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The proportion of Call Centres in Australia which service more than one country has increased from 10% in 1999 to 27% in 2000. Just over one third (34%) of Call Centres employ multi-lingual agents, an increase over the 1999 level of 28%. The various Chinese dialects (particularly Mandarin and Cantonese), Italian and Greek are the most common languages spoken. Other Asian languages (especially Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Thai and Indonesian) are also widely spoken.

The proportion of Call Centres in New Zealand which service more than one country is 12%, marginally above the 10% in 1999. Thirty percent of Call Centres employ multi-lingual agents. Maori, Samoan and Tongan are the most prevalent additional languages spoken. However, Mandarin and Cantonese speaking agents are also more commonly employed than in early 1999.

Source: The 2001 Australia and New Zealand Call Centre Industry Benchmark Study

Systems Applications Procedures (SAP) over GPRS was recently demonstrated by Mbrane, a global provider of mobile enterprise management solutions.

Its solution, Touchpoint, supports access to essential business applications from hand-held devices whilst ironing out the problems associated with mobile computing such as unreliable connectivity and security concerns.

Mbrane is working closely with BTCellnet. Since its launch of GPRS in June 2000, Mbrane has been the only company able to deliver a working corporate application running over GPRS to a wirelessly connected Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

The company has succeeded in linking mainstream applications to real world mobile devices – a task easier said than done. Sales forces can improve service and streamline operations through direct stock enquiries and order entry.

Gosh, it took a while to get some support, but there are now also other researchers indicating that broad portals, shopping malls and walled gardens on the Internet are on the way out. Not that they will totally disappear, but the question is that there will definitely be more business in Internet markets outside the portals. Furthermore, the question is are the portal users the most interesting market? We are still very buoyant about the opportunities in vertical portals, highly specialised and deep content sites where customers can find all they need to know on one particular topic.

US based Consumer Reports Online has stated that Web portals are no longer effective drivers of e-commerce. The research firm measured all portals on an ‘e-ratings’ scale of 1 to 5, and Yahoo! scored highest with 4 out of 5, which labels it above average. All other portals were too poorly organised and bewildering to encourage online consumer spending, the study concluded. Growing Internet brand awareness and consumer Web sophistication has made online shoppers less reliant on portals as a source of retail information. Although fewer people may be purchasing directly from portals, the research company still attributes as much as 35% of Internet traffic to them. They expect e-shoppers to split into two camps:

- People who are driven by brand loyalty (they go to portals);

- People who want to search around for the best price (they shop around).

The influx of first-time online buyers will still be boosting portal popularity, according to a Yankee Group. They estimate that least 57% of online consumers begin their search at portals. The report also indicates that Web malls and portals experienced significant sales growth throughout the 2000 holiday season, in many cases far more than that of individual e-tailers.

In March 2001 US based Advanced Communications Technologies Inc (ACTI) acquired the LEO satellite system Orbcomm for US$16 million. This technology company is affiliated with ACTI in Australia, which operates in the wireless business. Orbcomm will supplement the company’s real time monitoring system of power meters in homes. Under new energy regulations 2 million homes will have to be equipped with real time metering by 2002. This formed a good business case for the Orbcomm acquisition.

Orbcomm was formed in the early 1990s by Canadian carrier, Teleglobe and TRI (Technology Resource Industries). This ‘Little LEO’, initiated by the US-based space technology company Orbital Sciences Corporation, started its trial-operation phase in 1995 and in 1998 the service was fully operational. However, it also faced the same financial problems as Iridium and ICO and had to file for bankruptcy in September 2000. By that time close to US$800 million had been invested in the project.

An experimental licence was granted to Teleglobe’s Orbcomm Canada Inc unit in late 1994 to test and demonstrate its system. Two small, data-only satellites were scheduled to be launched in the United States in January 1996 by Orbital Sciences Corp. The full system, one of the lowest cost proposals, consists of 35 satellites. Handsets will be in the US$560 range. This system is focussed primarily on e-mail, short-messages and some position location. Operational licences to build and operate a ground station were also acquired in Japan, Malaysia and include all ocean areas, with temporary licences in another 11 countries. By early 2000 the company was represented in 60 countries.

While the company didn’t attract the same media attention as their more glamorous and highly unsuccessful partners, Orbcomm has slowly but steadily created a niche market for itself, aimed at reasonable low-tech and low-cost messaging applications. Despite this subscriber numbers have stayed well below forecasts.

The company’s aim was to have 16 million user terminals installed by 2007. However, by early 2000 only some 25,000 terminals had been placed.

Internet access time is steadily increasing in Japan, according to Infocom Research Inc’s review of surveys conducted by the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications.

Using the surveys, Infocom determined the average length of Internet access via conventional and ISDN fixed lines and cellular PHS mobile phones during the periods from 1994 to 1996 and from 1996 to 1999.

Between 1994 and 1996, access via conventional lines decreased by 4.4% due to Japan’s economic slowdown, although access via PHS phones increased by 3.5% due to cheap rates.

From 1996 to 1999, however, thanks to increased use of PCs and networks at workplaces, average access time lengthened by 6.6% for conventional lines and 8.9% for ISDN lines. Access via cellular phones also increased, by 7.1%, in parallel with the increased popularity of these phones.

Although Japan has yet to emulate the US market, where the Internet is driving economic growth, the nation’s ‘digital society’ appears to be developing steadily and shows great potential for expansion.