The annual Reader’s Digest trust survey surfaced this week, with some surprising results concerning who and what brands New Zealanders trust, and who we want our children to be.
First things first, customer service and IT helpdesks rank in the middle (22 out of 40) as a preferred profession for our children, one spot ahead of the humble journalist. Down the bottom of the list we find car salesmen, telemarketers and real estate agents. According to the study, these vocations are less desirable for our offspring than for them to become sex workers.
Questioned about what professions we trust, IT support again scores in the middle of the list (23 out of 40), with politicians right at the bottom of trusted professionals, just behind car salesmen and telemarketers. Again sex workers score better than these three.
On the list of trusted companies, Sony scores a ranking of nine overall. The company was also the number one trusted electronics supplier. Vodafone took the top award for telecommunications at 34, while HP took the honours in the computer category, listed as the 41st most trustworthy company in New Zealand. Compaq is the next computer vendor on the list at 67, followed by Apple at 72, Dell at 90, Acer at 98 and Lenovo 114 out of 115.
Overall, IT companies and professionals seem to be a trusted bunch in New Zealand (unlike journalists) and companies like HP has understood how to appeal to the masses.
Trust is an important thing for the bottom line, and something massive multinationals might give a bit more consideration for the future.
According to Nielsen Netratings, Reseller News is New Zealand's fourth ranked site for high income households. Perhaps we sould start running features about caviar and truffles.
Threatening open source developers with nebulous patent claims could backfire. It won't be pretty.
Protecting intellectual property is common sense. It's business 101. In the software industry it is doubly important. For Microsoft it is a core competency.
But software patents may not be the best tool to do this. For a start they are highly controversial. And there's a question mark over whether they actually work. We'll leave all that to the lawyers.
However, if Microsoft is seen to abuse software patent laws, there's a risk it will undermine an already shakey system and, eventually, the entire edifice could come tumbling down.
That's problem number one.
Problem number two is more complicated. Microsoft may talk about innovation, but it is consistently out-innovated (if that's a word) by rivals like Google and open source developers. Tying-up rivals with dubious software patent litigation is a defensive move that will only strengthen the growing feeling in the market that Microsoft is no longer in the ascendency.
And there there are the legal counter-strikes. Many of Microsoft's rivals, including those in the open source camp, own software patents which they suspect they company may have infringed. If the patent software gloves come off, Microsoft may lose more than it stands to gain.
While Microsoft has every right to protect itself against theft, it needs to ensure it doesn't undermine its armoury or its moral authority.
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