Alan Kohler is one of Australia’s most experienced commentators and journalists. Alan is the founder of Eureka Report, Australia’s most successful investment newsletter, and Business Spectator, a 24-hour free business news and commentary website. He also hosts Inside Business, a half-hour Sunday programme on the ABC, is the finance presenter on the ABC News - and producer of the nightly graph (or two).
Martin Parkinson has provided some insight into how Treasury muffed its forecasts and cornered the treasurer, citing dollar behaviour, Asian growth mix-ups and miner optimism.
As global businesses lose confidence in Europe, the ripples are shifting requirements for Australian growth and even overhauling traditional management models.
Infrastructure and environmental services company Cardno is warning that the outlook for Australia's mining sector is worse than elsewhere.
Commodity woes and a disconnect between earnings and share valuations has seen Citigroup downgrade the Australian market.
Martin Parkinson has provided some insight into how Treasury muffed its forecasts and cornered the treasurer, citing dollar behaviour, Asian growth mix-ups and miner optimism.
Lack of federal budget transparency has allowed profligacy on both sides of politics, and while the Coalition has a plan for reform its hopes for a revenue jump are shaky.
The communications giant has laid out its plan to adjust to a more competitive digital environment while also easing exposure to its traditional platform-centric business.
Microsoft's next generation gaming console feels like a carbon copy of its predecessor. But its features also reveal Microsoft’s new intent, the Xbox One aspires to be something far more important.
Senator Xenophon is likely to hold the keys to repeal the carbon price. But in repealing it he could readily reconfigure Direct Action into an emissions trading scheme by stealth.
As its nuclear sector takes another blow, Japan's solar commitment could see it become the world's biggest solar market this year.
CEOs outline changing views on corporate spending and profits, their economic expectations and political dissatisfaction, including advice for Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.
UK-based Zeebox wants to be the intermediary for all social media-television interactions. It will not only have to lure viewers, but the networks themselves.
The French regulator has reignited its war with Skype and the case is an example of the uncertainty that surrounds the definition and regulation of VoIP services.
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Comments on this article
Comments PolicyBoth sides in the debate need to understand the internet began in the late 1980s because of a Baby Bell monopoly price response to the competitive WAN/IXC threat in the US. By going to flat-rate expanded local calling area to counter the digitized, metered, AIN bypass threat to their local switching and intrastate monopoly revenues.
Repeat after me: "the internet was an artifact of the monopoly bell system". The concept of "free" was not the openness that everyone thinks, rather the flat-rate, all-you-can-eat pricing of the Baby Bells trying to prevent loss of the analog-priced, government sustained unnatural last mile monopoly.
By now, we (academics, regulators, trade mgmt and capitalists) should have learned that the market is going horizontal. The vertically integrated service provider model cannot efficiently and effectively clear rapidly depreciating supply at every layer and boundary point across rapidly shifting and growing demand. Only horizontally scaled intranets can.
We need to think of lower layer ecosystems defined as "infrastructure as a service" or IaaS. Middle or control layer ecosystems will be "software as a service" or SaaS. Finally, upper layer systems will be "applications as a service" or AaaS.
From a regulatory perspective we need to merely ensure that these layers remain relatively open and generative and that no one group or collective gets greater than 50% share. The market will take care of the rest given the nearly infinite supply and demand opportunities that await us.