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Marie Jones

Woolworths Gets Into Bed With Qantas

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Woolworths is to launch an Everyday Rewards Qantas credit card next week which will carry a low annual fee of $89. The card is said to be one of the best value frequent flyer reward cards in the market offering customers one Qantas Frequent Flyer point for every $1 spent in stores accepting Mastercard.


Customers shopping at participating Woolworths Group stores will also be able to turbo charge their Qantas Frequent Flyer points for the same spend by earning points for each dollar spent both with the Qantas credit card, and for each dollar spent over $30 by having their Everyday Rewards card scanned for the same transaction. 

General Manager of Woolworths Everyday Rewards, Peter Burgan said: “The Woolworths Everyday Rewards loyalty card program has gone from strength to strength with more than 5.4 million registered members, of whom 3 million have also registered to earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points.”

“Woolworths is firmly focused on providing the best possible value to customers across all our brands and services, whether it’s a basket of groceries, a mobile phone plan or a rewards credit card. Since the launch of the Woolworths Everyday Rewards program, millions of our customers have come to value Qantas Frequent Flyer points and this credit card offers them a simple way to receive even more value from everyday purchases,” Mr Burgan said.

Qantas Frequent Flyer Chief Executive, Simon Hickey, said: “Qantas Frequent Flyer is committed to making it as easy as possible for our members to earn points and providing them with as many ways as possible to use those points. The Woolworths Everyday Rewards Qantas credit card is another great way our members can earn points by doing their everyday shopping.”

 

The Woolworths Everyday Rewards Qantas credit card features include a 24/7 concierge service, up to 55 days interest free on purchases, an interest rate of 19.99% on purchases with 5.99% p.a for six months on balance transfers, and no points capping or points expiry while the Qantas Frequent Flyer account remains active. Members will also be able to apply for a free additional cardholder.


New customers also save themselves the Qantas Frequent Flyer Membership of $82.50, and those who apply before 31 January 2011 and make an eligible purchase by 31 March 2011 will also receive 16,000 bonus Qantas Frequent Flyer points.

The Woolworths Everyday Rewards credit card is Woolworths’ second credit card product and the latest in a suite of value-focused financial services products.

General Manager of Woolworths Financial Services Dhun Karai said: “Woolworths has already rolled out a number of successful financial services initiatives which customers have embraced. Our financial services offer now spans credit cards, gift cards, prepaid single use and reloadable prepaid cards and one of Australia’s largest networks of ATMs.”

The Woolworths Everyday Rewards Qantas credit card is backed by HSBC, MasterCard and Qantas.
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Competition Driving Healthy Revenues For VoIP

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Increased competition in the voice over internet protocol (VoIP) market is driving revenue growth with businesses are ramping up their investments in VoIP technologies both on customer premises equipment (CPE) and hosted VoIP, according to new data from ABI Research.

Both CPE vendors and hosted VoIP service providers are using product differentiation, attractive pricing and improved customer service to win and keep customers. As a result, the integrated unified communications suites market, which was adversely affected by the GFC, is poised to see consistent growth to reach revenues of $4.8 billion by 2015, says ABI Research.

Asia Pacific and North America are the two most aggressive regions using hosted VoIP deployments.

IP PBX vendors are expected to ship just over 35 million IP lines (including native IP and hybrid lines) worldwide during 2010. IP telephony shipments will continue to see robust growth throughout the forecast period as enterprise communications systems converge on the IP platform.

In the North American market, hosted VoIP services are buoyed by an additional set of drivers including the slow economic recovery, employee mobilization, and a more distributed workforce. 
 
“Senior analyst Subha Rama says: “Even large businesses that traditionally shied away from hosted services for mission-critical communications are deploying hybrid models, experimenting with hosted services in smaller doses.” 

Practice director, Dan Shey, said: “Hosted VoIP is a ‘safe investment’ and offers flexibility for businesses in a slow, uncertain economic recovery. Consequently, hosted IP PBX services are expected to finish the year with a 15.3% increase in revenue to $3.4 billion, worldwide. Besides North America, Asia-Pacific will also be aggressive with hosted VoIP deployments.”
 

Smartphones Set To Drive Mobile Shopping: Survey

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Nearly half of smartphone users say they have already, or soon will, use their phones to do mobile shopping, and 53 percent also use, or intend to use their smartphones for mobile banking, according to a new survey of 2000 consumer technology users in the US.

A senior analyst at ABI Research, which conducted the study, said there are indications that mobile commerce is finally achieving mass market appeal in the US because of its widespread use among even those with non-smart mobile phones.

Mark Beccue from ABI, said: “These are very exciting findings for merchants and service providers promoting mobile commerce,” says senior analyst Mark Beccue.  “It’s not just smartphone owners: non-smartphone mobile users’ interest in mobile banking and commerce services is also on the rise, with 17 percent of non-smartphone users surveyed using or intending to use mobile banking services.”

“These findings are part of a larger picture which quantifies smartphone users’ consistently higher use of a wide range of activities and features, from mobile browsing through multimedia to navigation,” notes primary research director Janet Wise. “Smartphone users behave differently. They score higher for all these activities ‘because they can’ (their devices are capable), and also because they have the money, resources, and time to do all these things.”

Among other trends identified, advertising is also said to be a growing attraction for mobile phone users. Mobile market strategies practice director Neil Strother said: “About one third of smartphone owners surveyed … have clicked on at least one mobile advertisement.”

ABI Research’s “Consumer Technology Barometer: Mobile (Q3 2010)” was also conducted to provide dynamic insight into the constantly changing US consumer mobility market. In addition to phones, it analyses consumers’ use of MP3 or portable media players, satellite radios, standalone digital cameras, digital camcorders/video recorders and portable video game devices.

Domains Strike A .Au Goldrush

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What’s in a name? Quite a lot it seems, as companies rush in to the mis-spelt arena buying up domain names that look vaguely similar to their own.

According to Smh.com.au, big Australian companies such as Qantas, Westpac, Woolworths and Australia Post are buying up mis-spelled domain names in an effort to stop others from making money from their brands.

Domain registrations including qantas.com.au spelt with a ‘u’, woolworths.com.au spelt without the ‘s’, or a missed ‘r’ in australiapost.com.au have been snapped up by Qantas, Woolworths and Australia Post to enable their customers to get access to their website and prevent ‘typosquatters’ from getting their first.

The SMH report claims the Internet regulator, Australian Domain Name Administrator (auDA), has a list of more than 1900 domain names on its List of Prohibited Misspellings including bigpong.com.au, fightcentre. com.au, kommbank.com.au and wirlpoo.com.au., which can net illicit ‘domainers’ $20 per click from advertisements that are run on the sites.

Savvy companies like Zoupon, a group buying website, have also just paid $100,000 for the domain name deals.com.au because its 400,000 customers have issues with the name Zoupon when trying to access a website that offered deals, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The auDA recently sought public comment on a range of policies relating to the management and operation of the Internet in Australia, including whether restrictions on registrants being Australians should remain in place.

 

 

 

ACMA Crunches Numbers For VoIP

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New rules came into effect this week that will allow VoIP Services to charge customers for use of the service based on geographic areas.

ACMA (the Australian Communications and Media Authority) said it has changed the geographic numbering rules, such as those with 02, 03 or 08 area codes, which will now be issued to customers using outbound VoIP services.

The move removes limitations on outbound only services (including VoIP) and provides a framework governing the use of geographic numbers when used for services outside their normal area.

‘The introduction and uptake of new services such as VoIP has challenged the relevance of parts of the Numbering Plan, which dated back to 1997, to meet industry and consumer needs,’ said ACMA Acting Chairman, Mr. Richard Bean.

‘The implementation of these amendments represents a small but important step in regulatory transition for VoIP and other converged services. It will support innovation in the new telecommunications services being offered to Australian consumers,’ he said.

While VoIP services have been available in Australia for some time, the new rules give VoIP providers more certainty about how numbers can be used and what information they must provide to consumers if the geographic numbers are issued to customers out of area.

ACMA is currently examining a range of emerging numbering issues and has already released two issues papers, most recently customer location information and numbering data.

 

Increasing pressures on numbering include the dominace of mobile phones and the move by consumers  to move away from fixed lines to dynamic services.

The growth of IP-based voice services, and widespread use of alternative communications which don’t use numbering at all, including chat and social network services, is having an impact on location data required by emergency services.

One of ACMA’s challenges is in finding out how the numbering plan could be used to provide accurate and dynamic location information to emergency services in an all-IP environment.

Bing Lee And Harris Technology To Sell ViewPad

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With a deluge of tablets due to enter the Australian market this year, and tablets become the must-have gadget in 2011, ViewSonic has announced retail and reseller partners who will take its 7 inch and 10 inch ViewPad tablet PCs to market.


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Bing Lee is stocking the tablets at its 45 retail stores nationally, while Harris Technology will resell the products to small and medium sized businesses and home business market  both online and through its 5 nationwide outlets.

ViewSonic launched the ViewPad late last year, but the race is on for a share of the consumer dollar, with several other manufacturers lining up to release their tablets this year. ViewSonic cranked up the rivalry however, by launching the tablets – a  7-inch Android tablet and a 10-inch tablet that runs on both Windows 7 and Android.

While the strategy for the 7-inch tablet is clear, the marketplace for the 10-inch model appears to be clouded with issues as the device has to compete with the iPad which at this stage has a better screen and faster processor.

William Tse, Country Manager at ViewSonic Australia, said: “The tablet market is on the rise with growth anticipated to at least double within the next 12 months. With the support of partners like Bing Lee and Harris Technology we are able to distribute the ViewPad to the wider community.

“Bing Lee and Harris Technology are leading Australian retail and IT specialist operators and we are thrilled to have the ViewPad ranged in their stores,” he added.
 
The ViewPad 7 has a slim 11.5 millimetres form factor and weighs just 375 grams load, with a 7 inch multi-touch screen. It eliminates the need for additional electronic devices, integrating unique and innovative tasks such as full mobile phone functionality, computing and gaming, along with e-book capabilities, and is powered by Google’s Android 2.2 operating system.

 

Ritchie Djamhur, IT Buyer at Bing Lee, said: “We see the ViewPad as a definite contender in the fast rising tablet category. In particular, Android devices are boosting its share of tablet PCs as it is cost effective, just as intuitive and easy to navigate. Many apps are being ported to multiple platforms, so it is getting easier to find applications appearing on both the Android Marketplace and the Apple iTunes App Store.”

Andrew Whiting, National Merchandise Manager at Harris Technology, said: “Harris Technology is committed to providing leading technology products. We cater predominantly to small-to-medium businesses and early adopters and the ViewPad 10 is an ideal product for this segment. It represents an optimised mobile experience with Google Android or the familiar Microsoft Windows for dynamic business users demanding high end requirements.”

No doubt other retailers, resellers and telecommunications companies won’t have to wait long as ViewSonic says it intends to announce new distribution partners as soon as they come on board.

The ViewPad will retail at  $699 for the 7-inch and $799 for the 10-inch model.
 

 

 

 

 

IBM Gains OZ Clients As Cloud Adoption Soars

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IBM says its Cloud services are increasingly being adopted by businesses across the world, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia.

Following recent IDC research showing worldwide spending on Cloud services will grow almost threefold, reaching $44.2 billion by 2013.1, IBM announced two new partnerships for its LotusLive email, Web conferencing, social networking and collaboration cloud service.

The company is to work with Ariba and SugarCRM to help its clients take advantage of social commerce and customer relationship management (CRM) in the Cloud.

As well as the ABS and Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia, new clients include C&D Foods, Crawford & Company, FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, General Milling Corporation and General Motors Components Holdings.

“With the increased interest and adoption, businesses across the world are embracing IBM’s public Cloud services for easy-to-use collaboration tools to connect with colleagues, partners and suppliers quickly,” the company said in a statement.

Additionally, according to a recent IBM survey of more than 2,000 midsize companies, there’s growing adoption of Cloud computing among midsize firms, with two-thirds either planning or currently deploying cloud-based technologies to improve IT systems management while lowering costs.

Organisations including the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia have adopted LotusLive Engage to drive increased collaboration across geographically distributed teams.

The ABS adopted LotusLive across its 3,200 person organisation for increased project collaboration with other international statistical agencies. 

LotusLive Engage allows its international project teams to quickly share skills and intellectual property and assets, design and co-develop statistical standards and applications — all within a secure, cost-effective environment that LotusLive provides.

 

Additionally, the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia integrates more than 90 zoos and aquariums across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific in a network for wildlife conservation, environmental education and wildlife research. 

Its main activity is the Australasian Species Management Program (ASMP) which has a mission “to plan and manage animal collections cooperatively, in ways that promote sustainability and contribute to species conservation.”

The Association has adopted LotusLive Engage as its collaboration platform to support more than a 100 species programs that involve teams implementing best practice policy across the region.

The Association says it has found the platform to be secure and easy to use and a good way of disseminating current information and collecting feedback.