The market’s top auditing firms—PricewaterhouseCoopers, KMPG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, BDO and Grant Thornton—have put together a set of recommendations aimed at overhauling the current system for financial information. Their report entitled Global Capital Markets and the Global Economy points out that the current periodical audits cannot guarantee the detection of corporate fraud and proposes some changes. One is that companies offer complementary information along with their financial reports in order to give investors a more complete image. However the most controversial change recommended is that of swapping the current quarterly financial reports for financial information in real time.

The market’s top auditors, including PwC among others, have published a document in which they propose that financial reports be produced in real time. This measure will foster the transparency of information but could require managers to make decisions that lack strategic vision.

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Title: Information Economy Report 2006
Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Date: November 16, 2006
Abstract: Developing countries are ahead in mobile telephone use, the only ICT area in which they surpass industrialized nations. Of the 2.171 billion mobile phone users worldwide in 2005, 1.174 million were in developing areas. Thanks to the proliferation of affordable devices and an adjusted pricing policy, Asia now represents 40% of the world’s mobile telephone users. On an international scale, according to the UNCTAD report, penetration of mobile telephones reached 33.6% in 2005, up from its 2004 level of 27.5%. UNCTAD considers broadband access to be as necessary a service as water or electricity. Despite this, however, Internet penetration indexes show that the digital divide between rich and poor countries remains. The world’s most industrialized economies have a total penetration rate of 54.4% while the developing nations together achieve just 8.5%.
Genevieve Feraud, head of ICT and e-business at UNCTAD, pointed out that “approximately, one-third of developing countries still have a penetration rate that is less than five percent, adding that South Africa and Korea are among the few exceptions”.
The organization’s report also calls for improvements in mechanisms for measuring ICT strategies and programs, adding that institutionally there is little accountability or incentive to coordinate ICT strategies. Another key point from the report is that by 2010, one third of all Europeans will use their mobile phones to access the Internet.

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The three giants of the videogame market—Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo—are clashing horns for this juicy prize, which amounts to $23.6 billion per year worldwide. Both Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PS3 want to rule the digital home market. The Xbox, which has been available for a year now, is a multimedia device for playing games as well as movies, photos, music and even talking via Internet.
The PS3, meanwhile, has the added bonus of the Blu-ray player in its console. Its handicap is that its impressive technological features, which include a 3.2 Ghz microprocessor, drive up the price considerably.
The Nintendo Wii is the most affordable of the three. It has a price tag of €249 (the basic version of PS3 costs €499) and includes a remote control with a motion sensor that can act as a baseball bat, golf club or racket, without the need to press any buttons. Its strategy is based on offering a simple device that is affordable to all consumers.
Up to now Sony was the world market leader, with 69% of the total share. However, some experts believe that the high price tag for its console may hurt sales and leave a wider margin for its competitors, Microsoft and Nintendo, which hold 17% and 14% of the market, respectively.

News in Wired News and BusinessWeek
Report in BusinessWeek

The division between the IT department and the rest of the business units will continue to diminish, along with a slowing in the growth of outsourcing. These are two of the most important conclusions published in the magazine CIO Insight, which has culled from all of the studies it has published in 2006 to put together a list of what will likely be the 30 most important IT trends in four categories: strategy, management, security and technology.
In the area of strategy, CIO Insight states that IT departments will focus more on improving business processes than searching for new ways to profit from IT. In the management section, the authors highlight how the use of outsourcing will change the roles of IT. This phenomenon, whose growth the authors feel will slow down in 2007, will force CIOs to focus their attention on minimizing disruptions.
In terms of security, the report predicts that companies will not let their guard down and that some enterprises are starting to conceive this problem as a risk management issue rather than an IT problem. In the area of technology, the publication points out the reluctance of CIOs to embrace user-driven innovations such as Web 2.0.

Article in CIO Insight

By Alexis Vassilopoulos, research assistant of e-business Center PwC&IESE
WiMAX’s initial offering for broadband via radio waves is aimed at providing service in areas with no ADSL coverage. In order for WiMAX to become one of the standards selected as a complement for 4G mobile telephone networks, it must first get past a couple of outstanding issues: the development of a sustainable business model and the allocation of the radio spectrum.

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By Steven Tolliver, e-business Center PwC&IESE collaborator
Blogs are becoming a channel through which consumers can send messages to companies that in the past fell upon deaf ears. In order to maintain credibility, the company operating the blog must promise to provide as much information as possible to its readers and be adept at responding to criticisms.

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The e-Business Center, that is developing a project about Electronic word of mouth (e-WOM), participated in the first national blog event in Spain, Evento Blog de España, from November 17-19. Over 300 users, bloggers and experts debated the subject of blogs and their influence on companies, politics and society, among other aspects. In the round table on the relationship between blogs and companies, speakers Julio Alonso, from Weblogs S.L., and Fernando Polo, from Lastinfo, stated that the development of corporate blogs is still in an early phase in Spain. They also encouraged companies to invest considerable efforts in this channel, which is very low cost and allows for more direct communication with consumers, something which translates into more knowledge about what their concerns are.
The speakers pointed out that whereas “CEO blogs,” such as that of General Motors vice president Bob Lutz, are highly successful in the US, product blogs currently fare better in Spain. They also added that the use of the this new tool brings along its own risks. One must be willing to surrender control of the message as well as receive and know how to respond to criticisms, while insisting on transparency. If the consumer feels deceived, said the two speakers, the company’s prestige and credibility could be seriously harmed.

More information (In Spanish)