribution (supplier controlled), e-procurement (buyer controlled), and e-marketplaces (things like group "buying clubs").
The research company predicts that the e-marketplace sector, while holding up only five percent of the market in 2000, will be responsible for 45 percent by 2005. That's some pretty big group buying. Not that I'm sceptical about those findings or anything, but I always find it amazing when predictions about the Internet are made that far in advance. Net years being what they are, I simply can't believe that the "e-marketplace" of 2005 will look anything like what we have today.
While the B2B "disaster" may be turning into a success story, the WAP "phenomenon" is looking to be a bit of a fizzle. Two separate surveys done in Australia show that we're a bit behind most of the Asia Pacific region in the uptake of WAP devices.
Results from the Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) survey show that only the Philippines and Thailand populations own fewer WAP phones than Australia (though Australia is above the average for mobile phone ownership). The APT Strategies study showed that 42 percent of Australian respondents didn't know the difference between WAP and the short messaging service (SMS).
With PDA ownership, however (again from the TNS survey), Australia is above average for the Asia Pacific region - just behind Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan. That should increase greatly once more wireless services for PDAs become available around the country.
And here's one three-letter acronym (TLA) that really belongs on the hot list: the soon-to-be-released DVD video recorder recently announced by Philips. Designed to replace the VCR, Philips' DVDR1000 will make one-button recording possible for whatever version of the "Survivor" series we're up to when the unit is released in October. (Pioneer uses a similar DVD-rewritable technology for its SuperDrive units, which Apple and Compaq are including in some of their models.)
The only not-so-hot aspect is the RRP - the DVDR1000 is expected to list for over AU$6500! (Odd, because according to Computer Daily News, Apple's 733MHz Titanium PowerBook with DVD-RW drive retails for AU$7495.)
And, of course, the hot TLA on everyone's mind this month is OXP (all right, I cheated - that's not really what Office XP is called). I had an early peek at the product and the features that impressed me most were what I'll call STR (Smart Tags, Task Panes, and Recovery). The Smart Tags are a set of buttons, shared across all Office applications that appear adjacent to data when an action is obviously needed. Clicking on a tag opens a drop-down menu that offers several context- sensitive actions.
Though this may sound a bit intrusive, it really wasn't - and it seemed a far better solution than an annoying paper clip (by the way, you can - if it makes you feel any better - visit www.officeclippy.com to see Clippy get the sack.) The tags are also supposed to improve productivity by reducing the amount of time spent "menu surfing".
Task Panes give users quick access to often-used tasks and help info in a window that sits alongside user documents.
The other notable feature of Office XP is the recovery feature. Leveraging technology used in Windows 2000, Office XP's recovery features give you a far better chance of getting your documents and applications back intact when that dreaded lockup occurs.
It's not foolproof, of course, but the steps to recover files are easy and intuitive, and error data can be sent to Microsoft so that those reports can help ensure that those errors won't occur in future versions.
Also interesting, is Microsoft Australia's decision to offer Office XP to customers on a subscription basis (in addition to offering for purchase). Australia is one of the few countries to trial this approach, and it should be interesting to see what the response will be. The subscription fee for XP Professional is AU$359, which entitles the subscriber to a year's worth of free updates (sent on CD to the subscriber). The retail version is priced at AU$1288.
