Fairfax Columns 2002
Since early 1999 I have written a weekly opinion column for the Tuesday IT section in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, published by John Fairfax. This supplement is now called 'Next'. I also write occasional feature and news pieces.
You can download any of these articles from this website. Note:
- All files are MS Word documents
- They are as I originally wrote them, not as subsequently edited by Fairfax
- There are no headlines - these are added by Fairfax subeditors
Here are the columns for 2002. There are brief synposes of each piece - no full text search available, sorry.
| Date | File | Synopsis | Download |
| 22 Jan 2002 | F020122hpcompaq | Thoughts on the HP-Compaq merger | download |
| 29 Jan 2002 | F020129ibmrevs | IBM’s revenues compared to those of its major competitors | download |
| 5 Feb 2002 | F020205oldpcs | What can we do with discarded PCs? | download |
| 12 Feb 2002 | F020212gartner | Gartner’s predictions for 2002 | download |
| 19 Feb 2002 | F020219sun | Brief history of Sun Microsystems and overview of its current position | download |
| 26 Feb 2002 | F020226erp | History of ERP (enterprise resource planning) and SAP Australia’s current strategy | download |
| 5 Mar 2002 | F020305wcit | Impressions of the Word Congress on IT, held in Adelaide in late February | download |
| 12 Mar 2002 | F020312imaging | History of imaging and document management, with a look at Filenet’s current strategy | download |
| 19 Mar 2002 | F020319bugs | Why software has bugs, and why IT is different to other industries | download |
| 26 Mar 2002 | F020326bag | Why the Australian government just doesn’t get it when it comes to broadband | download |
| 2 Apr 2002 | F020402indians | The Indian software industry, and Infosys in particular | download |
| 9 Apr 2002 | F020409studentpoint | A look at www.studentpoint.com.au, a website for university students | download |
| 16 Apr 2002 | F020416wayback | The importance of maintaining our electronic heritage, and a look at www.archive.org and the Wayback machine | download |
| 23 April 2002 | F020423zone | Australian company Zone and its NASDAQ listing, with musings on the ethics of writing about a company GP is investing in | download |
| 30 April 2002 | F020430hurol | A review of Hurol Inan's book "Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Website", and at related issues | download |
| 7 May 2002 | F020507numbers | How three different reports measure Australia's IT usage, and how the Govt selectively uses them | download |
| 14 May 2002 | F020514idc | IDC's annual briefing and how boring it has become | download |
| 21 May 2002 | F020521dbms | Brief history of the DBMS market and how IBM has pulled ahead of Oracle | download |
| 28 May 2002 | F020528semweb | The Semantic Web and Tim Berners-Lee's plans for the future | download |
| 4 June 2002 | F020604teradata | Why we use so much storage, with reference to US company Teradata | download |
| 11 June 2002 | F020611teradata2 | Continuing on from last week's piece | download |
| 18 June 2002 | F020618skills | Asking the question "Is the IT skills shortage a myth?" Answering it "Yes" | download |
| 25 June 2002 | F020625records | How Napster and dowloadable music has made record companies move towards online distribution of music | download |
| 2 July 2002 | F020702problems | Problems with service on GP's trip to the US - and how IT has not given us better service | download |
| 9 July 2002 | F020709pcbillion | The shipment of the billionth PC and a short history of the PC industry | download |
| 16 July 2002 | F020716skills2 | Follow up on 18 June piece and the hundreds of emails in agreement | download |
| 23 July 2002 | F020723pdacrap | Why GP hates PDAs, and how he organises himself | download |
| 30 July 2002 | F020730grid | Grid computing, and an interview with grid guru Dr Ian Foster | download |
| 6 Aug 2002 | F020806newhp | The new Hewlett-Packard, and how the merger with Compaq is proceeding | download |
| 13 Aug 2002 | F020813iseries | IBM's iSeries, and how it has evolved from the AS/400. How it is underrated and underreported | download |
| 20 Aug 2002 | F020820netmad | How GP never ceases to be amazed at the incredible amount of information on the Internet | download |
| 27 Aug 2002 | F020827bromley | Obituary for Allan Bromley, computer historian | download |
| 3 Sept 2002 | F020903pda2 | Follow up on 23 July piece, with particular reference to the Handspring Treo | download |
| 10 Sept 2002 | F020919telstra | How Telstra is adopting a Sun architecture, with increased emphasis on thin clients | download |
| 17 Sept 2002 | F020917wolfram | A look at Stephen Wolfram's book "A New Kind of Science" and its theories | download
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| 24 Sept 2002 | F020924lansa | The success of the Australian-developed Lansa applications development product | download |
| 1 Oct 2002 | F021001skills3 | Still more on the so-called IT skills shortage, and the element of racism that has crept into the debate | download |
| 8 Oct 2002 | F021008msoft | An analysis of Microsoft's suspension of its end user subscription licensing | download |
| 15 Oct 2002 | F021015elearning | The current state of play in the elearning market | download |
| 22 Oct 2002 | F021022selfserve | The importance of self service as a component of e-commerce, based on Martin Butler's comments | download |
| 29 Oct 2002 | F021029autonomic | IBM (and others) move to autonomic computing, where computers maintain themselves | download |
| 5 Nov 2002 | F021105allencisco | A review of the Allen Consulting report that shows e-commerce booming in Australia | download |
| 12 Nov 2002 | F021112mainframe | Why mainframes are still needed and still used | download |
| 19 Nov 2002 | F021119gartner | Gartner's 2002 Symposium and predictions - the real-time enterprise | download |
| 26 Nov 2002 | F021126cluster | The Western Sydney IT cluster and why it is a good idea | download |
| 3 Dec 2002 | F021203dashboard | The different technologies and philosophies behind "management dashboards" | download |
| 10 Dec 2002 | F021210bioinformatics | Bioinformatics - the coming fusion between IT and biotechnology | download |
| 17 Dec 2002 |
F021217predicts | GP marks himself on accuracy for his 10 IT predictions for 02, made a year ago. Score: 4.5 out of 10 | download |