COMMENTARY: Rumours, truth and innuendo
Industry teams up for homeless
Cisco Systems, Data#3, Telstra and their various IT partners have teamed up to internet-enable a mobile outreach program that brings aid to around a thousand homeless and disadvantaged people in South Brisbane.
The firms have brought the internet to South Brisbane’s MOSHPIT (Mobile Outreach Support and Health Project by Integrated Teams) bus, a three-year old service led by DrugArm and Mater Health Services with the help of St Luke’s Nursing Service, Centrelink, Brisbane City Council and Queensland Department of Communities. Ross Fowler, managing director at Cisco Australia, said the community consortium used the MOSHPIT bus to give services to South Brisbane’s disadvantaged -- mainly the homeless but also people with drug problems or troubled teens.
Cisco had the idea in a brainstorming session with MOSHPIT.
Cisco was donating networking hardware, software and support, Data#3 some laptops and Telstra was subsidising high-speed wireless broadband connectivity for the bus, Fowler said.
Various IT partners, such as Maxon and IBM, were also helping out.
“Now, [MOSHPIT] is getting access to real-time, updated information,” Fowler said.
Krishna Heffernan, Queensland state manager at DrugArm -- which provides the bus, a program coordinator, driver and outreach team -- said workers would for the first time be able to link back to their main database to get the most up-to-date information to help clients.
Previously, making appointments and collecting data was done on paper, which meant laborious transcription of a lot of information back at the services’ main offices, she said.
“Long term, the possibilities are endless. It would be lovely to get to the stage where clients can have their own email and pick it up [at MOSHPIT],” Heffernan said. “The next stage is to work with Cisco and the other companies to take that next step.”
She said homeless people were often further disadvantaged by not having any way to collect mail or messages. Email access could help lessen the isolation from services and other people that tended to reinforce their problems.
MOSHPIT had received 13,500 contacts a year. “About 9900 of those talked to us about homelessness issues. They were either homeless, or at risk of homelessness, or were in a situation, such as young people who couch-surf,” Heffernan said.
The service gave out some 11,000 cups of tea or coffee a year and 1800 individual referrals to services, such as healthcare or job help. Some 559 people requested help to get counselling and 358 were recorded as possibly having mental health issues that might need monitoring, Heffernan said.
Warnie brings fun to the phone
Fans can now have Shane Warne on their phones, as Korean mobile games developer Com2uS announced a Shane Warne Cricket for Mobile game.
The international cricketer has a world-beating reputation for bringing fun to mobile phones -- a fact Com2uS has not overlooked.
A Com2uS press release promised the game version of Warne would “entertain all with his off-the-cuff-banter”. Users could play as Warne, or against him, in a full one day or a quick, commuter-friendly match.
The game also offered “net practice” -- so users can be sure their player stays in top form during long international tours.
“We look forward to a successful summer for Shane and Shane Warne Cricket for Mobile,” said Com2uS senior vice-president Henry Yeh.
The game would be available on Java-enabled handsets through major carriers in Australia and the UK from July. It would initially be available for one month exclusively to customers of Hutchison’s 3.
The channel, Mark?
Someone may need to remind HP that its largest customer by far is the channel. Solution providers account for north of US$45 billion, or more than half of HP’s annual revenue. So why is it that HP’s new president and CEO has yet to articulate a channel strategy?
Mark Hurd said he is keeping a low profile until he gets a handle on HP’s businesses, but that didn’t keep him from answering some hard-hitting questions from HP’s internal communications team. In an interview posted to HP’s website, Hurd talked at length about the importance of partnering with customers. “We want to clearly understand our customers’ opportunities as well as their issues and problems,” he said.
“We want to have a frank discussion about the products and services we can deliver to address those issues and opportunities. And we want to set very clear expectations about how we will work together.”
Too bad he never mentioned solution providers or the channel. Not once.
Slip in the name
Microsoft remains coy on the nomenclature for its next CRM product, due late 2005/early 2006. It was being called Microsoft CRM 2.0, then CRM 2005. But as it continued to slip, some suspected it would become MS CRM 2006. Now good sources say it will be called Microsoft CRM 3.0. This sounds like some kind of new maths, where the current 1.2 release is considered 2.0, and what maybe should have been version 1.5 is doubled to 3.0.
Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was his usual effusive self talking to CRN recently.
When asked about Google’s competitive threat, an interviewer noted that Google is an acquisition away from entering any new market.
Ballmer laughed: “If money is the criterion, we’re an acquisition away from anything.”
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