I think I’m probably doing it a favour calling it a conference: Convergence Oceania was a Wireless Forum sell shop, an expo hall with a room featuring the biggest exhibitors. Everyone’s Powerpoint deck was focused to their own product story. Good thing it was free :-)

The expo hall was interesting, though. The usual big boys were out in force (I missed the Telecom and Vodaphone Big Name Speakers because I arrived after they did their thing) but there was an interesting mix of independents, VARs, and importers. I was particularly taken by AnyData, Aangel, and Minimax. I’ll write them up on my Radar blog.

I started to get a feel for the business dynamic here, too. With only 4M people, >shitty broadband penetration means that net-based apps are going to struggle for an audience. Even in mobile, where penetration is 80% (putting NZ 9th in the world), companies are looking to overseas markets. Obviously they turn to Australia first, but they eye Europe, India, and China often too.

That said, I did see small development shops doing well. Find a niche, make the customers happy, make enough money to support yourselves. That seems to be viable in New Zealand, where E’s definitely tend to be S rather than M. (I heard an Indian Kiwi at the conference say “try to take on the SME market” and I heard SME as “smee”, like the character from the Disney Peter Pan and was very confused).

For making big bucks, I think the opportunities probably lie in servicing the lucrative markets (UK, Europe, America, China) with web apps built here. I’ve started to find people in NZ doing Web 2.0 style things (see the mailing list I created) and I’m hoping that we can find a few successes to get the idea out there that this is, in fact, not an impossible way to live.

Raining today. I love the sound of rain on a corrugated iron roof. Nothing like really knowing it’s out there while you’re snuggled up warm under the covers. I wish NZ houses knew about central heating, though. Our bathroom has a radiant bar heater mounted on the wall to warm you while you’re bathing, which is good, but I can’t see that scaling to the rest of the house. I’m trying to figure out how to do some kind of mickey mouse heating duct system to push hot air around the house from the chimney a-la the Roman hypocaust, but I can’t see the local council giving permission for anything that exotic without an ocean of paperwork and consents.