Fry Up: Departure Lounge

Fourth Mobile

Departure lounge

News this week that CIO positions in high profile companies The Warehouse and Yellow have been disestablished (a word that is surely one of the most sinister in the corporate lexicon) may be further indication that the role itself is undergoing a kind of revolution.

Tim Campos, CIO of Facebook told our sister mag CIO, that the role is no longer about managing "bits and bytes" and CIOs have two choices. “Either they just do what the business asks them, in which case you don’t need a CIO you just need a head of IT. Or, the CIO is going to take a leadership position on what is going on with those business processes.”

Alternatively it could mean that The Warehouse and Yellow have disestablished the CIO roles because the companies are restructuring for entirely different, unrelated to IT, reasons.

Other departures this week include REANNZ CEO Donald Clark (parental responsibilities) and InternetNZ policy director Jordan Carter (political aspirations).

State of the CIO 2011: Growth on the agenda
The Warehouse eliminates CIO position
Yellow CIO role disestablished
Donald Clark resigns from REANNZ
InternetNZ's Jordan Carter resigns


Fourth mobile network possibly now in doubt

Fry Up may or may not have plans to become the country’s fourth mobile operator. But the two 'Stevens’, Joyce locally and Conroy in Oz (or is that Stephens’?) announcement this week that there will be a joint investigation by the Australian and New Zealand governments into trans-Tasman mobile roaming – which may result in regulation and lower prices - could have put a chilling effect on investment.

International roaming is a big, fat cash cow and Fry Up, always looking out for new revenue streams, has formed Fry Up Fourth Mobile (FUFM). This seemed like genius after learning our potential competitors had let slip international roaming could be worth as much as $100 million a year to the local mobile market.

FUFM has identified as its target market international visitors on five-day tours of New Zealand. So FUFM plans to line the route between the Airport and the CBD in Auckland, Christchurch, Rotorua and Queenstown with 35-metre high cell towers (hey, if tall towers are OK in the rural towns under the Rural Broadband Initiative, surely the city folk can’t complain). This will ensure international visitors are locked into the FUFM network, enjoying our seamless coverage and friendly customer service throughout their stay

It will mean here at FUFM, we will have to offer 2G (apparently some people don’t have smartphones), 3G and – let the lobbying for spectrum commence! – 4G when it comes along.

Our investor, a notorious New Zealand financial genius is keen to shift what once was retired folks' money into core infrastructure in this country. But he has since contacted us from his Swiss hideaway and has said with the review of international roaming, all bets are now off.

NZ and Australian govts to investigate trans-Tasman roaming
2degrees targets $100m market for roaming tourists
RBI contract signed with Telecom and Vodafone

Fry Up Live

It follows a royal wedding and a rugby tournament, but arguably a more significant event on the calendar is the General Election in November. Never one to shy away from kicking off discussion about the usefulness, or otherwise, of Government decisions, Fry Up is holding a debate in Christchurch on May 10 with the moot: Politics has no business in telecommunications.

It will be at The George, at 7.30am and includes a cooked breakfast. Entry is free. See you there.

Fry Up Live breakfast debate

Defying gravity

Street performer in Queen Street in Auckland dazzles passers by.

Posted on Twitter by Chris021