Wednesday, June 27, 2007
A new breed of Application Service Providers (ASPs) will become successful by:
There was a new warning about the dot.com stocks bubble today from a unique global think-tank currently debating the development of a strong but equitable world digital economy. 'Boosting the Net Economy 2000' (www.netecon2000.com), which runs all this week, is drawing together experts from all parts of society in 45 nations.
On the debate's first day, think-tank member Frank Bannister of Trinity College, Dublin said there were striking parallels between the stock market crash of 1929 and today's "wildly overvalued" dot.com stocks.
"In 1928, people were talking about a 'new economy' and 'new paradigms' [and]the small man was getting into the market in a big way - though on nothing like today's scale", he said.
"I think that it was Rockefeller who said that he decided to get out of the market when his shoe shine boy started to give him market tips. All bubbles - the Dutch tulip bubble, the South Sea bubble, the 1980s property boom in the UK, have a germ of reality underneath. But a bubble is a bubble is bubble.
"The value of Amazon and Lastminute.com are purely in what people expect the share value to rise to. In most of these companies, there is no business model which is likely to produce the 80% gross margins or market share that the current technology leaders command. Unless your favourite share is going to do that well in the long term, you'd better time your exit well!"
Morton Falch of the Technical University of Denmark said the lack of transparent legislation protecting consumer rights will inhibit the electronic market place from reaching its full potential.
However tackling this problem meant answering some very tricky questions including: Is it possible to preserve national protection of consumers in an international market? How can international regulation be created in a way which is sufficiently flexible and dynamic to meet the demands of an ever-changing environment? And should regulation of electronic commerce be rule-based or market-driven (self-regulation)?
"Self regulation seems to be the answer, but who is the 'self'? When we are dealing with sellers and consumers, there is a built-in contradiction of interests", he said.
Rodolfo Carpintier, Vice President of Spain's leading Internet incubator Grupo NetJuice, predicted the new technologies would have some strong effects on democratic politics. "I believe the merit of teledemocracy will be to provide an interactive way for politicians to really understand what voters think about major subjects without [relying on] interpretations by 'experts' that very often are very different from the real positions of voters.
"Another major effect will be massive voter movements behind major issues both to stop or promote legislation".
Charley Lewis of the South African Congress of Trades Unions asked to what extent the new economy is really new, or whether globalisation is "merely good old-fashioned imperialism plus information technology?
"If ICTs are the universal enabler they are so vaunted to be, what is it that they enable? Or put differently, who ultimately controls the new information economy, and how is that control exercised?
"How are we to ensure that the promise and hype of the new global economy does not merely lead to the destruction of more jobs, increased levels of poverty, further erosion of the working environment, further ravages to our seas and forests, and a deeper digital divide between those with access to the new information society and the vast excluded majority?
"Surely, one of the key answers lies in ensuring that the voice of organised labour forms part of the debate. But it has to be a voice that is not only heard, but listened to as well. A digital economy designed, implemented and controlled by only one of the social stakeholders can hardly be an equitable one."
Franck Martin of the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission offered a fascinating insight into wiring up the 20 tiny, remote Pacific Island States.
Some of these nations have attractive internet domains like TO (Tonga), NU (Niue), and TV (Tuvalu), which can generate revenue for the islands: there were talks about leasing the TV domain for 50 million US dollars to television companies, around the same as the total annual budget of Tuvalu.
The wealthier islanders find internet postal shopping useful as there are currently few foreign imports, but there are payment problems as local banks do not offer visa cards.
And internet connection costs are high: when an island establishes a connection to another nation like Australia or the US it has to pay for the full leased line (4,000 US dollars a month in average). This anomaly means that "if a US citizen surfs an Island nation web site the island nation pays for it at a dear price. I think when an island nation connect to the Internet the state on the other side should pay half of the bill", Martin said.
However, the islanders have the last laugh: "I prefer to be here coding on a beautiful beach with coconut trees than in the traffic jams of Silicon Valley."
On the debate's first day, think-tank member Frank Bannister of Trinity College, Dublin said there were striking parallels between the stock market crash of 1929 and today's "wildly overvalued" dot.com stocks.
"In 1928, people were talking about a 'new economy' and 'new paradigms' [and]the small man was getting into the market in a big way - though on nothing like today's scale", he said.
"I think that it was Rockefeller who said that he decided to get out of the market when his shoe shine boy started to give him market tips. All bubbles - the Dutch tulip bubble, the South Sea bubble, the 1980s property boom in the UK, have a germ of reality underneath. But a bubble is a bubble is bubble.
"The value of Amazon and Lastminute.com are purely in what people expect the share value to rise to. In most of these companies, there is no business model which is likely to produce the 80% gross margins or market share that the current technology leaders command. Unless your favourite share is going to do that well in the long term, you'd better time your exit well!"
Morton Falch of the Technical University of Denmark said the lack of transparent legislation protecting consumer rights will inhibit the electronic market place from reaching its full potential.
However tackling this problem meant answering some very tricky questions including: Is it possible to preserve national protection of consumers in an international market? How can international regulation be created in a way which is sufficiently flexible and dynamic to meet the demands of an ever-changing environment? And should regulation of electronic commerce be rule-based or market-driven (self-regulation)?
"Self regulation seems to be the answer, but who is the 'self'? When we are dealing with sellers and consumers, there is a built-in contradiction of interests", he said.
Rodolfo Carpintier, Vice President of Spain's leading Internet incubator Grupo NetJuice, predicted the new technologies would have some strong effects on democratic politics. "I believe the merit of teledemocracy will be to provide an interactive way for politicians to really understand what voters think about major subjects without [relying on] interpretations by 'experts' that very often are very different from the real positions of voters.
"Another major effect will be massive voter movements behind major issues both to stop or promote legislation".
Charley Lewis of the South African Congress of Trades Unions asked to what extent the new economy is really new, or whether globalisation is "merely good old-fashioned imperialism plus information technology?
"If ICTs are the universal enabler they are so vaunted to be, what is it that they enable? Or put differently, who ultimately controls the new information economy, and how is that control exercised?
"How are we to ensure that the promise and hype of the new global economy does not merely lead to the destruction of more jobs, increased levels of poverty, further erosion of the working environment, further ravages to our seas and forests, and a deeper digital divide between those with access to the new information society and the vast excluded majority?
"Surely, one of the key answers lies in ensuring that the voice of organised labour forms part of the debate. But it has to be a voice that is not only heard, but listened to as well. A digital economy designed, implemented and controlled by only one of the social stakeholders can hardly be an equitable one."
Franck Martin of the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission offered a fascinating insight into wiring up the 20 tiny, remote Pacific Island States.
Some of these nations have attractive internet domains like TO (Tonga), NU (Niue), and TV (Tuvalu), which can generate revenue for the islands: there were talks about leasing the TV domain for 50 million US dollars to television companies, around the same as the total annual budget of Tuvalu.
The wealthier islanders find internet postal shopping useful as there are currently few foreign imports, but there are payment problems as local banks do not offer visa cards.
And internet connection costs are high: when an island establishes a connection to another nation like Australia or the US it has to pay for the full leased line (4,000 US dollars a month in average). This anomaly means that "if a US citizen surfs an Island nation web site the island nation pays for it at a dear price. I think when an island nation connect to the Internet the state on the other side should pay half of the bill", Martin said.
However, the islanders have the last laugh: "I prefer to be here coding on a beautiful beach with coconut trees than in the traffic jams of Silicon Valley."
# posted by Rodolfo @ 3:25 PM 
