Tabloid: Interviews

My favourite book or movie ...With a young family I rarely find the time to read at home and find the best time to do this is on the plane. I don’t really have a favourite book. At the moment I’m reading two books: Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton and 1700 Scenes from London Life by Maureen Waller.

My favourite book or movie ...My favourite movie is Endless Summer - it does have some cheesy American narrating but the amount of fun those guys had travelling around the world looking for great waves would be an amazing way to live your life.

My favourite book or movie... All I ever seem to read is work-related and predominantly technical. However, I do watch the odd movie and my favourite is Predator - it's a classic from the days before Arnie thought he could actually act. I'm not sure I want to analyse why I enjoy it so much

My favourite book or movie ...My favourite book is Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I have three favourite films - Highlander, Forest Gump and Scarface. All three storylines follow underdogs, but encapsulate spiritual strength and ultimate reward for each - albeit one through the pain of growth and uncertainty, one through spiritual reverence and one through raw, brute force.

My favourite book or movie ...I'm an avid reader and thoroughly enjoy movies. It's too hard to pick an absolute favourite in either category, although the Lord of the Rings trilogy would be up there.

My favourite book or movie ...I have not had the chance to do much reading lately so movies tend to win out. I'm a sucker for science fiction movies, as well as ones with unique plots. Some of my favourites are Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, The Game with Michael Douglas, and Entrapment with Catherine Zeta-Jones.

My favourite book or movie ... my reading tends to be mainly limited to trade and business publications, but if I pick up a book it is normally a biography or similar. On the screen one that comes to mind is Top Gun, but I am also a M.A.S.H tragic -- I love the clever combination of a serious situation with humour.

ARN talks to Premier Technologies CEO, Fausto Marasco

ARN interviews Brightpoint general manager Felix Wong

ARN interviews Southern Cross Computer Systems CEO, Mark Kalmus

ARN interviews Oriel Technologies general manager, Chris Fydler

ARN, in conjunction with Lenovo, invited a select band of resellers with different business models to discuss the major issues in our industry today.

InFocus country manager, Lee Whincup, is a man of many talents and hobbies. On the one hand, he would love to be a chef and can whip up a killer cheesecake. On the other, he's good at cricket, a game he learned a thing or two about while playing professionally in England.

Business application vendor, SAP, faces plenty of challenges these days. Competition is intensifying from rival Oracle, especially after its acquisition of PeopleSoft, and even its partner, Microsoft, is expanding into business analytics, an area in which the German company also aims to be a major player. In addition, new open-source offerings are emerging in the area of customer relationship management while hosting companies, such as Salesforce.com, continue to make inroads. The list of challenges facing SAP CEO, Henning Kagermann, appears endless. Despite a heavy workload, the friendly, straight-talking executive found time to discuss these challenges.

Californian-born Bart Mascorella, Emerson business unit manager for distributed products, came to Australia to escape the recession gripping the US in the early 80s. Looking for greener pastures, he landed in the world of IT and has never looked back.

Now in charge of Emerson's channels for A/NZ, he sees enormous opportunity in the power management arena. While traditionally strong in the enterprise market - in large data centres - the company sees growing opportunities in the SME and SMB market.

Avaya channel director for South Pacific, Grant Howe, didn't always have an interest in IT but developed one while working in the UK. During an 18-month backpacker pilgrimage, which included a brief stint at a pub, the Kiwi landed a post at a photocopier reseller. This encouraged him to hatch his own photocopy franchise in New Zealand.