Displaying items by tag: Tariffs

Public cloud storage is accelerating in popularity due to its scalability and ease of setup. Yet, many organisations need to consider the broader geopolitical risks, especially the emerging tariff and trade tensions that can disrupt supply chains, limit access to certain tech, and increase costs. It's a strategic challenge, and it's important to consider other options.

As of February 11th, the Trump administration has announced worldwide tariffs of 25 percent on aluminium and steel imports, which form a major part of Australia’s economy.

Global ratings agency S&P Global Ratings has forecast that IT spending will grow between 2% and 3% in the year ahead, an improvement from 2019.

Spending on technology products and services in Australia is forecast to total $93.7 billion this year - up 3 percent from 2018 - and to grow 4.6 percent to reach almost $98 billion in 2020, in contrast to a global slowdown in IT spending forecast by Gartner.

The global PC market, inclusive of desktops, notebooks and workstations, grew 4.7% in the third quarter of this year to 79.9 million units, recording the best growth performance since the first quarter, according to a new analyst report.

The US-based global Information Technology and Innovation Foundation research and educational institute claims that joining the Information Technology Agreement — an international pact eliminating tariffs on hundreds of information and communications technology products — could boost the economies of developing countries by billions of dollars.

It's not just you. Other companies find the cost of international roaming and overseas calls puts a crimp on productivity.

Simple. Just send and SMS, or several million. The amount of data transferred with an SMS makes it the most expensive data service on the planet by a country mile. And while that might be an extreme example, a report from Market Clarity lays bare the huge variation in the prices of fixed and mobile broadband data services in Australia.

While most mobile prepaid offerings blab on about notional 'value' which means nothing when call rates are not specified, Optus has come up with a radically different approach.

Telstra has revised its combined broadband and telephony offerings to co-incide with the launch of T-Box.

Virgin Mobile, a subsidiary of Optus, has finally launched the iPhone 3G as widely predicted, but with the surprise of a ginormous 5GB data plan - the first decent iPhone data plan yet. But with pricing for the 16GB and the 8GB model on the $100 plan identical, why would anyone bother with the 8GB unit? And what about concerns that Virgin Mobile's broadband network is 'not reliable"?