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Stuff Flies As Malcolm Turnbull, Others Tangle With MyRepublic

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Comms Minister Malcolm Turnbull has fired back at Singapore-based newcomer to the Australian market MyRepublic, whose visiting CEO Malcolm Rodriguez this week criticised the NBN as a “sh**t” network.

That, he said, was due to the Abbott Government’s move to a “multi-technology mix” (MTM), rather than the all fibre-to-premise system employed in Singapore.

Turnbull gave Rodriguez full credit for entering the Aussie market and seeking to stimulate more demand for higher-end products. But he pointed out Singapore is a market utterly unlike Australia’s. “Passing each premises with superfast broadband costs a small fraction of what it costs in Australia,” he said.

And he added: “The NBN is hardly the only company in the world rolling out a multi-technology mix. In Germany, Deutsche Telekom has recently announced an expansion of its fibre-to-the-node network, to cover 80 per cent of its fixed line footprint by 2018, while there have also been mass deployments by BT Openreach in the UK, AT&T in the US, and many others.”

Our colleagues at Communications Day have been rather more scathing. Wrote founder Graeme Lynch yesterday: “The idea that MyRepublic could barge into Australia and profitably offer low-contention gigabit or even unlimited FttH-derived 100Mbps plans for under $50 or, for that matter, $80 under any style of NBN tech mix- ALP or Coalition-can only be described in one word. Bulls**t.”

CEO-Less Yahoo Looks To Sell Assets

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With Carol Bartz shown the door last week, Yahoo’s board is putting asset sales ahead of a new CEO. The 10-member board apparently believes Yahoo! needs to stabilise its strategic direction before it can settle on a new CEO.

Carol Bartz was fired last week (CDN, Thursday) in extraordinary circumstances leading to a flurry of -emails and text message laced with accusations from both sides.

Yahoo! is yet to hire an executive-search firm and it’s unclear whether Bartz’s successor will be a former colleague or an outsider.

Meanwhile ISP AOL is reportedly sniffing the wind for a possible merger with Yahoo!.

Read: Yahoo and AOL Merger Talks After Tough Google-Facebook Competition

Telstra Offers 4G Hotspot For Cars

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Telstra has launched a 4G mobile broadband hotspot for motor vehicles. The Telstra PrePaid 4GX Car Wi-Fi is a mobile broadband modem that can be plugged into a car’s 12-volt outlet or USB slot.

Users can also use an AC connector to plug into a standard power outlet.

The hotspot, which allows up to five devices to simultaneously share a 4G connection, is available for $79. It includes 3GB of mobile data (with a 30-day expiry).

More data can be purchased with Telstra’s Pre-Paid Mobile Broadband Data Passes, which start at $10 for a three-day, 1GB pass. The top-tier pass includes 16GB of data with a two-year expiry for $140.

Aussies Learning To Love Telcos

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Australians are getting happier about their telecommunication services, according to the Communications Alliance, quoting figures from a survey conducted for the alliance by Melbourne-based Roy Morgan Research.

The latest Telecommunications Customer Satisfaction Survey has revealed improvements in four key satisfaction metrics, including overall satisfaction, satisfaction with complaint handling and the ease of understanding bills and contacting service providers, Alliance CEO John Stanton said yesterday.

The quarterly national survey, conducted in June, shows 68 percent of customers were happy with the level of service provided by Australian providers. A third (32pc) of customers reported being “very satisfied” and just over a third (36pc) were just “satisfied'”. 

But one in seven (14pc) of respondents were “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied”, with only a small group of customers (6pc) reported being very dissatisfied

Microsoft Hikes Oz Azure Price

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On the back of a falling Aussie dollar, Microsoft has hiked Australian prices for its Azure cloud services by 26 percent.

Microsoft’s new prices won’t affect existing annuity volume licensing agreements, but will apply to new or renewing contracts. A company spokesperson said the company policy is to “periodically assess our pricing to ensure there is reasonable alignment with the market.”

Jason Zander, corporate vice president for Microsoft Azure, told the AFR Microsoft remains committed to price-matching arch rival Amazon. “For storage and networking and some of the components we have a price match guarantee – if Amazon drops their price then so do we,” he said

Uber Hikes Oz Prices 10pc

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Thinking of hailing a ride with an Uber driver today? Be prepared for a price shock – your driver will be demanding 10 percent extra after the Tax Office ruled that from this week Uber drivers, like other taxi drivers, must charge GST on every ride.

Uber had previously told its drivers that they were exempt from paying GST.

But “affected drivers must register for GST, charge GST on the full fare, lodge business activity statements and report the income in their tax returns,” ATO deputy commissioner James O’Halloran has ruled.

Uber is fighting that ruling in the Federal Court, arguing it is being “singled out”, but in the meantime has no choice but to impose the tax.

“To be very clear, Uber believes that all of its driver partners should pay their appropriate share of tax,” Uber Australia GM David Rorsheim said. “However, we believe driver partners and riders are being unfairly singled out, and so Uber is challenging the ATO’s position in the Federal Court of Australia.”

Rorsheim claimed that, despite the ordered price increase, an UberX ride would still be some 25 to 35 percent cheaper than taxis.

Fairfax Tipped To Spin Off Domain

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The Fairfax media empire appears to be preparing to spin off its Domain online real estate listings as a separate business. The announcement is expected today or tomorrow – when Fairfax is due to report its first-half results.The real estate business contributed $296 million to

Fairfax’s total revenue of $1.83 billion in the 2015-16 financial year. But in

November it flagged a drop in Domain’s first-half earnings as homeowners in

Sydney and Melbourne hesitated to put properties up for sale.

Domain competes with the Murdoch-owned News Group’s ASX-listed REA concern.

Research Giants Reveal Huge Drop In PC Shipments

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The two biggest market research companies have each reported that personal computer shipments during the first quarter of 2016 fell dramatically. Both Gartner and IDC estimated sharp declines in Q1 versus the year earlier period – a 9.5 percent slump by Gartner’s estimates, an 11.5pc plunge by IDC’s figures.Gartner called it the lowest quarterly shipment level

in nine years. IDC however, said shipments were in line with expectations of an

11.3 percent decline, amid an anticipated “relatively weak environment

during the first half of 2016, as Windows 10 enterprise upgrades largely

remained in pilot phase, while consumer demand remains weak”.

Gartner reported worldwide PC shipments totalling 64.8 million units in the

first quarter, a 9.6 percent decline from the first quarter of 2015.

This was the sixth consecutive quarter of PC shipment declines, and the first

time since 2007 that shipment volume fell below 65 million units.

“The deterioration of local currencies against the US dollar continued to

play a major role in PC shipment declines. Our early results also show there

was an inventory build-up from holiday sales in the fourth quarter of

2015,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.

IDC estimated worldwide PC shipments in the quarter at 60.6 million units, a

year-on-year decline of 11.5 percent. The company claims Apple toppled Asus for

fourth place in global PC shipments, with 7.4 percent share, up from 6.7

percent a year earlier.

Gartner, however, put Apple in fifth place behind Asus, which by Gartner’s

estimate saw a 1.5 percent rise in shipments, and holding onto fourth place

with 8.3 percent.

Lenovo maintained the number one position in worldwide PC shipments in the

first quarter of 2016 despite a 7.2 percent decline in shipments.

Samsung Fast-tracks $5bn Profit

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SEOUL – Samsung Electronics says it expects its operating profit for the January-March quarter to be between 5.6 trillion won (around A$4.8 billion) and 6 trillion won, a company record
The result would be nearly double the operating profit of last year’s Q1, reflecting growing sales of its smartphones.Samsung’s mobile phone division is the company’s largest by revenue, though it often produces smaller profits than the company’s semiconductor unit.

That changed last year when higher-grossing smartphones jumped to 30 percent of all the phones Samsung sold – from around 9 percent the year before.

This year, Samsung executives say that smartphones will account for about 50 percent of all their mobile phones.

Kmart Oz Hacked

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SYDNEY – Customers of Kmart’s online operations have been exposed to a security breach according to the company.Kmart said that on September 30 an online customer was informed via e-mail that her account had been compromised during an “external privacy breach” according to Fairfax Media.

The e-mail said the data stolen was limited to “name, email address, delivery and billing address, telephone number and product purchase details”. No credit card data was stolen in the breach, Kmart stressed.

A statement from the company said the breach “only impacts a selection of customers who have shopped online with Kmart Australia,” and that all customers that had been affected had been contacted directly.

It also says the company has contacted the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and the Australian Federal Police for help with the investigation.