Rod Drury on NZ Digital Divide
April 1st, 2010 at 2:21 pm by David FarrarA guest post from Rod Drury:
Tags: digital divide, Rod DruryNew Zealand’s Growing Digital Divide
David Skilling, the former head of the New Zealand Institute, used to say that New Zealand is running the risk of becoming “Fiji with snow”. Certainly from a technology perspective the digital divide between us and the rest of the world is becoming more apparent.
We used to be a first world technology country. Things happened and were available in New Zealand first, we Kiwi’s were always keen to try the new gadgets. But over the last couple of years this has changed. Being third class technology citizens, not only has an impact on productivity, but an impact on attitudes and innovation. Our daily technology world is less sophisticated than our digital counterparts in the US and now even Australia. The gap widens.
Take for example the Amazon Kindle eBook reader. It’s been available in the US for years and last year a global version was introduced that’s now available in Australia and Fiji, but not here in little old Godzone. In the US during a business meeting someone might say, did you read that book about …, While waiting to board your flight home you download the book on your Kindle, skim to the key points and for the meeting the next day you’re engaging with your customers on the latest social media marketing approaches. Slightly more interesting and relevant than last weekend’s Super 14 scores and the weather.
Vodafone has been hinting at Kindle being available in NZ for a year. Where is it? I’m past being angry, I now need to understand what is the hold up and can we help? We need New Zealand business owners to be armed with the same ease of access to knowledge that our global counterparts are.
Visual Voice Mail is another productivity tool that most people don’t know they need. Voicemail on my mobile is annoying. Unlike email, which I can choose when to process, with Voicemail I have no control. When you turn your phone on and have 15 messages it may take 5 to 10 minutes to get through and write those messages down. Often I’ll forget to call back. Visual Voice Mail was released with the iPhone several years ago and is also available on the BlackBerry. It’s to voicemail what the CD is to the 30-year-old cassette tape – VVM allows you to see all your messages and dive into the one you need. It puts you back in control. How much time would our hundreds of thousands of small business owners and company workers around New Zealand save by bringing such a simple thing as voice mail into the 21st century.
Telecom and Vodafone need to make it clear on when this first world productivity tool will be available to us. I hope Telecom will finally do their deal with Apple and competition will drive service innovation.
Finally, the iPad is the latest example of how far we have fallen. It’s out in the US this week and Australia later in the month – there is no time set for the iPad in New Zealand.
The iPad represents the next evolution in consumer computing. The first true NetBook for the masses, the iPad brings instant connectivity to all the resources of the Internet, bringing school text books and global discussions directly into your hand. The opportunities for software developers, for students, for grandma doing her email, are limitless. But in New Zealand we’re watching as the train leaves the station as people in other countries exploit the opportunities and feeling of wonderment as this new technology generation takes off.
We need to understand why the iPad is not in New Zealand in April. Is it copyright for eBooks? Is it the lack of a carrier deal. I don’t want to live in a country with no iPad!
We need to make sure there is a plan to get us back to where we should be as soon as possible. I don’t want my children to be left behind. I don’t want to be left behind. Removing data caps in New Zealand is a good step but we need to ask the above questions of our service providers. We need to stop this divide.
Rod Drury is the CEO of Xero
April 1st, 2010 at 2:31 pm
I always thought the “digital divide” referred to the gap between people who have access to the internet and people who don’t — because the internet is so important, these days, for job hunting, for finding out what’s going on in the world, for social networking, etc.
Turns out it just means “we can’t buy Kindles or iPads”. Huh.
Excuse me while I weep into my non-SIM-locked iPhone.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 2:38 pm
And yet we pay through the nose for their service and receive very little for it! Vodafone drops calls like no other!
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 2:49 pm
It is shocking to me how far we are behind the rest of the world. I moved back to New Zealand a year ago, and everyday I’m surprised at what isn’t available here that was in the US and Japan.
I bought a non SIM-locked iPhone too Repton- but Telecom’s support for it is non-existent.
Where is visual voicemail? I had this at work 8 years ago in Japan. It was on my cell phone 4 years ago.
Where is my all you can eat broadband? I had this 7 years ago, and before I came back I had FTTH running at 48MBps for $60/month. Of course no data cap.
I could care less about the iPad and the Kindle – I’ll get an iPad when I go to the US later in the month (assuming they aren’t all sold out!), but Repton you are missing the point of Drury’s post – the things he is talking about are the new digital divide. And New Zealand is on the wrong side of it.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 2:53 pm
If you are an Asia-Pacific Apple manager, where are you going to prioritise your efforts – Aussie or NZ? Japan or NZ? S. Korea or NZ? Indonesia or NZ? China or NZ? We have a tiny, low-income population. Is it really a mystery?
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Gadgets, all about gadgets. I don’t WANT my kids being obsessed with electronic gadgets, I want them to have a life ! For someone so supposedly smart, he sure has a very short sighted outlook.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 3:17 pm
There are gadgets, and there are labour saving tools. Depending on your job, some of these are one or the other. iPad isn’t something that I see a lot of use in, but for other people it could be a fantastic tool in their job. The point isn’t so much whether it is good or bad, it is that we don’t have the choice any more, because it isn’t available. Most of this comes down to lack of competition in one of two places – the mobile carrier market, and the Southern Cross cable.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Ed snack – I agree to an extent that kids needs tgroupware up outside, be fit and embrace the outdoors, however… If children don’t learn how to use technology early they may be disadvantaging themselves in the worfoce e.g. Limiting their careers to a DOC trapper (no offence to DOC workers – Any enemy of the greens is a friend of mine)
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 3:24 pm
They have this in the US, and it causes them problems. The ISPs respond by traffic shaping, and when that doesn’t work they cut people off (in other words, there is no all-you-can-eat, it’s just that the limits are unpublished). I like the NZ system, where it’s clear exactly what you’re paying for.
Prices are higher — that’s mainly because we’re a very long way from anywhere.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 3:46 pm
I’ve noticed over the years that geeks tend to see conspiracy and evilness lying behind why this week’s favourite toy isn’t available as quickly and as cheaply as they’d wish. No Kindle! No Visual Voicemail! No iPad! Gasp. Barricade the store Virginia, there’ll be rioting in the streets tonight.
But surely this is the natural outcome of a small population with an okay-but-not-all-that-great GDP per capita. That and, increasingly, the effect of cross-border intellectual property and copyright laws.
Why no iPad here yet? Because Apple can’t hope to meet the demand from large rich (Northern Hemisphere) countries and so given limited supply it’s doing what any rational capitalist would do … focus on the big deep markets and deprecate the small and relatively high-cost-to-serve ones.
No conspiracy. No “woe is me”. Just the long-established fact that New Zealand is a lifestyle block at the end of a country road, and so naturally enough things take a little longer to get here.
Meanwhile the real digital divide is what’s going on, for example, between decile 1 and decile 10 schools … where there’s more at stake than whether the geeks get their iPad this month or next month.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Whilst I agree with some of the post content, I lose no sleep over the iPad. There is an issue with communication costs and data limits.
Yet remember as well that Drury is one of those behind the Pacific Cable start -up so he is hardly disinterested
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 3:49 pm
I suspect that Drury is using the products and services mentioned as an illustration of how we are falling behind in the digital age. If NZ based firms can’t be arsed delivering new products and services (because thats what it is, can’t be arsed, can’t be bothered, couldn’t give a toss about their customers) because it would mean getting off their collective arses then how are NZ businesses to benefit from the productivity gains associated with, for example, not wasting hours a week listening to voice mail, receiving the latest industry intelligence in an easily accessible form, then NZ will continue its’ downward slide in OECD rankings.
New Zealanders get a continuous diatribe of ‘too far away’ excuses from a lot of firms who really are clipping the ticket a few too many times in many cases, for example, Banks, Telco’s, Building supply firms, high tech distributors to name a few.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Expat … are we “falling behind in the digital age” any more grievously than our relative GDP-per-capita would suggest? And do you have any examples of which NZ based firms can’t be arsed delivering which particular new products and services?
Rod gave three examples. Number one, Amazon’s Kindle. Now personally I’m a bit surprised they haven’t debuted the Kindle here yet, but I’m also prepared to recognise that the Kindle’s viability would depend on (i) having a critical mass of high-quality content that Amazon can get authorised to sell here, and (ii) striking a deal with one of the mobile networks to provide the Whispernet service. It could well be that Amazon haven’t been able to crack one or both of those. And then there’s the question of whether the economics stack up in a small market like NZ. How many Kindles would Amazon sell here? Would it get into the tens of thousands? But probably not the hundreds of thousands. How many ebooks would they sell? What are the marketing & support costs they’d incur. Is it worth it to them?
Visual voicemail. Visual voicemail is tied up with some onerous patents. IIRC iPhone users in the UK and much of Europe don’t get Visual Voicemail either. I’m less convinced that our not having Visual Voicemail is because Voda here is dragging its feet, as opposed to the economics of meeting the patent fees might not stack up with a small-and-relatively-poor population.
iPad. Based on Apple’s previous form you’d have to think the iPad will get here. Eventually. Once Apple is able to make enough to meet demand from its – lets be honest – more valuable markets. Just the same as we saw Apple do with the iPhone and with the iTunes Music Store. Also important to note that a lot of the iPad’s commercial success for Apple will come via content deals, and it’s clear that they’ve – quite naturally – focussed initially on nailing down US-focused content which Apple are probably rational enough to work out might not sell all that fast here. I’d be surprised if the iPad isn’t here before the end of the year. And I’ll be surprised if we don’t get it before a number of other bigger countries.
The “too far away” excuses are not just excuses – there’s real truth behind them. Southern Cross cost US$1bn to install, and there’s 4m of us, 20m Aussies and relatively few Americans interested in getting traffic over it. So on a per user basis yes it’s going to be more expensive than a terrestrial fibre linking LA, Chicago & New York. No conspiracy. Just simple economics.
We all need to just breath through our noses a bit more.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 4:22 pm
[i]We used to be a first world technology country.[/i]
We used to be a First World country. Our economy is basically Third World, exporting mostly food and unprocessed commodities. Singapore has a larger industrial and technological base and it’s the size of the Chatham Islands! 20% of the population live in Oz, paying the Australian government taxes after getting an education subsidised by Kiwi taxpayers. It takes 20 years to get a supermarket approved in Auckland or 30 years to proceed with a roading project like Transmission Gully. We are living beyond our means, borrowing a billion a month to feed a rapacious welfare state we cannot afford while we overtax middle New Zealand at incomes well below what’s considerede middle class in Europe, North America or Australia.
But just keep crying into your cappuccino about not having the latest iCrap.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Er, and you totally miss the point iseered.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Virtualmark, I understand you’re comments however I think Drury is right. NZ is falling behind and will continue to with the apologist mentality.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 4:50 pm
expat, I agree that we are falling behind on a number of indicators … I thought this weeks report card from the NZ Institute was a bit alarmist but generally correct. But the answer is to look at how we can raise our GDP per capita, not to fret about when the latest geek p0rn will land here. And I think we need bigger contributions to the debate than complaining about not getting iPads in April.
Personally I’d love to see a pretty robust set of right-wing economics. And then we’d have to give that 20 years or so to slowly kick in and claw our way up. And I have sceptical that the broad NZ voter-base has the maturity and the stomach for that medicine.
One simple start would be for us to think hard about whether a population base of 4m is enough critical mass to support NZ Inc. Successful NZ companies – and Rod’s Xero is a classic example – are forced into export markets from a very early stage in their maturity and development just because they’ve outgrown the local market. How different would things be if we had 8m people instead of 4m? And how about if the extra 4m weren’t all in Auckland but spread throughout the country? I’m not saying we can go from 4m to 8m overnight, but maybe it’d be a good 10 or 20 year plan.
Fair to note too that NZ is not the only country facing this dilemma. Most of the European-based societies are struggling with the same issues … attached to a lifestyle they can’t afford, so they’re funding the shortfall with debt, mortgaging the future, and getting ever increasingly dependent on taxing a small and mobile group of highly skilled and highly paid workers to give baubles to the majority (who will always vote for free baubles). We’ve certainly got a problem. But fair to say we’re not the only ones. I wouldn’t want to be a Greek right now. Or a Spaniard. Or Irish. Or Italian. Or …
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 4:50 pm
What are you people talking about?
Don’t you remember The Knowledge Wave?
It’s now been a decade since the KW talkfest so surely, with all that political rhetoric behind us, we must be at the top of the hi-tech league tables by now.
I recall that the Nats (and then Labour) were all going to get right behind turning NZ into a powerful knowledge-based economy (KBE) so that we could use the internet to overcome the tyranny of distance and earn money from our bright ideas and clever technology.
What ever happened to that?
Oh yeah… I forgot, this was something that the politicians embraced and espoused at every photo-op and soundbite opportunity but, when it came to actually backing up those lofty promises with action — they all ran for cover.
Our governments don’t want NZ at the forefront of hi-tech. They’ve discovered that technology empowers people and that empowered people demand more of their politicians and that means your perks and double-dipping gets exposed and (gasp!) voters actually want you to *work* for your healthy stipend.
Hell no, we can’t have that.
Now back to the factories and coal-pits you low-tech serfs!
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Virtualmark, LOL! “Latest geekporn”
…the idea is that technology can deliver a little more than that and that’s the way to improve NZ’s GDP.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 5:35 pm
“watching the train leave the station”…….we don’t even have much of that technology!
“Knowledge wave”…..another dream.Sadly we’re slip sliding away and our kids will contiue to go abroad for decent jobs and pay.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 5:59 pm
For several of the examples the problem is that they aren’t just a piece of hardware ( like a video card, or a book or even a car ) that somebody can just buy in the US and import here but a combination of hardware, network services and intellectual property arrangements.
So while you could just use an imported ipod (before itunes came out in NZ) as a MP3 player if you imported the Kindle is much less useful without a network deal and book store to back them up.
The problem is that Amazon has to negotiate a network deal with a local provider and various copyright deals with New Zealand publishers which will take time, money and work in return for access to a fairly small market.
If launching the previous generation of electronic products ( mp3 players, computers) was like selling a new brand of soap powder then launching a product like a kindle, Tivo or iPad in New Zealand is more like setting up a new franchise restaurant chain.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Tivo – like the EPG?
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Perspective digital technology is here and what isn’t can by sourced .. It’s the support of the new technology that is the problem in NZ.. and that comes down to cost.. of new communication satellites or cable.. New Zealand should be doing a deal with the US.. a fast modern technology support communication system NZ wide.. in exchange for the US using NZ for their Waihopai spy base… It would even make it easyer for them to spy and listen in.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 7:55 pm
A great article although I’m not so sold on the groundbreaking nature of the iPad. My observations for what its worth:
* Text vs calling – the cost of cell ph calls in NZ (cell ph to cell ph and landline to cell ph) are obscene. It leads to time wasting and is an additional cost of doing business in NZ. My unlimited iPhone calling plan costs me $119 per month and another $60 for an uncapped mobile 3G data plan. The biggest Vodafone or Telecom calling plan is still roughly double that
* People including teens in the US ring and text – texting is done when it is the most convenient mode of communication. In NZ for large swathes of the population it is the only method of cell ph communication because cell ph calls are so expensive. How much time do NZers waste texting vs their Aus/US/UK etc counterparts. I coach rugby – almost all the texts I get from teenage boys here are in English because they use predictive text functions because almost all have unlimited texting plans whereas I get mangled teen style text from middle aged NZers desperate to stay under 160 characters.
* I go nuts every time I come back to NZ about the slowness of the internet. I am much less productive working in NZ – internet searches take longer, downloads are longer and large attachments take ages to send and that’s BEFORE you compare the cost of high speed broadband unlimited plans in the US versus the capped plans in NZ. Then there’s people I deal with in rural NZ – one of my business partners lives in rural BOP – I stay with him periodically and when I access his wireless router for so-called broadband it is a joke. Finally there’s all the people who are still on dial up – I guess somewhere in Hilbilly country in rural West Virginia a farmer may still be on dial up otherwise its as ancient here as the cassette tape.
* VVM is more of a deal when you dont have it and I never thought I’d say that until I have to use my Kiwi SIM carded Acer cell phone and keep the iPhone for calls to and from the US. Having to wade through all the messages on Vodafone is time consuming and frustrating.
I was unaware of the Kindle delay until my brother ordered a digital book reader from the states. I use Kindle for iPhone and assumed it was universal – it is not apparently.
Finally I compare the roading infrastructure of Auckland with Phoenix and it is like the 1st world and the 2nd world. It took over 2 years for Transit NZ to widen approx 15kms of the Northern Motorway and add the bus lanes. In Phoenix ADOT (AZ Dept of Transportation), in just ONE of about 7 freeway widening projects it undertook, widened US 60 (Superstition Freeway). Length of road widened: 30kms, Amount of widening:3 lanes EACH way (6 EXTRA lanes); length of time to do it: A shade over 12 months.
Length of time to drive 35 kms from downtown Phoenix to the East Valley in peak hour NOT in a HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane (2 + pax): Approx 35 mins. Length of time it took me to drive from Auckland Airport to Mairangi Bay (also 35km) at 5pm the other month: 1 hr 15 mins. The cost to the NZ economy cowtowing to green sensibilities and NZ urban planners who believe in congestion to force people to use buses: Billions.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 8:18 pm
“Don’t you remember The Knowledge Wave?”
Yep. Its what we do at the airport as the youngsters fly away.
JC
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 8:30 pm
So Rod Drury has an issue, how does he suggest this is fixed?
Doe he want government intervention? Does he want tax money?
What is he after?
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Send in the ferrets!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7541455/Ferrets-key-to-bridging-the-digital-divide-between-cities
So good I repeated this thread from the string A New System for Comments.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 9:17 pm
The ferrets April 1 story from the UK Telegraph (busted link in my 8.40 post) moves back on the site as April 1 wears on.
So here is the text of the story that I captured:
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 9:21 pm
This article is really quite stupid. Just because this geek cannot have some toy, he rushes to a ridiculous conclusion that we are third world and on the wrong side of some imaginary digital divide.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Rod, New Zealand is behind in every relevant dimension. NZ has half the real GDP of Americans. There are just 4 million people to spread the fixed costs of introducing anything here. And Telecom and Vodafone have no protection from the Commerce Commission’s latest whim. I well remember in 2004 the Commerce Commission promising not to regulate 3G services as a way to ensure Telecom went ahead and rolled out their next gen network. Now that investment is sunk, whaddya know, threat of regulation and settlement.
Actually there is no free lunch, and the socialists cannot just regulate better stuff. There are trade offs to such heavy handedness, and it is that investors find it difficult to invest in long lived capital when governments are free to take it and the mob, which includes almost everyone, is cheering for ever more regulation of the telcos. Telecom’s share price is about 20% of what it was just 10 years ago. Make that 15% in real terms. You should not be at all surprised that in this environment New Zealand is falling behind. That is exactly what was predicted when the Commerce Commission was granted much greater power to regulate in 2002. It should be obvious that when government can take, investors will be particularly averse to investing in long lived new assets. New Zealand is on the path to long term ruin for as long as such short sigthedness over property rights persists.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 9:50 pm
No-one has mentioned the Commerce Commission or Regulation except you guys.
Vote:April 1st, 2010 at 10:48 pm
I believe this is simply an economies of scale issue.
Not only do kiwis earn much less than our US friends, we must pay nearly double or more for consumer goods.
Frustrating, but, hasn’t it always been like this?
Vote:April 2nd, 2010 at 12:31 am
Well if we became a state of the US … LOL
Vote:April 2nd, 2010 at 1:00 am
IPAD – KINDLE
Vote:Just how you read what other people have to say.
What we need is people who say things that other people want to read.
Rod Drury – I can read what you say with any browser, on any thing, anywhere. No time or ease imperative here.
Divide by Xero? – we dealt to those errors a long time ago!
April 2nd, 2010 at 8:28 am
Now back to the factories and coal-pits you low-tech serfs!
Well we will be if we let the Chinese buy up our farms.
And FYI, Amazon this week advised a service to download books to your computer via the internet “Kindle for PC”.
Vote:Then you can transfer to a Kindle if you wish.
April 5th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Thanks for the comments. Here are a few responses:
@Repton – I think the digital divide has moved from just access to the internet to the services you have access to on the internet. We’re increasingly missing out.
@GJ – paying through the nose is another issue. Lack of access to what other people get is the divide.
@queenstreetfarmer – I don’t think iPad issue is scale. I’ve heard its copyright in the eBook store that is holding us back. Does anyone know?
@ed – luckily in NZ we can go outside as well. But we are still missing the opportunity from having access to less than our global competitors have
@virtualmark – nope. Then iPad would at least be announced. I’m not saying there is a conspiracy I’m just hoping that enough of us care that we ask the questions to find out why we are being left behind. VVM could be offered if we ask for it. Step 1. Raise awareness.
@adamsmith – Correct, Pacific Fibre is one of the things I’m doing about fixing the problem. I’m doing it for you as well as me.
@ISeeRed – I hope this is start in the right direction.
@aardvark – Personally I believe we each need to do something. As you do with your blog.
@expat – epg’s are another example. Why do we tolerate this crap? We need to get angry.
@kiki – I just want you to care
@tvb – that wasn’t the point, but whatever
@wreck1080 I think it has got worse than than just scale. I think we’ve become too accepting of what gets served to us. Our completive advantage is that we all know each other so we should be able to just get shit done and if stuff is not working or if we’re cut out of things we should be able to find out what is the problem and fix it.
@valeriusterminu there’s more friction in NZ that gets in the way of information. Fact is we can’t just grab a read from amazon immediately. Those Hulu images which say ‘you can’t view this content’ just piss me off.
Vote:November 30th, 2010 at 8:30 am
Interesting to see those notorious third world countries Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland are getting the iPad tomorrow – the first of December 2010. Yep …
I think we need to have a whip-around for all those Scandinavian children who’ve been left behind because they didn’t have the latest geek p0rn that grown men can’t get a sense of perspective about.
Vote: