Market Watch

Growth in India's exports of IT services, business process outsourcing and related services is forecast to drop to 11 to 14 percent in the Indian fiscal year to March 31, 2013 from an estimated 16.3 percent in the current fiscal year, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) said.

Vodafone reported a 2.3 percent drop in revenue for the last three months of 2011, as economic conditions, particularly across southern Europe, continue to be weak.

Lenovo's profit in its fiscal third quarter ended December 31 grew 54 per cent year-over-year, as the company saw growth in many key markets.

Foxtel has announced an increase in subscriber numbers for the second half of 2011 despite a tough consumer market.

Telstra reports positive results in the first half of its 2012 financial year

How to retain profitability within the channel is an issue vendors, distributors and resellers have to constantly stay focused on

Selling technology for technology’s sake simply doesn’t cut it anymore. ARN recently brought together a panel of industry representatives to look at why selling business productivity, ROI and innovation are critical to the channel’s success and how these elements will be the force behind cloud computing take-up.

Cloud computing is a transformative phenomenon affecting all manner of channel and end-user organisations. ARN brought together several industry representatives to discuss where cloud computing adoption is today, and ways IT providers can monetise this broad-reaching opportunity.

Bringing more women into ICT leadership roles is an ongoing issue, despite efforts from individuals and organisations to achieve parity. While vendors typically have a better blend of the sexes, at least across HR, marketing and customer-facing roles, numbers appear poor across the reseller and distribution community. ARN recently invited a collection of female leaders from the ICT industry to share their extensive knowledge and opinions on why the trend continues to occur, and what businesses can do about it.

While data storage has always been a necessary building block for technology, it's rarely garnered as much attention as it has in the past two years. The reason: Corporate and retail consumers are being forced to store greater amounts of data and they need to make that data more useful - and accessible.

In a 2009 Gartner survey of Asia-Pacific organisations about their software spending intentions, positive outlook increasingly varied by country, and was not only dominated by emerging countries such as China and India. Mature countries such as Australia and Singapore are not conservative in their software budget plan.

Storage: Getting down to business

ASX-listed integrators have mimicked the uncertain economic climate, with a mixed bag of results for the first half of the financial year indicating fierce competition in the days ahead.

Industry sources have flagged a possible rash of merger and acquisition activity in coming months as businesses reel from the economic downturn.

NICTA CEO, David Skellern, who has been in his post since 2007 and has 20 years in the ICT sector, was one of several keynote speakers discussing strategies for Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) at the recent CeBIT show. He sat down with ARN to discuss the viability of the largest ICT infrastructure project in Australia’s history, as well as Internet filtering and why our industry needs more unity. Skellern will be retiring next year to head over to the UK.

Wireless and networking specialist distributor, Lan 1, is celebrating its fifteenth birthday this year. NADIA CAMERON caught up with managing director, Daniel Lee, to discuss the importance of the NBN, potential acquisitions and his plans for the future.

CEO of vividwireless, Unwired and Wireless Broadband Australia, Martin Mercer, talks to ARN about the decision behind launching a 4G network, how wireless will fit in the National Broadband Network (NBN), and ISP filtering.

Labor Senator, Kate Lundy, is one of the few Government politicians to go on record against the proposed mandatory ISP filter. ARN spoke with her about voting against it, the effects of Gershon on jobs and CeBIT 2010.

TransACT and ActeWAGL joined forces four years ago to form Grapevine, an ISP that originally serviced Canberra customers. Since then, it has expanded to encompass the whole of Australia. We talk to the joint venture about the NBN and whether ISPs should be held accountable for users' actions.

Last year, IT budgets declined by 10 per cent to 20 per cent, depending on who you believe. Jobs were lost. And the pool of vendors is constantly shrinking, given the tsunami of bankruptcies and mergers over the past few years. (Adios, Nortel.)

Google has already achieved the enviable marketing distinction of turning its name into a verb. But its enormous popularity and global reach place an unintended burden on the search giant: When it goes down, the entire Web is shaken.

After more than a year of effort, Commander’s receivers have finally brought the company’s story to its conclusion. McGrathNicol told ARN last week it had sold-off Commander’s final business assets and was now tying up loose ends before signing off.

Nadia Cameron takes a look at the continuing impact of the economic downturn.

The changing face of the channel was a key theme running through the July 8th edition of ARN. Following news of one of the biggest consolidation stories to hit the integration and reseller space this year, ComputerCorp, S Central and Synergy Plus announced plans to rebrand under the Synergy Plus masthead and appoint S Central founder and BRW 2008 Young Rich list notable, Peter Mavridis, at the helm.