Fairfax Columns 2000
Since early 1999 GP I have written a weekly opinion column for the Tuesday IT section in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, published by John Fairfax. This supplement is now called 'Next'. I also write occasional feature and news pieces.
You can download any of these articles from this website. Note:
- All files are MS Word documents
- They are as I originally wrote them, not as subsequently edited by Fairfax
- There are no headlines - these are added by Fairfax subeditors
Here are the columns for 2000. There are brief synposes of each piece - no full text search available, sorry.
| Date | File | Synopsis | Download |
|
18 Jan 2000 |
F000118y2k |
Giving thanks to the fact that the Y2K issue is over, even though GP was the first in Australia to write about it | download |
|
25 Jan 2000 |
F000125aoltw |
The Australian government's ridiculous digital content laws, with reference to the Time Warner / AOL deal | download |
| 1 Feb 2000 | F000201topten | GP's top ten IT trends for the new millennium | download |
| 8 Feb 2000 | F000208numbers | Reflections on numbers: exponential vs arithmetic, order of magnitude prefixes, the true date of the change of century | download |
| 15 Feb 2000 | F000215opsys | The decline in the number of operating systems, and in their importance as a distinguishing feature between architectures. | download |
| 22 Feb 2000 | F000222aspect | The success of Australian company Aspect Computing, and its Lansa AS/400 AD tool spin-off | download |
| 29 Feb 2000 | F000229envy | Internet bubble madness, VC rapacity, and the victory of envy over greed. Where will it all end? | download |
| 7 Mar 2000 | F000307security | The growth in importance of security as an issue to IT managers, and the different types of IT security | download |
| 14 Mar 2000 | F000314mediahype | How the dot com companies are using conventional media for their advertising, and the changing, yet unchaging, nature of media | download |
| 22 Mar 2000 | F000321copy1 | A history of copyright, and why the concept is increasingly under challenge in the digital age | download |
| 28 Mar 2000 | F000328copy2 | Comment from readers on last week's column, with further arguments from GP on why copyright will die | download |
| 4 April 2000 | F000404dunn | Unashamed plug of "How to Win Customers in a Digital World", by GP's mate Al Dunn | download |
| 11 April 2000 | F000411generations | A discussion of the concept of "generations" of computers, with reflections on where we are now | download |
| 18 April 2000 | F000418imaging | The state of the imaging market, and the international success of Australian company Tower | download |
| 25 April 2000 | F000425sun | Sun Microsystems and its strategies, based on GP's visit to a Sun analyst's briefing in London | download |
| 2 May 2000 | F000502dross | How the Internet has lots of information, but most of it is unstructured crap | download |
| 9 May 2000 | F000509colony | Forrester's George Colony's comments on the poor management of Internet companies, and how they are "Built to Flip" | download |
| 16 May 2000 | F000516microsoft | Reflections on the Microsoft anti-trust case, and why Microsoft will be around for a while yet | download |
| 23 May 2000 | F000523copy3 | The copyright debate revisited, with reference to how software sales are evolving from a product to a per use basis | download |
| 30 May 2000 | F000530wap | WAP, Bluetooth and the growth in wireless technology | download |
| 6 June 2000 | F000606evolution | Why there is no "New Economy" - the laws of economics have not been repealed | download |
| 13 June 2000 | F000613newyork | GP visits New York and muses on the peculiarities of the American mindset, with reference to his meeting with Lionel Singer | download |
| 20 June 2000 | F000620divide | Why the so-called "digital divide" is a load of crap, and how increased IT usage is helping us all | download |
| 27 June 2000 | F000627transmeta | Transmeta's new chip architecture, with reference to the history of chip technology | download |
| 4 July 2000 | F000704gstax | The introduction of the GST, and how governments are having trouble taxing information | download |
| 11 July 2000 | F000711as400 | IBM's venerable AS/400, and why it remains so popular | download |
| 18 July 2000 | F000718life | Metaphysical musings on the effect of IT on our lives, with comment on copyright, privacy and the future of humankind | download |
| 25 July 2000 | F000725cfotrend | Oveview of the most recent survey of Australian CFOs and their organisation's usage of ERP and other IT products | download |
| 1 Aug 2000 | F000801letters | Comment on the quality of quantity of emails GP receives | download |
| 8 Aug 2000 | F000808impaq | Australian learning content company Impaq and elearning in schools | download |
| 15 Aug 2000 | F000815predict | GP's record at predicting events in the IT industry, and a look at many predictions that went wrong | download |
| 22 Aug 2000 | F000822immigration | GP's bent towards open borders, compared to the Australian (and most other) government's stupidity | download |
| 29 Aug 2000 | F000829novell | The sad story of Novell's decline, and the lessons for the IT industry | download |
| 5 Sept 2000 | F000905andersen | The spat between Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting, and the nature of the Big Five | download |
| 12 Sept 2000 | F000912asp | The ASP model, why it will succeed, and why the terminology gets in the way of understanding | download |
| 19 Sept 2000 | MISSING OR NOT PUBLISHED | ||
| 26 Sept 2000 | F000926immigration2 | The reaction to the first immigration column a month ago, and how many intelligent people agree with GP | download |
| 3 Oct 2000 | F001003ebiz | Why eBusiness is no different to "normal" business. Technology has always improved commerce | download |
| 10 Oct 2000 | F001010changes | Very metaphysical piece on how technology is changing our lives, and what it all means | download |
| 17 Oct 2000 | F001017ibmservers | IBM's new nomenclature (iServer, zServer, pServer, xServer) for its entire server and mainframe product range | download |
| 24 Oct 2000 | MISSING OR NOT PUBLISHED | ||
| 31 Oct 2000 | F001031govtoutsource | The disaster area that is Australian Government IT outsourcing, and why it is almost impossible to judge its effectiveness | download |
| 7 Nov 2000 | F001107callcentre | Overview of call centres, centred around the comments of guru Roger Huffadine | download |
| 14 Nov 2000 | F001114s-commerce | Why conventional shopping is often better than e-shopping, with long quote from British spoof on the subject | download |
| 21 Nov 2000 | F001121fujitsu | Overview of Fujitsu, the world's second largest computer company, and its role in Australia | download |
| 28 Nov 2000 | F001126digicam1 | GP succumbs to the digital camera fad. Overview of pros and cons | download |
| 5 Dec 2000 | F001205bigiron | Why mainframes still exist, and will continue to do so for some time | download |
| 12 Dec 2000 | F001212digicam2 | Reader feedback on GP's recent digital camera column | download |