After years of boring Wintel beigedom, Dell is continuing its freak-out month. First the world's largest PC maker broke its long-time Intel exclusivity, with an AMD incursion through its Alienware purchase, plus a new line of servers. Now Google has stepped into the frame. The search giant has just announced a three-year deal that will see it pay to place its desktop search and web browser toolbar on tens of millions of Dell PCs.

Invading Dell's formerly Microsoft-only desktop turn is a way for Google to hit back at IE7, which makes MSN the default search engine (though again showing its aggressive ability to hit back, Google has tooled its own search engine to recognise IE 7 users, then throw up a pop-up that lets them make Google their default IE 7 search engine with a click).

In a third major shake-up, Dell has announced two pilot retail stores in the US, and will open more if they’re successful. The stores follow the stand-out success of similar retail experiments by Apple and Sony, but with a twist - you can only look at the Dell, merchandise. You still have to buy online (or by phone). Internet kiosks inside the stores help allow Dell to pretend it's not changing its direct model.

With the corporate market slow and mean, most pundits think most PC growth potential is in the home and small biz markets. These are punters who want to see something before they buy it, and Dell's direct approach has been hurting as it loses market share for the first time in years (mostly to HP). The pilot stores are designed to turn the tide.

Posted by Chris Keall at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Google knows where you live. As first noted on NZBC, Google went live over the weekend a new service that lets you see maps of most New Zealand streets. To look for your street, surf to maps.google.com then search for 'New Zealand'. Hold and drag to pull the map around your screen, then start zooming in.

The move is - but of course - a precursor to more Google ad services. In the US and elsewhere where Google Maps (and the 3D Google Earth) are already established, Google's street directories are populated by locations of hotels and many other business and services you may wish to search for.

Unlike Wises maps, you can see property boundaries too.

For more on Google's ANZAC invasion, read Miserable buggers.

Posted by Chris Keall at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 8 )

As an Xtra customer, I'm one of those in for that $3.25 'Good News' refund. I spent one of the outage days working from home, so perhaps the boss could accrue my refund over those 8 hours, which works out to 80 cents an hour in return for my lost online toil. But there I go again dwelling on the negative. When my $3.25 does come through, I fully intend hooking up with another refunded customer, then pooling our resources to buy a subway sandwich. I'm joking of course, as two-refund cheques won't in fact stretch to a full-size Turkey, Ham & Bacon Melt.

How will you spend your refund? Do you think Xtra should give a full-month refund? Leave your comments below and be in to win a copy of The Aviator, 2 disc DVD widescreen edition from our friends at Roadshow.

Posted by Chris Keall at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 26 )

Personally I think this week's massive outages have simply been caused by people trying to watch the Guy Goma video en masse. But anyway campers, here's the official word, direct from Telecom's PR:

Telecom deeply regrets the Internet outages that some customers have had experienced over the last few days - and is glad to report that proper service has now been restored to most customers.

Telecom last night restored service to most Xtra customers after a series of intermittent Internet and email outages experienced since Sunday.

The outages have affected some Xtra customers at different times on-and-off since Sunday.

Telecom customer care manager Kelly Moore says Xtra staff had worked around the clock to get all services running again.

Services were restored to nearly all Xtra customers yesterday evening. There are still 2000 to 3000 customers who may be experiencing some problems today and we are working to ensure full services are running again by the end of the day.

We sincerely regret the inconvenience and frustration that has been caused to our customers over the past few days.

Background
On Sunday afternoon customers may have had email and connection problems which were caused by a fault with our power supply. Around 30% of customers also had problems with email for about 10 minutes on Monday morning.

Later on Monday, between approximately 4.40pm and 10.30pm a faulty load balancer, which handles traffic, meant customers could not access websites and check emails.

On Tuesday, some customers may have had trouble getting on line. This caused a snowball effect as modems repeatedly went through the automatic log-on process. This put an increased load on Xtra servers. This issue was fixed yesterday evening, and the root cause of this fault is being investigated.

Advice to customers
Customers who may still be experiencing delays in connection to the internet need to restart their computers and modems to restore service.

To restart your modem, turn it off, unplug it from the wall and leave it disconnected for 30 seconds, then plug it back in and wait 5 minutes for it to reconnect.

If you are still unable to get on line, please contact the Xtra helpdesk on Phone: 0800 CALLXTRA or 0800 22 5598.

As a result of this problem, a lot of customers are calling Telecom and we are attending to calls as soon as we can.

Posted by Chris Keall at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Someone from Radio New Zealand just phoned me for comment on a new Google stat: apparently Aucklanders are the most miserable people on the planet, judging by the frequency we search for depression-related terms. My theory: The Googlistas are just failing to realise that every search for 'Auckland Blues' is not necessarily related to misery (oh, hang on ...). Leave your theory in the 'Comments' section and be in to win one of 5 cheering PC World CD wallets (misery loves company at pcworld.co.nz).

Speaking of Google, the search/advertising/everything giant launched its Australia-New Zealand headquarters today, which sports a mock tracter beam and houses 30 staff (75% sales and 25% engineers) but room for 200. The HQ is in Darling Harbour, Sydney, but Google is currently advertising for NZ-specific staff ...

Posted by Chris Keall at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 7 )

Sure it's a news that a government messenger palmed the unbundling news to his buddy at Telecom. But a "$2 billion leak"? Please. We all know that Telecom's share price knows how to move down. Since Theresa took over, it's fallen from $7.75, and even in the past year it's fallen from a 12-month high of $6.45. Another hit as the unbundling news broke was inevitable. And it probably wouldn't have made one cent of difference if the news had held to budget night rather than being delivered by our cyclist friend. Anyway, email me your comments - if you can make it through the latest Xtra outage - and be in to win one of five PC World CD wallets. (Outrage pays at pcworld.co.nz!)

Posted by Chris Keall at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Let us count Theresa Gattung's crimes. She's misjudged Helen Clark (and David Cunliffe), eroded Telecom's share price by more than 50% way before that leak (remember those $7.75 days?), stumbled in Australia, worn some seriously dodgy purple tops, and made some caught-on-tape comments about 'confusing the market'. (I would not like to be the chump who archived that particular exchange with analyists on Telecom's website.)

The defence: while everybody moans about broadband, Theresa says ihug's promise to invest $20 million in infrastructure represents just 10 days' of Telecom's own capital expenditure (which weighs in around $750 million a year).

She also points out, with school debate-style cleverness, that while she's constantly flagellated for New Zealand's 22nd spot on the OECD's broadband league table, we are in fact the 21st most wealthy country in the group. So really, we're a little bit ahead of the curve despite our various disadvantages, such as a relatively tiny population spread over a reasonably big area - the worst possible combination for a broadband provider - or at least a wired one (obviously, this excuse didn't wash with Helen).

And Theresa also has a point that unbundling will discourage competitors from making alternative investments. Already, CallPlus has made noises about scaling back its WiMax wireless broadband trial, and putting more dollars into what Theresa would call piggybacking on Telecom's network. She's become the fall-girl for standing up for a dodgy unbundling decision.

So what do you think: should she stay or should she go?

Posted by Chris Keall at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 24 )

Wow. Zowie. It's happened. The local loop has been unbundled. Read Juha's news story here. And standby for more coverage in our June issue, which will also include our annual Internet Top 20 Power List (I can exclusively reveal that, no, Theresa is not number one anymore; Stand-up, Big Dave).

I think it goes without doubt that cheaper broadband is on the way and that is, of course, fantastic. Already this morning Orcon has sent a press release saying $10/month broadband plans are possible.

And CallPlus and iHug have also promised serious infrastructure investment in the event of unbundling. But that will be at the phone exchange level, or roadside cabinets at best.

My point, which I've blogged on before, remains: the key problem is the cruddy last-mile copper wires. Assuming no-one's going to shell out the extreme capital needed to take fibre to your front door, I worry that Telecom's DSL network will just get overloaded. I just can't believe the broadband limit will shoot up to 7Mbit/s. It's like raising the rush-hour speed limit on Auckland's motorways to 110km an hour. Nice on paper. My colleague Juha Saarinen is more optimistic, however, so make sure you check out his special, extended length Technical Guy column in our June issue, plus comments from wireless players.

Posted by Chris Keall at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

With the online ad market surging toward the $US10 billion mark, tempers are getting touchy in the search ad war. Google is furious the just-released beta of Microsoft's new web browser, IE 7, introduces a search box in its upper right hand corner. The search box defaults to Microsoft's own MSN search engine. Google complains the move is monopolistic, recalling Microsoft's war on Netscape.

IE 7 marks the first time that Microsoft has included a search box standard with its web browser; a move that reflects the growing importance of search-word revenue over fading forms of web ads such as pop-ups and banners (Microsoft recently set up shop as a search ad seller. Like Google, it has long been distributing software for blocking pop-ups).

Google's VP for search products, Marissa Mayer, told the New York Times (reg. required) today: "We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose."

Microsoft counters that the default search engine can be easily changed a user, and that PC companies like Dell will be able to change the IE 7 default before their machines ship.

Monopolistic or not, Microsoft needs something to give its search engine a jump start. The latestest Nielsen NetRatings figures for the US - for March - show Google with a 49% search share, with Yahoo on 22% and Microsoft's MSN falling to 11%.

Pictured: Bill Gates launches another new front in the search war - the MSN Swatch, as styled by himself and The OC's Mischa Barton. Admittedly it has nothing to do with the main story, but it's too Austin Powers to resist.

Posted by Chris Keall at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )