If IBM New Zealand boss Nick Lambert is embarrassed by publicity given to his parting shot as outgoing ITANZ president, ITANZ itself isn’t.
An ITANZ press release last week quoted Lambert criticising the climate for investment in New Zealand by overseas IT companies.
However, he refused to be interviewed on the issue, saying through a spokesman that he was embarrassed comments intended for internal consumption by ITANZ had been made public.
“Nick was speaking purely as the outgoing president” in offering his annual report, says a consultant to ITANZ, Bruce Kohn.
“Global companies will inevitably hold back from further commitment, especially during times of recession,” Lambert said in his report, “unless given more incentive than simply ‘access’ to a market that is tiny by their standards. There is no such thing as an even playing field.”
ITANZ is nearing completion of a “commercialisation study” aimed at exploring export potential for locally developed software, particularly that developed for government, using multinational as export channels. So co-operation with these companies could be a strong plank of ITANZ’s coming year, under new president David Irving, of Synergy.
Irving was unavailable for comment at deadline.
There are persistent rumours that Lambert is about to leave his New Zealand position for an overseas posting with IBM, but to date he has dismissed the reports.