Fortunately, Telecom showed the way this week, with its announcement of a partnership with SAP. The deal means that Telecom's Gen-i division can offer more than 300 business applications that run over smartphones.

It follows Gen-i trialling 4G with its business customers, so it is heartening to see the technology being put to a worthy use. Certainly, it appears as though Telecom/Gen-i is pushing more for the business user, while Vodafone focuses more on the consumer.

You can only wonder which market might deliver the most, something that Vodafone should consider when we hear that it keeps losing customers.

The smartphone market is clearly booming, with one survey claiming that ownership of smartphones in New Zealand has nearly doubled over the past year. And once users have a smartphone, their use of data multiplies.

Organisations as diverse as the police are now using them in their work. And the country's dairy farmers will soon have applications to help them with their calving.

Meanwhile, the "4G wars" continue, and this week saw reports that Vodafone's 4G coverage has begun in Queenstown and Glenorchy.

The holiday capital of New Zealand, which has a growing number of finance firms, a population of rich and influential residents, plus masses of tourists, was an understandable choice for an early rollout.

But why the little township of Glenorchy at the far end of Lake Wakitipu, around a 30- to 40-minute drive from Queenstown? I can only wonder whether those marketeers at Vodafone are planning some alone time.

You might recall Telecom's XT system collapsing a few years back. When it was working again, its then boss Dr Paul Reynolds featured in a notable commercial, showing him fly fishing by a river, using his repaired 3G network. That ad was filmed just outside Glenorchy.

Perhaps right now, Vodafone boss Russell Stanners is practicing his casting for a follow-up ad.

I say this as I note that both New Zealand and Australia have had their budgets declared in the past week.

They presented a nice example of compare and contrast, along with claims that despite our earthquakes and lack of a mining boom, New Zealand might be in a better position financially than Australia.

As spendthrift Australia finally discovers prudence, with it having to cut the Budget for its flagship National Broadband Network (NBN), New Zealand is pressing ahead as before with our Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) equivalent, and even found extra cash for science and innovation.

It rejigged the various grant schemes, and raised the prospect of tax breaks for R&D — something of a u-turn, considering the National-led government abolished them after it came to power in 2008.

The new programs also allow the government to claw back support when grant recipients are sold to overseas interests, something that is only fair, and an issue that has caused controversy in the past.

The moves to encourage investment in R&D are welcome, but are they enough?

Rod Drury, the chief executive of accounting software company Xero, came up with his own "alternative Budget".

In it, he called for government funding for a Trans-Tasman fibre cable, a merging of the IT and broadcasting ministerial portfolios, a provincial call centres initiative, an internet privacy zone, allowing extra IT-skilled immigrants, and other initiatives.

The government can always do more to help the tech sector, but the road to hell is always paved with good intentions.

Rod Drury was behind the Pacific Fibre project, but Telecom NZ and Vodafone are now pushing ahead with their own cable, so government intervention is not needed.

The government's pension funds actually looked at the Pacific Fibre proposal, and found that the business case did not stack up.

And as I said before, Rod Drury and others had plenty of opportunity to put their money where their mouths are, instead of putting their wealthy hands into the pockets of hard-pressed New Zealanders.

With government grants, there always remains the risk of corruption, as governments support their supporters with taxpayer funds. This is a common problem in the US, it seems, though I have heard similar allegations also made regarding the UK and its government's support for "green" energy.

In New Zealand, we see that without much government support, though targeted grants at innovation are increasing, a policy of what you might call benign neglect seems to be working.

Should the government intervene radically, I doubt the IT sector would be able to cope with any sudden upsurge in demand for IT staff, for example.

In previous years, I have felt that our National-led government was too timid in tackling the "Decade of Deficits" that it inherited from Helen Clark, akin to what Tony Abbott faces if elected this year.

But as the IMF and others are discovering, New Zealand's economy is ticking along quite nicely, and so is its tech sector, as I have reported many times before.

There hasn't been any dramatic initiatives, but boring seems to be working, despite uncertain times globally.

Rod Drury and others are right in raising issues and coming up with proposals. Like this month's software patent announcement, they sometimes become government policy.

Rod Drury won't get his government-supported Trans-Tasman cable, but he can take heart at the increasing support that government is giving to science and innovation, with software a major beneficiary.

As his billion-dollar company, Xero, has yet to make a profit, its tax burden will be nothing. Despite his own burgeoning personal wealth, Xero has benefited from government grants.

Neither Finance Minister Bill English nor his budgets are exciting, but they have put New Zealand back on the right track, and we have a pragmatic government still open to ideas on how to make the economic boat go faster, along with how tech might power it.

But in an about turn yesterday, the New Zealand government decided that patents would be unenforceable for software. And the country's software industry applauded it.

It seems that patents are more trouble than they are worth. Registering patents and enforcing them is such a costly process, especially for the smaller firms that New Zealand tends to have.

In the United States, we see the costly effects of patent law. There is a huge battle going on between Samsung and Apple over who copied what on their smartphones, and no-one is benefiting bar the lawyers who are earning millions of dollars in fees.

Governments also say that this legal stoush is damaging to consumers, and I am sure both parties would be better off spending money on innovation and creation than in legal bills.

More significant is the effects of so-called patent trolls, organisations that buy up a patent, and then use that patent to extract a demand from a company doing something similar to what your patent covers.

Thus, we hear that patent law stifles development, and no wonder there are efforts in the US to tackle patent trolls and make it easier for firms to challenge patents in the software sector.

New Zealand software companies have said that existing patent laws act as a deterrent when they are conducting research.

Removing patent law will remove this legal uncertainty.

Overseas, one study has claimed that patents in the software industry have cost the US economy half a trillion dollars since 1990.

A US book called Patent Failure said that in the late 1990s, patents resulted in payments to software patent holders of $100 million a year, but the litigation costs were $3.88 billion.

Of course, there still needs to be some protection of intellectual property.

It appears that copyright law will be sufficient, as it is more clearly defines what is actually copied, compared to the more conceptual basis typically used by patents.

And that is the view of New Zealand's IT companies, who are doing quite nicely, recruiting staff and exporting more.

IT lawyer Guy Burgess highlighted a comment from Orion Health. It says that the best way to protect your intellectual property is to innovate, and innovate fast.

New Zealand has many innovative companies, such as Orion Health, Jade Corporation, and Xero, who are investing millions, innovating fast, and keeping ahead of the game, fully aware they effectively have no software protection.

But they can still apply for it in overseas markets should they ever feel the need for it.

Furthermore, New Zealand will also benefit from software companies migrating from Canada and elsewhere to our country for what I dare say is a patently freer and easier environment for them.

Looking at all these benefits, it certainly seems that having no patents was certainly a no brainer of a decision from the New Zealand government yesterday. It is surprising that it took them so long.

New Zealand has an archaic 20-year-old system that can barely cope with the needs of today — and according to government briefing papers, the current system is on the brink of collapse.

The IRD's systems and culture are also so inefficient, half of its data entry staff are engaged full-time in correcting the data entries made by the other half.

Furthermore, at the time of the last Budget, Finance Minister Bill English said that he could not make any major changes to the country's tax system because the IRD's IT system would not be able to cope with them.

It all seems unbelievably shambolic, but it gets worse. An upgrade could take 10 years or more, according to the revenue minister, and the precise cost is also unclear.

Mr Dunne also said that the role of the IRD had expanded since the current computer system was set up in 1991. Since then, as well as administering the tax system, the IRD now has to manage and administer a share of social policy programmes, like Kiwisaver, student loans, child support, working for families, family tax credits, and paid parental leave.

His comments sparked debate on the need for taxes to be kept simple to make IT systems cheaper. Rod Drury of accountancy software company Xero also argued that New Zealand could develop its own system far cheaper itself, instead of farming out the work to overseas consultants as the government looks set to.

There was also debate on how the costs of government IT projects tend to explode. Indeed, it was only last year that Prime Minister John Key spoke of the IRD computer upgrade as a $1 billion project.

It is bizarre and ridiculous that the situation could be allowed to get as dire as it has.

It is a pity, perhaps, that with the system on the verge of collapse — it crashed yesterday — that there probably is no time to see if New Zealand cannot realistically develop its own solution.

Using outside consultants or foreign bought software is risky, too, as the government has also experienced from the Novopay system for paying teachers. This Australian-sourced system ordered by the former Labour government has suffered repeated failure as it cannot cope with the complex system New Zealand has for paying its teachers.

But is $1.5 billion so outrageous after all, even if it amounts to more than $300 for every Kiwi resident in New Zealand?

ANZ Australia this week said that it was spending A$1.5 billion on its technology for a million or so users, which suggests that IT projects are certainly never cheap.

The only moral from this mess can only be that we must keep our tax and payments systems simple, even if thwarting the ambitions of politicians who keep developing complicated policy initiatives might appear undemocratic.

Keeping it simple would keep our costs down and help systems work, even giving us the ability to develop our own software instead of using consultants or products from abroad.

Novopay and now the IRD confirms the cost of complexity.

Xero, that booming accountancy software company whose record share price last week gave the company a $1.6 billion valuation, has announced that it will pay new recruits a $10,000 bonus.

The company has recruited a couple of hundred in recent years, doubling in size, and now it plans to take on 200-300 more this year.

The move follows Google New Zealand's boss Tony Keusgen saying that the country is "crying out" for skilled ICT workers.

Such a shortage, he told a recent conference, will prevent New Zealand from making the most of its ultrafast broadband investment and other technological infrastructure.

Keusgen also said that to help out, Google was working with the University of Auckland and running courses to help people get these new digital jobs.

Other New Zealand firms, like Orion Healthcare and the website Trade Me, are also suffering from skills shortages.

Offering cash incentives will send the right market signals in due course, and I am sure the stories in the papers about them will have been noted by many, who might now see ICT as a career option.

But it usually takes time to train people, and such bounties might create an upward spiral in wages that could hamper the country's competitive software sector. It is also a beggar thy neighbour policy where Xero gains at the expense of other software companies.

Last month, I suggested scholarships and bonding, and now we have another potential solution known as "boot camps".

These are intensive courses that can train people up in a matter of weeks.

The linked example costs around $13,000, and already, its graduates are moving into careers paying double what they earned before.

This seems a far more cost-effective option all round.

University and similar ICT courses can cost the earth, and the prospect of a student loan running into tens of thousands of dollars often acts as a deterrent to study. "Boot camps" seem a way to keep a lid on this debt, and is also much quicker.

Sending some of the more skilled unemployed on such courses might be worthwhile for the taxpayer, too.

I have an unemployed mate, a former call centre staffer, who would be ideal for such a course, especially if Work and Income New Zealand paid for his course.

Indeed, the "boot camp" philosophy has already been adopted in other areas.

Nearly every gym in existence seems to offer their own "boot camp" experience, claiming to get you fit within a matter of weeks.

Let's see these IT "boot camps" flourish in New Zealand. That way, we too can also have a fitter and stronger ICT sector, and a healthier New Zealand economy all-round.

New Zealand's incumbent telco has been having a busy time with announcements concerning 4G, Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB), and mass redundancies.

This week, a Computerworld NZ editorial spoke of a "reinvention" of Telecom. Editor Sarah Putt opined how the company is making fresh appointments at the highest level, it is building major datacentres, and has been eyeing up a purchase of hosting company Revera.

But this is barely the start of it. Dig deeper, and you will see that Telecom is planning something of a strategic overhaul, a major shift in company direction.

It was about this time last year when it was announced that Simon Moutter would be Telecom's new CEO, in place of Paul Reynolds, though he didn't formally take up the role until several months later.

In his first interviews as CEO, Moutter said he planned a more assertive Telecom, and first mentioned a "strategic plan" that we get to hear about next month.

Moutter had barely got his feet under the table when he delivered a major announcement to end "bill shock" for travellers: That of having fixed daily rates on mobile data.

As I said last year, Simon Moutter is known as a hard man, but he may just be what Telecom needs as it grapples with change brought about by the new structures that regulators forced on it so it could gain a major share of the UFB work, as well as the unbundling of the local loop and related initiatives several years previously.

Indeed, it looks as if Telecom might be in for another split, with the company's chief technology officer saying that Telecom is looking at splitting into two distinct parts, currently dubbed "Servco" and "Netco".

Netco would be responsible for network, technology, and operations, while Servco would comprise the customer-facing businesses; mainly, Gen-i and Telecom Retail.

However, Telecom has since rejected the conclusions of this leaked paper, saying Gen-i and Telecom Retail would remain separate business units, and there would be no head of Servco.

But this is all just the usual restructuring that New Zealand seemingly endures endlessly.

More significant is the shift in company direction that Moutter has trialled in other recent announcements.

In March, Telecom announced a Digital Ventures Team that would look at offering new online services, which might even include a local variant of Netflix.

Here's what Simon Moutter said at the time:

As we have previously announced, Telecom is making a strategic shift to a future oriented, competitive provider of communications, entertainment, and IT services over our networks and the cloud. It won't be enough for us to become just cost competitive, we also need to identify future revenue generating opportunities that are arising in a rapidly changing world. Telecom Digital Ventures is an important step along the way.

A week later, Telecom announced a new chief financial officer, with Moutter saying:

[The CFO] will be a welcome addition to our leadership team as we accelerate our strategic shift to become a future-oriented, competitive provider of communication, entertainment, and IT services delivered over our networks and the cloud.

Indeed, even his early interviews spoke of a new "strategic plan", which we now hear will be revealed to investors on May 16.

Judging by how Moutter has performed, with other announcements including a winding down of Gen-i Australia, it is certain that a reinvention of Telecom is underway. I expect he will have something significant to say on Investor Day, too.

In less than a year, Moutter has made his mark on Telecom, he has put his foot on the business, his hands around its throat.

Reinvention might be too mild a word; it could be nothing short of a revolution.

Among the most successful to date is Xero, an accountancy software company headed by Rod Drury. In just a few years since its first initial public offering (IPO), it has grown into a business with a market cap of more than NZ$1 billion, something seen as a fine example for others to follow.

It is not alone, which is something that led the New Zealand Herald a few days ago to speculate about the prospect of a new "tech IPO boom".

This followed plans by search engine technology company SLi Systems, which said it would seek NZ$27 million in an IPO.

Last week, we also heard how PowerbyProxi won US funding for its wireless charging technology.

Another successful software company, the Wynyard Group, is also considering raising capital on the markets.

The New Zealand government is encouraging this process, and has been a keen supporter for many small IT startups in need of help, assisting them to grow and then list on the markets.

These latest potential listings come as the country gears up for the major semi-privatisation of its electricity sector, something that might well be skittled by a combined Labour-Greens opposition, which finally has sufficient support in some polls to form a government after 2014.

With Labour and the Greens accused of "economic sabotage" for their plans to reform the energy sector, something that already caused share prices of energy firms to collapse amid talk of capital fleeing New Zealand, the tech sector, with its IPOs and other forms of capital raising, might offer investors a safer home in a less politically charged atmosphere.

Of course, investors will have to be wary. Xero's Rod Drury might be making his fortune, but other tech firms can seem like bottomless pits.

Syft Technologies has burnt through NZ$30 million of investors' money, with its boss telling me last week, after his latest capital-raising efforts this month, that the company should finally start making profit.

But with all of this action going on, it does seem like New Zealand is on the verge of a tech IPO boom, and potentially another Dotcom era for all that it entails.

Indeed, with a Mega listing also on the cards, it could be a new Dotcom era in more ways than one.

Update: This article previously stated that Xero's revenue was more than NZ$1 billion. This was incorrect, and has been amended to state the company's market cap is over NZ$1 billion.

At the media launch, Telecom bosses spoke for a while about the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI), a sister plan to the New Zealand government's $1.5 billion Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) project.

Telecom and Vodafone are working together to deliver mobile broadband to the rural areas where it won't be economic to supply broadband using fibre. Mobile will be the way, though some of the more isolated areas might even use satellite.

But as also noticed by Paul Brislen, chief executive of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand, 4G's impact on the rural sector could be its forte.

In a couple of blog posts over the past week, Brislen revealed that he has been trialling 4G and seems very happy with it, noting its speed and ability to give clear pictures of the videos he has been watching.

Vodafone and Telecom are installing 4G equipment at sites across the country, helped by a further subsidy from the government under the RBI. Since these rural mobile phone towers and cabinets are likely to receive less customers than urban ones, the speeds delivered to users are likely to be higher.

Furthermore, when the government auctions off the 700MHz frequencies from the increasingly redundant analogue TV network, there will be a further boost to rural broadband.

700MHz is said to cover a greater distance than 1,400Mhz, and hills and other obstacles present less of a problem.

It all means that rural users should be in for some excellent coverage in the next few years, with Vodafone and Telecom competing hard for such customers.

Indeed, with both Vodafone and Telecom now revealing their 4G rollouts, competition between both networks has certainly stepped up, with talk of a "4G war", which can only be good for consumers.

Just a few years back, I posted on how farmers were unhappy at the state of the country's rural broadband. There has been recent commentary about the lack of progress to date, but it is clear that improvement is underway.

Vodafone has a map showing the existing RBI coverage, and it looks like the country's dairy farmers have been the first to receive the RBI. But considering that they are the country's economic backbone, this is the least New Zealand can give them.

In the meantime, it's all go at Telecom. Not only does it have its 4G rollout to contend with, but it also has what appears like further restructuring from its boss Simon Moutter, plus a prospective Gen-I purchase of Revera, to give it further government contracts.

That such a tragedy could significantly alter the direction of New Zealand's third mobile network was a reflection of the impact that the US-born businessman had on his company before his plane crashed in the seas off New Zealand during the Easter holidays.

Hertz, who died in the accident along with his wife Kathy, won many plaudits for the way he steered 2degrees from being a minor mobile operator to one having more than 1 million customers that transformed the state of competition in the New Zealand telephony marketplace.

True, some of the legwork had been done by the time he joined 2degrees, with former governments laying the groundwork for his company to acquire some of the mobile spectrum more than 10 years previously.

But certainly, the tributes paid by rival telcos, the IT community, and politicians of all persuasions highlighted the calibre of this distinguished and powerful individual. That the American fitted so well into New Zealand life added to the country's sense of sorrow.

Among the tributes, Telecom acknowledged that Hertz had created a "respected competitor". Vodafone credited 2degrees for what "must be the most successful new mobile entrant that the world has ever seen". IT Minister Amy Adams declared that Hertz was "an integral part of the creation and growth of 2degrees".

Indeed, Telecom and Vodafone previously operated New Zealand's telco market as a cosy duopoly, with the country noted for high charges, which were blamed on a lack of effective competition.

Competition is certainly what 2degrees delivered under Hertz, with it helping to reduce mobile calling rates along with bringing cheaper mobile broadband, too, something I am enjoying as a new 2degrees mobile broadband customer (sorry, Vodafone).

Here's what Paul Brislen, CEO of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand had to say when the death of Hertz was first reported.

"It's not overblown to say that Eric has lead 2degrees to make dramatic changes to the New Zealand telecommunications space. Without 2degrees, we would be facing a duopoly in mobile telecommunications and wouldn't have rollover minutes, shared data, or any of the other innovations 2degrees has brought to market.

"The company has changed the landscape of competition for the New Zealand telecommunications market in an incredibly positive way, and we as an industry are all the more poorer for today's news," Brislen said.

Now, after just three or so years, 2degrees has more than 1 million customers and just over a fifth of the New Zealand mobile market.

It's not just through lower prices; 2degrees has even outshone the marketing prowess of Vodafone.

Its name itself reflects its Kiwiness, there being 2 degrees of separation between people in New Zealand's much smaller population, compared to the 6 degrees of separation globally. People see 2degrees as a plucky little Kiwi battler, up against the big boys, even though much of the company's ownership is foreign.

Hertz is credited with the company recruiting comedian Rhys Darby to front 2degrees campaigns, and his popular Kiwi humour has endeared the telco to the country.

However, to date, the company has yet to report profit, though it now claims to be making an operating profit.

On Friday, The New Zealand Herald reported that even though 2degrees has performed better than expected, its business model, which has seen it pick up the least profitable customers, might not be sustainable, and the company might be ripe for takeover. It quoted several analysts who claimed that the future for 2degrees is uncertain.

However, we have been here before. The National Business Review, also on Friday, recalled previous comments from so-called industry experts who predicted very slow growth for 2degrees.

In some cases, 2degrees did in one year what the pessimists predicted would take three.

The owners of 2degrees may well have blown off a reported NZ$500 million in setting up the operation to date, but the telco is moving into profit, if it is not already there. A prospective move into the fixed-line market also promises new opportunities.

No doubt the company will face battles ahead, but the positive legacy of Eric Hertz is so strong that despite a few naysayers, 2degrees will most certainly survive and prosper.

The Institute of IT Professionals in New Zealand, formerly the NZ Computer Society, has launched a bid to create "Chartered IT Professionals" and is now taking its proposals to IT professionals across the country.

The move would put the industry in the same league as engineers and accountants, and would follow similar procedures in the United Kingdom.

The institute's CEO Paul Matthews said the IT industry needs to regulate itself, or else the government will do it instead.

However, in the debate that ensued, there was some sound opposition to the institute's proposals.

Among them is a plethora of industry qualifications, and a fresh one would just add to the confusion. There were also fears about the costs of such qualifications, with them becoming "a nice little earner" for the Institute if IT professionals had to constantly keep sitting exams and paying registration fees as part of their right to continue working in the industry. Another was that this new qualification could act as a barrier to new entrants into the industry, and it might act as a kind of "closed shop".

However, looking at practice overseas, moving to Chartered IT Professionals seems to be the way forward. This is what has been happening outside of New Zealand, and the country does tend to copy what goes on abroad, with a few minor tweaks for local consumption.

The United Kingdom moved toward charterships for IT professionals around 2004, and Ireland followed suit in 2011.

Britain's Institute for Engineering and Technology also offers charterships to its members, and says they help raise and guarantee the standards of its members.

The Institute of Physics in Britain says charterships show that people are committed to continued improvement and training, and that this will boost the employability of such chartered professionals in an increasingly competitive age.

Paul Matthews and his institute have certainly created a proposal of worthy consideration, one which certainly has issues that need addressing, especially those raised by opponents.

Matthews will certainly need to allay those concerns, and he must contact his overseas equivalents to see how they have fared since they introduced charterships.

At least by acting after other countries, New Zealand can learn from experience and avoid making any mistakes that the British and Irish might have made.

The Institute of IT Professionals has come up with a worthy idea to hopefully raise standards in the IT industry and help avoid project failure, but further investigation is obviously needed to see what proposals might work in New Zealand, and also what proposals would gain the necessary consent on IT professionals across New Zealand.

I wish it well in its task, as certainly much still needs to be done to help reduce the costs and numbers of IT project failure in New Zealand. Such an inquiry might also raise other matters that might need addressing, too.

A paper published by Victoria University, Wellington, claims that New Zealanders are spending more than NZ$3 billion on overseas websites, and not only is our government missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars of GST, but this also places our retailers at an unfair disadvantage.

Governments have grappled with this problem before. Australia recently decided that it would, for now, keep its current AU$1,000 tax free limit, despite similar claims that it, too, was losing GST revenue.

In this latest report, we are told that international bodies like APEC, whose members include Australia and New Zealand, could work together and ensure the taxes and customs duties are collected. Online retailers would be given faster customs clearance for their items as a reward for collecting those duties for government.

Certainly this latest proposal, commissioned by book sellers in New Zealand, seems to offer the most promising set of solutions to this GST "problem" that we have seen to date.

However, in the ensuing debate that followed, we can see that problems still remain, and if it is not a case of back to the drawing board, it is certainly one of once more abandoning such tax grabs on grounds of practicality, as well as the economic and political consequences.

As David Farrar at Kiwiblog said today, "retailers need to stop trying to tax us online".

Farrar noted that the costs of trying to intercept every parcel and making its recipient pay GST would far exceed the revenue raised. At present, New Zealand has a limit of several hundred dollars before imports face GST, making it economic to collect such taxes.

Furthermore, how would GST for intangible things like iTunes be paid for? Could the government even stop people making such downloads without taxation?

Would big retailers, such as Amazon, be willing to act as tax collectors for the New Zealand government? Could we even expect small overseas retailers to be a Wellington tax agent, too? Might they find serving the odd New Zealander just too bothersome?

And I am sure that buyer and seller might find some way of overcoming such taxation hurdles as well.

Furthermore, while retailers might bleat at losing such trade to overseas websites, aren't they party to blame themselves for the situation?

Websites offer a much wider range of goods sold, often selling items not available in New Zealand. Items sold on such sites are often far cheaper, too. It is not just the "missing" sales taxes that bring such online sales bargains, but typically economies of scale allowing for far lower prices in the US, the UK, or wherever.

If we have "rip-off retailers", then consumers buying from overseas can help keep them in check.

In New Zealand, we have seen how parallel importing has helped reduce the price of mobile phones. And it is perhaps on this issue of price and competition that government inquiries into technology prices, as seen in Australia, just might well be justified if they truly uncover why overseas goods are cheaper. That the producers are to blame!

But, of course, online retailing is a game all can play. What is there to stop our own retailers from taking on Amazon and similar giants? In New Zealand, we are doing this already. Torpedo7 is a Kiwi site that sells to Australia, too. Why can't it expand further internationally?

This month, we have also seen ecommerce entrepreneur Shane Bradley launch yet another online retailing venture. What is there to stop him from taking it overseas, too?

Rather than seek to hinder such revolution in retail, existing retailers need to come to grips with the situation and let the consumers, and the market, continue to make their choice.

Not only are the retailers' proposals still unworkable and impractical, they also seem keen on stifling technological change and the desires of consumers everywhere.

Various reports note that ICT job vacancies in January up 25 percent on previous months, graduates are in the driving seat, and they and others can look forward to a variety of job offers and pay rises all round.

Yet we hear the constant cries of skills shortages, an issue of major controversy over the Tasman.

Like in Australia, New Zealand firms are helping fill the skills gap with immigrant workers.

New Zealand has been spared the outrage over 457 visa abuse, as highlighted by comments from Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The matter of skill shortages is important, especially as it seems to be a perennial problem, one that never seems to go away.

Just how can countries tackle them?

Last year, when Wellington's Weta Digital needed to bring in several hundred foreigners to help with the technical bits of movie making, New Zealand's opposition Labour Party rightfully raised the issue.

I noted that many employers in New Zealand seemed to be "too picky" in choosing staff and were too keen to see immigrants as a stop-gap, though I did report one case of a skilled immigrant who was unwanted by all. He eventually returned home to Kazakhstan.

We still see skill shortages in ICT, and we still see firms using immigrants as a ready source of labour, with some employers saying that if they cannot get them, they will have to outsource work to overseas.

It seems a no-win situation for the country, especially as it faces unemployment of 7 percent or more, and a major mismatch between the skills people have and the skills employers want.

Certainly this mismatch is something that must be addressed, and that includes action from both the ICT sector and indeed, the government, especially as the latter is a major player in the education and employment of ICT workers.

The ICT sector in New Zealand is making laudable efforts in making ICT appear attractive to schoolkids and helping schools change their curricula to something more relevant to the needs of today.

The government here, in the form of Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce, has also said that he would refuse calls from institutions seeking to reduce ICT student numbers in the face of declining student demand.

The former Labour government under Helen Clark introduced a subsidy to make student loans interest free, a policy a pragmatic National-led government has been forced to continue with ever since.

With the cost of this policy running into the billions of dollars, this has become a major burden to the New Zealand government and taxpayer.

And when times are tough and funds are tight, shouldn't the government paying the piper do more to call the tune?

Under a more free-market system, if people wanted to indulge in degrees and an education that offered little employability, if that cost fell solely on the participants themselves, then so be it.

But if government and the country finds itself forking out for useless degrees or skills, something that both can ill afford, then they must ensure they get a return on their investment.

Countries cannot afford to have significant portions of their population sitting idle, especially when employers are choosing to bring in immigrants instead of recruiting locally, something which also carries a cost to an economy, despite their skills; for instance, Auckland faces immigration pressures on housing.

Instead, to prevent this happening, governments must directly intervene. There should be no "halfway houses", like what we see in New Zealand at present.

I am not arguing that government should control what is taught at the tertiary institutions or controlling student numbers; there does need to be some market/student-led flexibility.

But rather than offer interest-free student loans to all, it should instead ensure that student loans are at market rates, using such savings to offer scholarships in consultation with the ICT sector to help ensure that the areas of greatest need get the most help at the least cost to the country and taxpayer.

This could be coupled with "bonding" to help prevent these graduates taking their skills overseas, something which already happens in our health sector.

This, I am sure, is not only a worthy policy for New Zealand to follow, but perhaps for Australia, too.

I am sure that when the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) brought the case against the soldier under New Zealand's three-strikes "Skynet" law, it did not know that the alleged offender was doing his bit for "Queen and Country". But it does seem to highlight the blundering around in enforcing the legislation. If ever there was a more worthy and "innocent" offender, it would be someone risking his life for his country while it was his flatmates who were doing the offending.

In the debate that ensued following publicity of this latest case, commentators also rightly noted that it is the small guy who is being brought to book rather than any large scale pirates.

Offenders seem to be charged for a few downloads, and for this, they are fined hundreds of dollars — NZ$256 for the latest "offender", the lowest so far.

IT lawyer Rick Shera noted that the copyright offenders are being charged for downloading overseas artists' music too, as if the likes of Rihanna are so destitute that she and her record company need every cent they can get their hands on. Some may recall that when the Skynet Bill was going through its approval processes, one of its aims was to help New Zealand's struggling recording sector and our impoverished artists.

Yet no Kiwi music and artists seems to be involved in any of the cases brought to book so far.

And it all comes as we hear that peer-to-peer downloads are down, and legal methods of making money from online music sales are increasing and becoming mainstream.

You do have to wonder about how RIANZ is conducting itself with the cases it is pursuing. The type of cases that RIANZ is bringing in could well tarnish this law in the court of public opinion, a law it so desperately fought for.

At least there is one clear message to come out of this latest case. No matter how unjust or unfair it might seem, ISP account holders will have to be extra vigilant of those who use their internet.

Just one large corporate — Genesis Energy — admitted that it was part of a new standards body, which has been developed by a number of corporates working with the New Zealand government's National Cybersecurity Centre.

We were not even told how many organisations were involved in setting up these voluntary standards, or even what these standards actually were.

Little was given as to the type of industries involved, other than they involve critical infrastructure, though a Genesis spokesman did say such standards were "available" to oil, gas, water, transport, and other industries.

Of course, the big fear is that if identified, organisations are creating targets for themselves. That hackers seeing a boastful business or government agency claiming to be safe, will look at that entity as a challenge ripe for exploitation and attack. Hence the secrecy, which is typically the case when reporting on ICT security.

If anything, I am reassured to hear that Genesis is so serious about taking security seriously that it has actually stuck its head above the parapet, as it were, to further highlight an issue that affects organisations large and small.

Its candidness will have added to what is a significant issue, one that still needs attention to from other organisations, even though ICT security has been an issue for decades and is something we should all be aware of.

Just last month, the National Cybersecurity Centre reported a 50 percent increase in cybersecurity breaches in New Zealand, more than half originating from overseas, though the 134 incidents reported in 2012 is believed to be an underestimate.

In 2013, New Zealand had also seen breaches ranging from a major incident affecting Telecom NZ and hundreds of thousands of its YahooXtra account users, to small organisations like the Gulf Harbour Yacht Club, the latter of which was one of many small organisations to be apparently hit by Turkish "script kiddies" last week.

Indeed, it is almost certain that all of these victims will have kept their mouths firmly closed about what they do in an attempt to keep themselves safe. But as we see, "No comment" offered no protection. Indeed, I bet the Australian Reserve Bank, the latest major victim of hackers in our part of the world, has been equally silent.

It will be interesting to see if Genesis Energy will be targeted by hackers in the days and weeks to come, and how the power company copes with any such attacks.

How it fares will probably have much impact on the willingness of organisations' ability to talk about security issues in the future and in turn, the industry's ability to openly discuss this important subject.

I wish Genesis Energy well, and I hope it does not come to regret its brave and seemingly unique decision.

The census website had a capacity of 200,000 submissions an hour, and some problems were reported from the rush — but nothing serious.

With almost 2 million already reported to have completed their forms this way, everything seemingly ran smoothly.

This contrasts with the first census in which there was an online option, in 2006, where just 7 percent of respondents filled in their forms online. A five-fold increase certainly shows much progress.

The rush to online compares with an equivalent 30 percent online rate for Australia and a pitiful 16 percent in England and Wales, all of which last staged censuses in 2011.

In another sphere, hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders also communicated with the government over the internet this week.

Already, 150,000 New Zealanders have registered online as showing interest in buying shares in Mighty River Power, a company that the National-led government is selling shares in. Previous share sales will have seen such communication by letter or phone.

And there will be more to come later this month, with the end of the financial year.

The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) will also be bracing itself for a rush of online tax returns from those who earn money on top of their typical pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) wage or salary.

Indeed, they will also be joined by a plethora of online tax refund agencies attempting to claw some of these payments back, a service that has only become commonplace over the past few years.

Thus, this month, we will see millions of New Zealanders using online services to connect with the state, blissfully unaware that they are part of a seemingly invisible transformation to e-government.

It augurs well, as governments everywhere seek to put more services online.

The fact that this buyer is the bargain-basement The Warehouse chain, noted for its omnipresent Red Sheds, highlights this. The Warehouse is an iconic Kiwi mass-market discount retailer, with perhaps the highest profile of all the retailers — but it still saw the need to buy Torpedo7 to expand its online presence and multichannel retailing.

Thus, one of New Zealand's largest retailers felt it had much to learn from a business founded just nine years ago, a business which then launched operations in Australia in 2006, and now employs 200 at its Hamilton headquarters.

In addition to its sports sales, Torpedo7 also operates its own daily deals website, 1-day, another sector where maturity is also occurring.

The same is true in the online auction sector, where newspaper giant APN, which now owns the dominant GrabOne daily deals website, announced over the weekend that it would close its Sella auction website, the largest rival to New Zealand's Trade Me behemoth.

With APN owning GrabOne and Sella, and Fairfax part owning Trade Me and its sister Treat Me, it's clear to see how old media has mixed with online sales, further confirming how mainstream ecommerce has become.

But back to my other point about the "rich pickings" to be made for a bright idea.

The Warehouse will be making an immediate NZ$20 million payout for Torpedo7, which could eventually rise to NZ$33 million, should certain targets be met.

Still largely owned by twenty-something Luke Howard-Willis and his father — Torpedo7 announced a "strategic sale" of 15 percent to Carsales.com of Australia last year — the pair stands to receive a tidy payoff.

A rich and deserving reward for the years and effort they put into the business.

Aged just 35, GrabOne founder Shane Bradley also now has a multimillion-dollar fortune to enjoy, one also richly deserved for creating a successful daily deals site to rival any other.

Indeed, I guess the success of Luke Howard-Willis and Shane Bradley confirm something else.

That New Zealanders can take an idea, which may originate from overseas, and turn it into something local.

Thus, why have Groupon, which does exist in New Zealand, when you can have your Kiwi GrabOne? If America can have Amazon, why not have a local equivalent selling something more tailor made for Down Under, like sports equipment?

And this brings us to the country's most successful ecommerce creation of all, offering further proof. "Young" Sam Morgan and Trade Me, a successful venture that delivered its creator an NZ$227 million fortune and showed how a relatively small Kiwi organisation can trump the mighty eBay and become a major fixture in everyday New Zealand life.

Vodafone has been trumpeting the fact that the speeds of its long-term evolution (LTE) technology are 10 times faster than HSPA+ technology, that it's more stable and reliable, and even that smartphone devices were created for such a network.

Now, you might recall me being somewhat sceptical about the needs for 4G when Telecom announced trials of its own 4G network last month.

The funny thing is, Vodafone has made similar admissions.

I had to smile when I read that its group CEO Vittorio Colao last month said that 4G is for "technofreaks" and "very early adopters", and that most users won't be able to tell the difference between LTE and HSPA+.

In New Zealand yesterday, Vodafone CEO Russell Stanners admitted its limitations, too.

After launching his new service, he said that 4G is not suited for moving large amounts of data quickly, due to data caps and prices.

Reality means "mobile warriors" using 3G and 4G for office- and business-related work when they are out on the road — the serious downloads, however, will effectively need office or home-based wireless systems.

Stanners also said that voice quality won't be better on 4G until the LTE systems are upgraded eventually to allow for this. 4G's focus is simply the faster download speeds and "better experience".

Consumers there are hungry for 4G and its data, but they are unwilling to pay much extra, so the telcos are struggling to make a profit from 4G — even 18 months after launching the technology. The Korean telcos spoke of the "curse of 4G".

Vodafone won't say what it is investing in 4G, but it admits to a capital spend of NZ$125 million in capital infrastructure during the last financial year. Telecom NZ is similarly coy.

With Vodafone's 4G "premium" being up to NZ$10 per month above 3G rates, you can see that it will take many more customers for Vodafone to recoup its investment.

Currently, Vodafone said its 65,000 devices in New Zealand can take 4G, and it expects this number to increase to 100,000 by the year's end.

On these optimistic rates alone, it will be sometime before the investment is paid off.

Obviously, much will depend on data take-up, and this looks to be where the telcos will make their 4G money, since 4G users tend to gobble up far more data than 3G users, a trend already experienced in New Zealand and elsewhere as data speeds increase.

But the Korean experience shows that people won't want to pay much for that extra or faster data.

This is also confirmed by New Zealand's slow take-up of Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) as it is rolled out.

With us seeing 4G offering UFB-like speeds, LTE also impacts the market for copper-based broadband.

Paul Brislen, CEO of the Telecom Users Association of New Zealand, wondered whether the government should still be regulating it if we now have 4G offering similar speeds.

With Vodafone saying that it will push 4G into country areas as part of the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI), you might even wonder whether a nationwide 4G rollout of mobile might provide taxpayers better value than multibillion-dollar government fibre-based NBN/UFB broadband schemes. Without such schemes, I am sure 4G would also be more profitable.

In the meantime, we have Telecom NZ saying that it will not bring forward its 4G launch, due before Christmas, with it reporting much satisfaction from customers for its upgraded 3G/HSPA+ network, which has doubled download speeds. Certainly, I am finding HSPA+ acceptable for my needs.

Telecom NZ sticking to its timetable is a wise move, considering the debacle it suffered with its XT launch and related outages several years back. Telecom NZ could not afford a similar screw-up. It's best wait until its trials, announced last month, are completed to its total satisfaction.

Telecom might be letting Vodafone steal the march with 4G. But let Vodafone take the risks by being first adopter, let Vodafone create the market and I am sure that when ready, Telecom can easily piggyback off the greater awareness of 4G that Vodafone has created with its marketing.

This is especially so for opportunistic opposition politicians who constantly seek to blame the New Zealand government, or those who are constantly at the telcos's throat — quite often the same people.

As Nevil Gibson of the National Business Review noted, New Zealand's opposition Labour Party is seeking to rewrite history over these and similar job losses at a government-owned coal company.

Job losses at Telecom have long been signalled, with recruiters last year reporting tough times for the telco sector, and singling out Telecom as a jobs shedder.

And last year, when Telecom appointed CEO Simon Mouter to his new role, I noted reports from others that Telecom was relatively overstaffed when compared with rivals.

Though Telecom has not been a state-owned entity since 1990, the government still sets much of the business and regulatory environment for it to work in.

And for this, the opposition Labour Party is equally guilty, if not more so than Prime Minister John Key, who was quizzed over the matter this week.

Gibson noted that Telecom's job losses stem from the structural separation of Telecom two years ago, when a demerger created Chorus, so its sister company could compete for the government's NZ$1.5 billion Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) work.

The Labour Party is complicit in this, too. Despite blaming the National-led government for the job losses, the party's IT spokeswoman Clare Curran accepted that some structural changes at Telecom are necessary.

Indeed, when Labour was last in power several years ago, it forced the operational separation of Telecom NZ.

Curran said herself that this was designed to allow further structural separation down the track.

And we must always remember the attacks from Labour and its supporters in the media when it criticised governments for awarding UFB contracts to Telecom/Chorus.

How many more jobs would Telecom have been shedding, had it not won so many contracts?

Thus, Telecom's critics, and Curran especially, must accept their share of the blame for Telecom's impending staff cuts.

When I set out to write this post, I had wanted to admonish the press for dragging the PM into the row, as if he is somehow to blame for the decisions of a private company, noting that Telecom NZ has been privatised for more than 20 years.

However, on reflection, we must consider that despite a supposedly more market-orientated environment, governments are still major players in the telecommunications sector, and thus the supporters of such government intervention should take their share of the blame for job cuts, too.

We might have supposed deregulated environments, but governments also intervene by the selling of licences for 4G networks, something that the New Zealand government announced last week; governments intervening or threatening to intervene over trans-Tasman roaming; the price of copper fibre access; our governments being behind the delivery of UFB; and so on.

Perhaps this was why our prime minister did not want to raise one positive jobs story about UFB, the news of 30 fibre-making jobs coming to Wellington, in case it meant he had to accept the bad along with the good. But had he done so, he could cleverly have added that his and Telecom's many critics should also take their share of the blame of the "hundreds" of job losses at Telecom that are still to come.

But this week, IBM is looking a bit tarnished in New Zealand.

It's flash new $80million Highbrook, New Zealand, datacentre suffered major failure due to problems with its Virtual Server Services, and many customers were affected for several days.

Such a disaster only worsened as it lengthened, blackening IBM's reputation severely as debate raged in response to a couple of stories in Computerworld.

Critics were certainly pointing the finger at an embattled Big Blue. IBM did not have sufficient skilled staff in New Zealand, it was alleged. IBM's services were being sold as cloud computing, when strictly speaking, it was not, was another claim.

The crisis was being managed from Sydney, and we were told that the boss of IBM New Zealand was "missing in action".

No doubt there will be vested interests keen to stick the boot in, but IBM hardly helped itself as the problem dragged on.

Both Computerworld and the National Business Review noted the brevity of statements and lack of transparency from Big Blue, with the NBR, for example, saying that IBM "played its cards close to its chest".

By contrast, Telecom New Zealand has delivered yet another textbook case of openness, with its bosses fronting up as the telco grappled with recent security problems concerning its Yahoo Xtra email accounts.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected, but the openness from Telecom New Zealand, even issuing statements over a weekend or during the evening, have helped salvage the company's reputation.

Telecom obviously learned lessons from its XT debacle a few years ago when skilful handling of its XT outages turned disaster into something of a triumph.

IBM certainly needs to take a leaf from Telecom's open book.

And that is before it needs to ask itself questions about the skills and competencies of its New Zealand-based staff, including its local management and local expertise. Certainly, they don't seem to be at the required level to serve New Zealand properly.

In the meantime, expect Kiwi rivals like Revera, Datacom, and others to do their utmost to capitalise on IBM's failings, which judging by the many comments received by Computerworld, suggest that Big Blue only has itself to blame.

For years, the commentariat has bleated about the need for an extra cable linking New Zealand to Australia and the United States. Project after project has been mooted.

We have seen the $400 million Pacific Fibre project come to nothing.

We have also seen plans and suggestions from the likes of Huawei and the publicity-seeking Kim Dotcom.

The New Zealand government has also been pressurised to come on board as an investment partner for Pacific Fibre, adding to the $1.5 billion it is spending on faster broadband.

But as I said, it has all come to nothing.

Some of New Zealand's finest minds and vocal mouths have campaigned on the subject for years.

But despite their studies, despite their efforts, they could not get the business case to stack up.

Or at least not enough for the likes of the tech multi-millionaires Rod Drury, Sam Morgan, etc, to put their money where their mouths are. The Kiwi government did offer support as a cornerstone customer.

It took the dastardly Telecom New Zealand to come up with a realistic plan, along with Vodafone and Telstra, to finally deliver on this long awaited cable project.

True, at US$60 million and only spanning the Tasman, the new cable is only a modest affair compared with the other schemes that would have extended to the United States.

It also seems that the big boys are creating a little monopoly for themselves, especially as Telecom itself also owns a sizeable chunk of the existing Southern Cross Cable. The Green Party, among others, seem notably concerned.

But if Telecom is to put its own money where its mouth is, why shouldn't it cream off a decent return for itself and its investing partners? They are, after all, taking the risk that others are not.

Telecom, Telstra, and Vodafone should be commended for finally coming up with a plan to reduce or remove any bottlenecks that may arise from New Zealand's growing use of data.

If there is a case for a US link, then surely demand for this extra cable between our two countries will point the way.

If Telecom abuses its monopoly position too much, then any "excess" profits should attract others to come on board with an extra cable.

Alternatively, an increasingly interventionist government, which is playing closer attention to trans-Tasman issues like roaming, will also ensure Telecom plays a fairly straight bat.

Those who moan about an over-powerful Telecom, those who wanted their own schemes, they have had their chance and they have blown it. They lost and have failed, and now it is up to our respective incumbent domestic giants (Telecom and Telstra), plus a global mobile telco (Vodafone), to succeed where so many have failed before.

To paraphrase an old saying, "a cable under the Tasman is worth two on the drawing board".

We should be pleased with, and grateful for what we get.