While New Zealanders, and NZ industry have seldom missed an opportunity to criticise
our government for their seeming haphazard and ill-conceived attitude towards
encouraging IT and the new economy, it might appear that they're not doing
too bad compared to the Australians.
Even though an unacceptable percentage of our best and brightest continue to skip
the ditch to greener fields, at least one global corporation has seen fit to
lay into the Australian government's tax and regulatory environment -- Microsoft.
The software giant released a paper it titled "Accelerating Innovation" in
which it condemns the high rates of Australian personal and company tax which
are, it alleges, are a disincentive to attracting key players.
Surprisingly, even Australia's seemingly generous R&D tax incentives are slammed. Microsoft
claims that cutting the tax credit from 150 percent to 125 percent was a
mistake. Boy -- I wonder what MS will say when they realise that companies
operating in New Zealand actually incur what amounts to a tax penalty for investing
in R&D?
In its report, Microsoft advises the Australian government to look to countries
like Ireland, Singapore, Finland and the USA for good examples of policies that
are geared towards the rapid growth of new economy businesses.
Well it's not often I line up to be counted with Microsoft (is this a first?)
but I have to say that everything they've said about Australia also applies
to New Zealand -- twice over!
Of course Microsoft is talking very much out of self-interest but how long will
it take before the government of this country finally gets the message?
A message that has been delivered by all manner of sage and experienced
sources for years now.
Should we judge our governments by their ability to listen, learn and adapt to
a changing global economic environment -- or by their blind adherence to some
outdated ideology?
As always, your comments are welcomed.
Someone at TVNZ Has Lost Their Netscape
TVNZ's
NZOOM site has been around
for a while now and it's one of the more information-rich locations on the
local web.
Unfortunately it seems that they've lost their copy of Netscape -- or simply
choose not to use it any more because some of the pages on that site are simply
unreadable if you're not using IE.
Check out
this example to see
what I mean.
Come on guys -- it's a good site but don't forget that Netscape isn't dead
yet.
The Weekly Trickles Out
This week's edition of the Weekly has started trickling out. It will probably
take a day or so before they're all sent but they're on their way.
As always, your feedback is welcomed and...
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