Smart Office

Menu

David Richards

Hackers Target Netregistry Telstra Bigpond Customers Hit

by

Hackers have targeted local online services Company Netregistry for the second time today. The first denial of service attack came early morning when select ranges of IP address were targeted, a second attack on a new range of IP address was mounted later this afternoon.

Among those affected are Telstra Bigpond customers. Late last year Netregistry was targeted by Anonymous because they hosted the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), who took action against iiNet in the Federal Court relating to content downloads.

The Company, who recently sold their hosting business to Indigo without asking their hosted web site customer base whether they wanted their servers managed by a new Company, is refusing to say why they have been targeted across their hosting and VPS cloud services operation.

Customers calling the Company were put in a queue.

A spokesperson at Indigo said that they had had several problems delivering a new hosting service due to problems porting former Netregistry clients over to Indigo’s operation.

Late this afternoon an Indigo spokesperson said “We have throttled the network back because of a second denial of service attack on one of our clients, Netregistry. This is the second attack today and they appear to have found a new range of IP addresses.

Netregistry executives have not returned our calls despite several attempts to get answers from the Company.

It is not known whether Netregistry customers who use the Company’s cloud based accounting service have been able to access their records or whether the records have been compromised.

The distributed denial-of-service attack resulted in online Companies being denied access to their content engines and online transaction engines.

The company said earlier in a tweet that an undisclosed “network issue” was affecting services.

Netregistry and Indigo customers were told that visitors utilising the Telstra network for internet access to websites hosted on the Zeus Dynamic web cluster (websites resolving to 202.124.241.200 IP) are currently experiencing Timeout errors.

A statement on the Netregistry web site said that one of the IP addresses used for our shared hosting infrastructure (zeus-dynamic, 202.124.241.200) has been the subject of a DDOS attack. We have had to block this IP with one of our upstream providers (Telstra) in order to allow other client-facing services to be able to be kept online.

This means that some clients who are accessing their websites via Optus/PIPE connections will be able to access their services, whereas Telstra network traffic will not be able to get through to this web server cluster. For example, TPG customers will be able to see the websites, while Bigpond customers will not.

Harvey Norman Store Sales Down 10.2% PT Earnings Down 17.69%

by

Gerry Harvey who last year went on national TV to highlight how bad service was in his stores, and then spent the rest of the year complaining about market conditions has today reported a 6.1% fall in sales and that pre tax earnings fell 17.69% to the end of December.

Pre-tax earnings went from $198.61 million to $163.47 million. The overall profit fall was 2.1%.

In comparison JB Hi Fi increased sales by 6.7% but had a 9% fall in profits to $79.6 million in the six months to the end of December. Harvey Norman said that in Australia, sales at Harvey Norman stores slipped 10.2 per cent during the second quarter of 2012 against the second quarter of 2011.

First half profits for Harvey Norman came in at $128.95 million for the six months to December.

The 6.1 per cent overall fall in sales to $3.11 billion was not broken out by category. Like-for-like sales for the first six months of 2011-12 fell by 6.3 per cent.

Last week we revealed via a leaked email that 24 Harvey Norman franchisees have been shifted to new locations as part of a major restructure, with many taking up their new jobs today. Some franchisees chose to resign.

Harvey Norman claims that the movement of 24 franchisee is not part of a major shakeup as claimed by staff who contacted ChannelNews.

Harvey Norman claims that a strengthening Australian dollar, deteriorating economic confidence and weak consumer sentiment was to blame for his downturn in profits and sales. Several consumers who have contacted SmartHouse claim that they are not shopping for consumer electronic goods in Harvey Norman stores because of poor service and a “boring” store environment.

Shares fell on the announcement, dropping 14 cents, or 6.5 per cent, to $2.02.

OptionsExpress market analyst Ben Le Brun told Fairfax Media that the fall in like-for-like sales was much more dramatic than the market was expecting.
”These sales figures are further evidence of the continued theme of the cautious or spend thrift consumer in Australia and throughout the world,” he said.

 

”To make matters worse for Harvey Norman, the caution or penny pinching seen in the retail sector seems to be focused  particularly in the white goods space.

“Computer games, DVDs even computers and plasma screen TVs are all seeing price deflation or can be acquired cheaply online.”

In Australia, sales at Harvey Norman slipped 10.2 per cent during the second quarter of 2012 against the second quarter of 2011.

Harvey Norman claimed that that their Australian furniture and bedding business recorded strong sales during the first half however there was no mention of the performance of the consumer electronics, electrical and IT categories.

News Corp Pulls In Media Heavyweights To Lobby ACCC Over Proposed Foxtel Ten Deal

by

News Corporation who are a 50% owner of Foxtel shares are using their own publications to defend concerns by The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over the aquisition of a stake in Channel Ten by the pay TV Company.

Under the headline ACCC ‘wrong’ on Foxtel-Ten, the Australian newspaper has moved to defend their position while using the publication to lobby ACCC boss Rod Sim.

The competition watchdog has outlined “preliminary competition concerns” about Foxtel’s proposed acquisition of a stake in Ten Network, postponing its decision until next month. Now News Corporation is rallying the advertising industry to help them overcome concerns. 

The main accusation levelled against the ACCC’s 22-page statement of issues is that the investment significantly overstates the power of a Foxtel-Ten merger, while underestimating the impact of overseas-based tech giants such as Google and Facebook, whose local operations are dramatically altering market dynamics by aggressively targeting TV advertising dollars.

News Corp claims that advertising executives representing more than $10 billion of media billings in the Australian market have strongly rejected claims by the competition watchdog that a sales alliance between Foxtel and Ten Network will ?lessen competition.

A survey by The Australian of the nation’s biggest media agencies, whose clients apportion more than 75 per cent of annual advertising expenditure, has found there is overwhelming opposition to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s preliminary findings.

The regulator has outlined concerns the proposed acquisitions “may lessen competition” in the supply of advertising services, and result in increased prices for agencies and their clients – a suggestion denounced as “flawed” and “wrong” by agencies.

Agency chief executives expressed surprise at what they see as the ACCC’s narrow charac?terisation of today’s increasingly complicated media world, with some even suggesting it draws too heavily on submissions from complainants including Fairfax Media and Nine Entertainment Company. All the top agencies submitted evidence to the review.

The Australian said that for media agencies, the proposed acquisitions come at a time they are facing mounting pressure from corporations to deliver better prices or risk losing their advertising accounts altogether.

The advertising industry has seen accounts steadily whittled down in recent years as their clients try to offset slow growth in a tough economic environment with cost cuts. With many agencies, at the behest of clients, in an increasingly frugal mood, they want to see more competition in the TV advertising market, which is about one-third of the total Australian advertising market.

The ACCC has set a September 28 deadline for submissions and will announce a final decision on ?October 22.

Clive Peeters Profits Crash 90% Sales Steady

by

Clive Peeters has announced a net operating profit of $1million dollars this is 90% down on the same period in 2007/2008 financial year. It follows a 29% decline by Harvey Norman earlier in the day.

Sales fell 0.2% to $266.7M compared to $267.2M in 2007. Comparable sales declined 10.3%. Net operating costs to sales ratio was 21.8%.

Although Clive Peeters headline sales were only 0.2% below H1 2008, like store sales fell by over 10%, and increased operating costs associated with additional stores and a reduced gross profit margin contributed to the sharp decline in their profits the Company said

Clive Peeters CEO said that he was competing in the worst conditions for 30 years. Managing Director Greg Smith commented “the conditions for big ticket discretionary retail over H1 2009 have been more challenging than I can recall in my 30 years in this industry.  Consumer sentiment was already at 16 year lows entering the period, and this reflected in floor traffic across all stores and in all States in which we operate being down an average of 10%.  This fed directly into our sales reduction over the half.

The factors which contributed to a sharp slowdown in sales for the fourth quarter of FY 2008 – high interest rates, high fuel costs and depressed housing markets – continued into Q1 2009 and were exacerbated by the global financial sector crash and its resultant credit squeeze mid way through the half year.  The uncertainty caused by these events and fear of job losses have seen consumer confidence fall to record lows”.

Greg Smith added “with sales under significant pressure this caused increased competition and a sharp fall in gross margins over H1 2009 – the Company’s first margin decline in over 15 years, which says a lot about how challenging this retail environment is.

Our net operating cost to sales ratio increased from 20.2% in H1 2008 to 21.8% in H1 2009 but this was largely due to the sales decline over the half and the cost of new stores.  We achieved our objective of reducing underlying operating overheads during H1 2009 by $12m on an annualised basis, and with a continued focus on operating costs we intend to remove at least another $9m of annualised costs in stages over H2 2009.  The full annualised impact of these combined cost savings will be reflected in FY 2010.

The Company realised that with the sharp slowdown in big ticket discretionary retail sales in Q4 2008 the environment was certain to deteriorate more over H1 2009, and we acted quickly and decisively to reduce our operating costs.  We also reduced inventory levels by $21m over the period.  The inventory run down improved our cash flow and strengthened the liquidity of our Balance Sheet.”

 

Commenting on the Company’s Sydney operation, Greg Smith announced “we are pleased that there is continued improvement coming through in that State despite the very depressed New South Wales retail conditions.  Sales in H1 2009 fell 7.6% on the corresponding period of the previous year, the best performance of our eastern states operations.  Our operating costs in Sydney were managed very carefully over the period and the final result was $1.6 million net operating loss after tax for H1 2009.  This compared to the H2 2008 Sydney loss of $1.8 million after tax, and to the H1 2008 Sydney loss of $2.6m after tax, so we are encouraged by this trend.

We were pleased that despite lower purchases in line with the inventory reduction programme which caused a loss of $4m of rebates over the half we were able to convert a Q1 2009 Operating Loss into an operating profit before tax for Q2 2009 of $3.2m.  The result would have been further improved were it not for industry shortages in Panel TV stocks which emerged because of the strong sales uplift across the Industry in the month of December.”

Greg Smith stated “these times demand strict management of inventories and cash flows, and we are doing well in these two areas.  Capital expenditure is under a tight hold, and no new stores are committed to or planned for calendar year 2009.

However on a positive note our pilots for kitchen and bathroom renovations (Moorabbin and Thomastown) and for a range of new technology, software and gaming product (Moorabbin) have both been launched in recent months and are showing promising early results.  We expect these product and services innovations to represent a platform for like stores sales growth as we roll them out to other stores when the retail cycle improves.

Lenovo Profits Slump As OZ Market Gets Tough

by

Lenovo who are under pressure in both Australia and global markets has reported a second-quarter loss of A$1.02 Billion despite sales growing 16%.

The loss was primarily attributed to write downs associated with the recent acquisition of the Motorola business, without the write-downs profits would have been A$237 million. 

In Australia Lenovo management are using carriers to push the Motorola brand with Vodafone set to run TV advertising for the Lenovo owned Company running into the peak Christmas buying period.

According to Lenovo Australia CEO Matt Codrington the Company has grown their consumer business while winning new contracts in the SMB and education markets.

Despite the wins Codrington claims that the market for PC’s is “tough” and is not getting any easier. 

Last year’s acquisition of IBM’s server business and Motorola smartphone units is dragging down Lenovo’s slowing, yet profitable, PC business. 

Job cuts and a shift away from aggressive competition in China will help the company meet its stated timeline to turn the smartphone unit profitable, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing said.

“We significantly grew our smartphone business in the rest of the emerging markets, that’s our strategy,” Yang said in a phone interview after the earnings announcement. “We know our China competition is too fierce, so we just shift our focus.”

The shares closed almost 6 percent higher at a three-month high of HK$7.70. They remain down about 25 percent for the year.
Motorola Turnaround

Lenovo is committed to meeting the goal of turning the smartphone business profitable in the next one to two quarters, or six quarters after acquiring the Motorola brand, Yang said Thursday. It will be more aggressive in boosting market share in mature markets such as the U.S. and Europe next year, he said.

Yang is “more confident” the enterprise business, which was bolstered by the purchase of a unit from IBM last year, will reach its target for $5 billion in annual sales within a year of that acquisition, he said.

Revenue for the period climbed to $12.2 billion, compared with estimates for $11.8 billion. Sales in China dropped by 12 percent from a year earlier, it said.

“Revenue was ahead as Lenovo shipped more smartphones than expected, but recurring profit appears to be slightly below what consensus numbers implied,” Jefferies Inc. analyst Ken Hui wrote in a note after the earnings announcement.

OZ Consumers Set To Get Big US Black Friday Discount Deals From Newegg

by

Newegg, the giant US online tech retailer who is now operating a web site in Australia has moved to deliver US Black Friday deals to Australian customers.

Already one of the cheapest online sites for tech gear Newegg said that more than 260 “deeply discounted” products will be available to Australian customers over the next four days. 

“Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days in America and we want to share some of the deals with our friends in Australia,” said James Wu, COO of Newegg. “To that end, Newegg will offer hundreds of great deals before, during and after Black Friday, giving bargain-hunters the opportunity to get a jump on their holiday shopping.”

Newegg has long been the destination of choice for tech aficionados, and this Black Friday the company will offer amazing deals for video game enthusiasts, DIY makers and anyone else seeking great prices on the best tech products. Newegg Australia’s Black Friday sale is on now and continues through Cyber Monday on Nov. 30. 

Whether shopping from home or on the go, Newegg’s desktop, mobile and app-based shopping experience is second to none. For more information and to stay up-to-date on the latest deals from Newegg, visit http://www.newegg.com.au.

Hewlett Packard + Toshiba PC’s The Least Dependable Claims Repair Group

by

Toshiba and Hewlett Packard PC’s are the least dependable when it comes to PC failures according to a report by a Company that repairs tens of thousands of PC’s every year.

The most reliable of the PC’s sold in Australia are Apple and Lenovo followed by Asus Dell and Acer.

US national IT support provider Rescuecom prepared the report based on calls to their own call centre.

The Company said that Toshiba and HP PC’s failed at a rate that far exceeded their market share.

Both HP and Toshiba Australia have not commented on the report.

Refering to the leaders in the poll the Company said “Each of these companies manufactures some of the best performing computer and mobile devices” the company said.

At the other end of the spectrum Toshiba and last-place HP are seeing their products discounted at Dick Smith while both Apple and Lenovo are proving popular at Harvey Norman and JB Hi Fi.

The most dependable PC range in the US was the Samsung PC which was withdrawn from the Australian market earlier this year. 
 
Rescuecom said “It will be interesting to see if Samsung and Apple continue to keep their top rankings or if some contenders will apply new technological innovations in order to claim their coveted positions.”

EXCLUSIVE: Kogan Tipped To Be Interested In Dick Smith Name + Online Operation

by

Kogan the online retailer is believed to be a bidder for the Dick Smith name and web site.

According to sources the Melbourne based online retailer, who is tipped to be looking at doing an online float, has approached the receivers of the failed business to buy the Dick Smith name and online business.

Ruslan Kogan the founder of the Kogan web site has not commented on the claim. 

According to the AFR, Kogan is working with investment banks UBS and Canaccord Genuity, who are readying the company for a $300 million initial public offering in the second half of this year.
 
The acquisition of the Dick Smith online business which is believed to be profitable would be a major coupe for Kogan who primarily sells house brand products and grey imported branded products.

Kogan claims his sales are currently around $250 million, the addition of the Dick Smith brand name and web site operation would allow him to use his current back end billing and inventory control systems across both a Kogan and Dick Smith web site or he could simply stop trading as Kogan and operate as Dick Smith online. 

Last year Kogan like Dick Smith joined forces with Vodafone Hutchison Australia to launch a new mobile service that sells low-cost services with 3G data.
Dick Smith was a major partner with Vodafone.

The IPO plans come after Kogan previously had KPMG Corporate Finance in its corner testing buyer interest for a stake in the business. At the time, it was Kogan’s goal to reach $2 billion in annual turnover by 2017.

Netgear Gets Into Phone Business

by

Netgear and Skype, the Web-based calling company which is a unit of eBay has launched a wireless mobile telephone for Skype. No pricing is available but the device will be launched in Australia by mid 2006.

The Netgear Wi-Fi phone is designed to work wherever a consumer is connected to a wireless Internet access point — at home, in an office, cafe, public hotspot, or in cities where wireless access may be available citywide, the companies said. By contrast, existing Skype phones, including cordless models, must be connected to a computer.

 Patrick Lo the CEO of Netgear told SHN that the device will be sold by traditional IT resellers as well as telecommunication resellers.  Griek Spierkel the CEO of Ingram Micro said” In Australia Ingram Micro are well positioned to take a product like this on as we have both a telco and IT reseller distribution operation”.


Click to enlarge

A variety of telephone makers including Cisco’s Linksys, are seeking to cash in on the Web-based calling craze popularized by Skype, first in Europe and Asia and now Australia.

Users can make free domestic and international calls and hold conference calls with other Skype users. Calls to regular phones incur a small fee. “Customers can now call anyone on Skype, anywhere in the world for free without using a PC anytime they are connected to Wi-Fi,” said Patrick Lo, Netgear’s chairman and chief executive in a statement issued ahead of a press conference at the Consumers Electronics Show underway in Las Vegas this week.

An October report from Jupiter Research predicted that 20.4 million  US households will subscribe to some form of Internet-based broadband phone service by 2010.

The Netgear phone is pre-loaded with Skype’s software. The user simply needs to turn on the phone and enter a username and password. The software pulls up the user’s full contact list of Skype contacts to whom free calls can be made.

More information on Netgear’s Skype Wi-Fi phone, including pricing and availability, is planned for the first quarter of 2006, the companies said.

In addition to the Skype Wi-Fi phone, Netgear and Skype said Netgear’s RangeMax wireless network router will be optimized to work with Skype.

RangeMax is designed to avoid interference from neighboring wireless networks and to eliminate “dead spots” that can prevent consistent connections around a house.