Office 365 switch may hit BPOS die-hards
Are you a customer of Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite who hasn't yet confirmed your intention to upgrade to the new Office 365 paradigm? Well, reality check: You don't have much time to make the change before BPOS is switched off.
Forget it, Australia: No Amazon Fire TV for you
Global content Amazon giant overnight unveiled Fire TV, an Apple TV-like set-top device which is designed to stream movies, TV shows to consumers' televisions, as well as providing video game functionality. However, as with many of Amazon's product launches in the past, there appear to be no immediate plans to ship the device to Australia.
Kim Dotcom wants Mega servers in Australia
Kim Dotcom flags plans to host some servers for his new Mega venture in Australia.
Dyson Heydon doesn’t have a PC … but he does have an iPhone 5
You may recall how earlier this week it was revealed that Dyson Heydon, former High Court judge and now head of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, had admitted he did not use a computer at either of his offices and did not know how to send and receive emails. Well, the plot thickens.
Slow day at Delimiter today
Just a quick note to let you know that we're having a slow day at Delimiter today as I am away. It's actually a terrible time for it, as there are a stack of amazing stories I want and need to write -- the Internet piracy (Attorney-General's) and NBN stuff coming out of Senate Estimates, a bunch of enterprise IT stuff (especially the banks, and the Federal Government procurement situation), further stuff about the ABC's NBN coverage and more. But this one has been scheduled in for a while, so it's unavoidable.
Report: Oracle may be dumping its Australian support centre
Spend a lot of time calling Oracle's Australian support centre for those pesky database support enquiries? Well, if a report late last year and mutterings this week around the traps are any indication, you could shortly be speaking to someone in somewhere like Romania instead.
Watch Delimiter’s article on Turnbull read out in Parliament
As you may remember, when Malcolm Turnbull seized the Prime Ministership from Tony Abbott two weeks ago, I took the chance to publish an examination of the Member for Wentworth’s history leading the Communications Portfolio over the past five years for the Coalition. What you may not have known is that it was also mentioned on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Telstra suffers another data breach
It hasn’t been a good few years for the nation’s biggest telco Telstra when it comes to data breaches. It almost seems like every three to four months, there’s a new chunk of Telstra’s customer data leaked onto the public Internet, and the company has to make yet another apology to those affected, as well as kicking off another ‘review’ of its systems.
Will NBN Co sign its Telstra deal this week?
Multiple outlets are reporting that the National Broadband Network Company is extremely close to concluding its long and convoluted negotiations with Telstra.
More criticism of the ACS
Well-known IT industry figure Tony Healy adds to Freelancer.com chief executive Matt Barrie's criticism of the Australian Computer Society.
Oh dear: Foxtel bitchslaps “delusional” Optus
Well, we knew Optus chief executive Paul O'Sullivan's fighting words about the Foxtel/Austar merger wouldn't go down well in some quarters, but we didn't quite expect this epic spray from Foxtel chief Kim Williams.
Fujitsu wins huge passport CRM deal
Japanese IT services giant Fujitsu revealed last last week tha it had won what it described as a "multi-million dollar deal" to revamp the customer relationship management system administering Australia's passport infrastructure.
Past history: When the Nationals backed the NBN
Think all elements of the Coalition have always been irrevocably opposed to Labor's ambitious National Broadband Network project? Think again. Back in April 2009 when it was first announced by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the good Senator Barnaby Joyce issued a media release supporting the idea.
Why the NBN probably won’t kill Foxtel
The theory that the National Broadband Network is a threat to Foxtel's pay TV business doesn't really hold water.
NSW Govt releases IT anti-corruption guide
Most IT professionals of any seniority are pretty much familiar by now with the sometimes shady tactics used by technology vendors during the procurement process, but just how open is the public discussion around that issue, and what can be done to tighten things up? The answers for many people, until now, have been pretty much “not that open” and “keep a close eye on them”. In an attempt to shine some sunlight on the situation and inject some rigour back into the process, the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has this week published a whitepaper on the issue.
NBN: Lawyer tells Australians to“get off the internet and go outside”
You sometimes read some crazy things in the Daily Telegraph, but this column from one Mirko Bargaric, who appears to be a Deakin University professor, takes the cake.
$94 billion NBN? It’s a nice, unproven, soundbite
One particular aspect of the Coalition's NBN pitch cannot go unchallenged: The constantly repeated claim that Labor's current NBN policy will cost $94 billion -- $60 billion more than Labor is claiming.
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 3 range hits Australia
Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung this morning launched its latest range of Android tablets at a breakfast event in Sydney. There are three models in the new Galaxy Tab 3 line, in three different sizes: 7″, 8″ and 10.1″, which will be selling for pretty great prices — $249, $349 and $399 respectively.
Parliament opens up to non-BlackBerry smartphones
The Federal Parliament allows a selection of politicans and staff access to smartphones from Apple, Samsung and Nokia, in addition to existing BlackBerry options.
Novell to boost “best product” SuSe in Australia
If you're after a good belly laugh, I recommend you check out CIO Magazine's interview here with the Australian sales director for Novell's SuSe Linux distribution.
NBN on Media Watch tonight
Just a brief note to let everyone know that media coverage of the National Broadband Network is expected to be featured on Media Watch tonight, with a focus on the recent articles of ABC Technology + Games Editor Nick Ross and the controversy last week surrounding them. I would encourage all readers who have a view of this issue to contact Media Watch directly and make their opinion or analysis of the situation known.
Proof that the ATO is evil
Following on from our post last week revealing evidence that the National Broadband Network Company is, in fact, evil, fresh details have come to light about the Australian Taxation Office’s allegiance to the dark side.
Telstra to offshore another 1,000, says AFR
Thought Telstra was finished with its wide-ranging outsourcing and offshoring initiatives? Not by half, if a report in the Financial Review newspaper this morning is to be believed.
New Govt tax taskforce may tackle Google, Apple
Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury has announced a government taskforce to force multinational corporations to be more transparent and accountable about how their finances and details of their taxation.
Policy innovation: Govt replaces cloud computing panel with … new panel
What’s not precisely clear at this point is how this new panel will differ from the old one, or how the new ‘cloud-first’ policy will differ from the old one.
Ludlam to do Reddit AMA this Wednesday night
Just a very brief message to let y'all know that Greens Senator, Communications Spokesperson and William Gibson fan Scott Ludlam is planning to open up his world to all and sundry this Wednesday night -- 15 May, from 7:30 to 9PM, for a Reddit AMA ('Ask Me Anything') session.
Govt considers abolishing capital gains tax on startups
If you've ever started your own business (hint: it isn't easy, but it's worth it), you're probably familiar with the fact that you suddenly have to pay a great deal more tax than you previously had to. Australian companies are taxed on their profits, they usually have to collect GST, and that's just the start. Well, now a backbench Coalition MP who has previously been involved with the national technology sector has put forth a proposal which appears to be gaining strength in Government ranks: Remove the annoying capital gains tax when applied to investors in early stage startups.
Five months later, Defence seeks new CTO
It’s clear that things move very slowly within the Federal Government. But taking five months to post an advertisement seeking a replacement for an executive who has publicly announced their departure seems like a little long. As first reported by iTNews, the Department of Defence has finally advertised the position of chief technology officer.
Turnbull stacks NBN Review with Telstra cronies
You can find my thoughts on Justin Milne and other recent NBN appointments under the new Coalition Federal Government in a piece published on Delimiter 2.0 this morning that I titled 'Stacking the deck: NBN Review filled with Turnbull cronies'.
Uber is blocking Qld Govt inspectors from using its service … because it can
According to the Brisbane Times, Uber is fighting back against regulation by ... blocking the Queensland Government's inspectors from booking its services and thus being able to fine its drivers.
Westpac loses McKinnon deputy Sarv Girn
The fallout from the reshuffle at Westpac continued today, with the Financial Review breaking the news that senior IT executive Sarv Girn would quit the bank in search of a chief information officer role elsewhere.
NBN: Where’s the love, Eric Schmidt?
blog When it comes to the National Broadband Network, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt's cup runneth over. Who could forget those heady days at...
Google Glass will ‘end privacy’, claims Cory Bernardi
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi has unleashed on Google’s augmented reality Glass project, which has been getting some press in the US as it comes closer to becoming a commercial project.
Simon Hackett should “cash out”, sell Internode, says iiNet CEO Malone
Fascinating interview on Business Spectator today with iiNet chief executive Michael Malone, who argues that Internode founder Simon Hackett should sell the ISP -- and preferably to iiNet.
‘Mining-hating’ Greens should give up their smartphones for clay tablets, says Canavan
We've seen some pretty wild demands made in the Federal Parliament, but this one probably takes the cake ... at least for this week. Queensland LNP Senator Matt Canavan has accused the Australian Greens of being hypocrites for simultaneously having concerns about Australia's mining sector while also using smartphones which use minerals in their manufacture.
Handy infographic of Telstra’s NBN deal
Confused about what Telstra's $11 billion deal with NBN Co means? You're not alone. It's a complex agreement which took the best part of several years to develop. Happily, NBN Co has provided us with this handy infographic to clear it all up. We hope it all makes sense now.
Australia’s second dot com boom is here
If you've been paying attention to Australia's technology startup sector recently, you might have noticed that it's absolutely booming. Tens of millions of dollars are being ploughed into new startups, incubators and co-working spaces are popping up all over the place, and successful startups like Freelancer.com are considering massive stock market listings.
Optus to release Galaxy Tab 2 10.1?
According to Ausdroid, which usually has the inside scoop on these things, Optus is shortly planning to launch version 2 of Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet (the 10.1" model).
IBM adds 150 new jobs in Ballarat
Well it appears that analyst firm capioIT’s rating of the Victorian region of Ballarat as the best non-metropolitan location in Australia for IT services delivery may be accurate. Or, at least IBM thinks so. In coalition with the Victorian Government, Big Blue last week announced it was expanding its Ballarat operations by some 150 jobs.
Conroy and Husic fight over NBN rollout
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and fellow Labor parliamentarian Ed Husic appear to have gotten into what the Daily Telegraph is describing as "an expletive-laden" "behind the scenes slanging match" in the Labor party room over NBN Co's rollout schedule.
Why the Telstra/NBN deal should be scrapped
blog Over at his blog, seasoned technology executive and all-round nice guy Sean Kaye has some interesting thoughts on a wide range of matters...
Tapestry.net picks up $400k investment
Not every Web 2.0 startup is for sexy young things who are devoted to sharing every instant of their “social universe” online. Some startups aim at different categories. A good example is Tapestry.net, which just picked up a cool $400k in investment from government group Commercialisation Australia.
Coca-Cola Amatil takes SAP project to Asia
For those wondering where Coca Cola Amatil is at with its comprehensive SAP-based internal enterprise IT applications overhaul project, wonder no more.
Surprise! Microsoft hikes Xbox One Aussie price
From the department of completely expected price hikes comes the news that Microsoft has opted to charge Australians substantially more to buy its upcoming Xbox One gaming console when it launches in November this year.
Following CenITex: NSW may outsource ServiceFirst functions
The NSW Government has finally confirmed it is looking to follow Victoria with CenITex and may outsource key chunks of the IT shared services work being done by ServiceFirst and Businesslink.
Do Optus iPhones “constantly drop out”?
The Daily Telegraph has launched what appears to be an all-out attack on SingTel subsidiary Optus, claiming the telco's mobile coverage is the pits.
Bulletproof poaches Rackspace MD
Australian hosting company Bulletproof poaches the local country manager of international hosting giant Rackspace.
Qld Education Dept buys 14k Win8 tablets
If you were the chief information officer of a major education department and wanted to deploy a mass tablet rollout to thousands of students, would you pick Apple’s dominant iPad platform, which owns the majority of the tablet market? Or perhaps you’d go with the fastest-growing competitor and pick Android? That’s probably what we’d do. However, Queensland’s Department of Education has ignored both these options and gone for a Windows 8 model from Acer.
Does Vodafone need a new flagship handset?
Does Vodafone need a new flagship exclusive handset to stack up against the offerings of Telstra and Optus?
Australia’s IT industry just isn’t sexy enough
Those of you who've been following Delimiter over the past several days might have noticed that I've gotten a little bit on my high horse over the issue of industry subsidies. I was a little shocked by the massive national ruckus created by the request by fruit processor SPC Ardmona for millions of dollars worth of government assistance for its plant in Shepparton, Victoria, when larger issues in the nation's technology sector are almost completely ignored. Today I've published a further view on the issue on the ABC's The Drum site, arguing that it's because the IT industry just isn't sexy enough.
Pirate Party Australia feuds with parent
Thought it was only Australia’s major political parties which had ferocious internal political struggles? Think again. According to a lengthy blog post by Pirate Party Australia press officer Mozart Palmer, the local division of the Pirate Party is having branglings so bad with its European parent that some think it should secede altogether.
Optus launches 4G TD-LTE in Canberra
Good news for residents of our nation's fair capital: That TD-LTE 4G mobile broadband network at 2300MHz which Optus has been planning for a while has finally hit Canberra, and Optus has released plan details for it this morning.
Qld’s new IT Minister has zero IT experience
Following the resignation of Ros Bates last week, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has appointed Ian Walker to replace Bates as the state’s Minister for Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts. Did we mention that Walker appears to have no experience dealing with information technology, given his extensive background as a 35-year veteran of law firm Norton Rose?
When NBN installs go wrong: A nightmare tale
Turn the lights down low and prepare to be frightened by just how bad the National Broadband Network install process can be. Self-described "IT guy, husband and father", Andrew Devenish-Mear, has penned an extensive blog post on the horrors of trying to get your NBN connection running even when you're in one of the early fibre roll-out zones.
Adobe bucks IT price hike inquiry
US software giant Adobe is fast emerging as one of the toughest nuts to crack when it comes to the IT price hike inquiry currently being carried out by the Federal Parliament.
Leave Google’s tax alone, Victoria tells Federal Govt
Today Victoria's’s Technology Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips has gone into bat for technology giants such as Google, defending the search giant against the Federal Government’s attempts to make it pay a fair level of tax in Australia.
Can we believe the Galaxy Nexus rumour mill?
Will Samsung's hyped Galaxy Nexus smartphone launch through Optus in late December? It's doubtful.
Google’s new Aussie MD: Zero tech/media experience
This morning search advertising and technology giant Google appointed a new managing director for its Australia and New Zealand division. While Maile Carnegie is a very seasoned executive with a few decades at consumer goods company Proctor & Gamble (P&G), we'd have to question her fitness to provide vision for Google's local operations ... given that the executive appears to have zero experience in either the technology or media industries, which is kind of where Google specialises.
Hudson reveals major virtual desktop rollout
If there is one enterprise IT trend which is taking off in Australia in a strong way right now, it's the move towards virtualisation on the desktop. Finally, enterprises are doing away with the ageing dedicated desktop PC rollout paradigm and replacing it with something which has the potential to be much more flexible and manageable.
Australia trains more fitness than IT professionals
From the thought-provoking blog of REA Group chief information officer Nigel Dalton and his consulting colleague James Pierce comes the news that Australia is currently training many more fitness instructors than IT professionals.
AFP monitoring phone data of MPs
When Greens Communications spokesperson Scott Ludlam said in January 2012 that he suspected law enforcement agencies of bugging his mobile phone, we criticised the Senator for making the claim without providing evidence of the claimed nefarious activity. But according to the ABC, the Australian Federal Police admitted in a Senate Estimates session this week that it had monitored various MPs’ communications.
Why would Anonymous hack Mosman Council?
From this week's WTF files comes a curious case which has reputedly seen that lovable bunch of Internet rogues Anonymous hack into the web site of Mosman Municipal Council.
So is G.Fast a thing or not?
Those who were closely observing Malcolm Turnbull’s debate with Business Spectator public Alan Kohler yesterday will have noted Turnbull’s reference to an emerging standard known as G.Fast. Turnbull made the somewhat controversial claim, according to ZDNet that G.Fast could eventually spur 1Gbps speeds over FTTN networks. But is G.Fast a reality, or another broadband pipe dream?
ATO suffers minor IT security breach
We’re constantly hearing more and more about how “cyber” security is the next big bad, but concrete examples of how Australian Government infrastructure has been broken into are still thin on the ground. One incident to pop up last week has been what appears to be a relatively minor breach of an Australian Taxation Office portal through the logins of a number of tax agents.
NSW Govt consults on ICT policy
The New South Wales Government, which has already been making waves in the IT industry for its comprehensive and forward-thinking ICT policy, has kicked off consultation on the next iteration of the strategy.
Reversal: Telstra no longer keen on Windows Live
It seems like only yesterday that Telstra first confirmed it was interested in dumping the email, blogging, photos and online storage platforms used by customers of its BigPond division and migrating customers to Microsoft’s Windows Live platform. However, it hasn't precisely been an easy transition for the two companies.
BoQ, AMP open up major IT outsourcing deals
Wow. It's been a huge week or so in Australia's financial services IT scene, with revelations that two massive, long-running IT outsourcing deals which have been in place for a decade or more may be finally opened up to rivals.
ABC claims “massive” Chinese IT attack on Bureau of Meteorology supercomputer
The ABC this morning reported that the weather boffins at the Bureau of Metorology had suffered a "massive" IT attack on its systems, including the supercomputer which it uses for weather forecasting, with the source reportedly being based in China.
Telstra may terminate 280k mobile services
Wholesale telco ispONE this morning issued a media release stating that it had filed an application with the Federal Court seeking to stop its own upstream provider, Telstra, from terminating the supply of prepaid mobile services to ispONE. Why is this an issue? Because if Telstra moves ahead with the move, it will result in some 280,000 customers losing their mobile access.
Cinema execs blame piracy for $20 ticket prices
If you've attended an Australian cinema recently, you'll be aware that $20 ticket prices are now a thing. If you just hit up a film every couple of weeks and avoid the cinema's high-priced junk food aisle (your writer habitually goes to Woolworths for some snacks beforehand), then this mark may not seem like such a huge deal. But if you throw a family into the mix, a night out at the movies can now seem a little too exorbitant for many. According to several cinema executives, one of the central reasons for the ongoing price increases is Internet piracy.
Turnbull confronts Google over NBN support
It was only several weeks ago that Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull claimed search giant Google and others were in “a conspiracy against the taxpayer” because they were supporting the NBN, because it would benefit their business and they wouldn’t have to pay for it to be built themselves. And now he’s done it again.
Lumia 925 hits Australia this month
Nokia's Lumia 925 is a similar model to its previous top of the range smartphone, the Lumia 920, but with a thinner and lighter casing and some other minor improvements. Can it move the needle for Nokia?
Victoria Police gives up trying to replace 25-year-old IT system
I strongly urge the Victorian Government to address this issue as a matter of urgency. It will require not only a substantial funding increase for this area to Victoria Police, but also a number of senior appointments and strong Ministerial support to get this project moving and delivered.
We’re “a laughing stock” on R18+ games, says Minister
Just when you thought it was safe to assume that politicians didn’t really understand the debate around the need for an R18+ classification for video games, one pops his head up to disabuse us of the notion. Today’s Labor hero is Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor.
Cloud vendors need to communicate better: CIO
Over at his blog Cloud81, Altium chief information officer Alan Perkins is ruminating -- as is often his wont -- on cloud computing.
Apple hikes Aussie iOS app prices as Australian dollar sinks
The sinking value of the Australian dollar when compared to the greenback is certainly causing quite a spot of bother for Apple gear. Australians already got a raw deal on Cupertino’s new iPhones, iPads and TV, and now we’re going to be paying through the nose as well for apps, with Apple announcing a formal price rise over the next 36 hours.
NBN pricing revisited: The ARPU argument
Grahame Lynch is a respected telecommunications commentator and a professional colleague of mine with whom I have shared many an ale. But, like other commentators on the issue of NBN pricing, he hasn't provided enough evidence to make his case that broadband prices will rise under the NBN.
Non-4G Lumia 720 hits Australia
Finnish smartphone manufacturer Nokia announced today that its Lumia 720 model would come to Australia. Unfortunately, while the model is quite high-end -- it comes with a 4.3" screen, a 1GHz dual-core CPU, Windows Phone 8, a 6.7 megapixel camera on the back, 512MB of RAM and 8GB of storage space, plus the ability to take a microSD card up to 64GB -- it does not support the 4G networks already launched in Australia by Telstra and Optus, being limited to 3G.
NSW, SA lose Health CIOs
From Intermedium this morning comes news that health departments in both South Australia and New South Wales are looking for new chief information officers, with their long-time incumbents departing and making way for new public servants in their roles.
NBN + climate change deniers: A rebuttal
Remember those controversial comments by telecommunications analyst Paul Budde, comparing critics of Labor’s National Broadband Network project to “climate change deniers”? Sure you do. But what you may not have known is that Robert Kenny of UK communications consultancy Communications Chambers penned a rebuttal.
NBN Co considers third satellite
NBN Co is reportedly considering launching a third satellite in an effort to provide better broadband access to the small percentage of Australians in remote areas.
Spend-less Shoes replaces dated ERP platform
Speaking of ERP platforms, as we were earlier this morning, news arrived last week that local footwear retailer Spend-less Shoes will deploy a new platform. The company has picked Microsoft’s Dynamics AX 2012 for Retail platform, as detailed in a statement issued by Redmond.
Telstra releases ‘Top Hat’ project details
We've received the following statement from Telstra regarding its 'Top-Hat' project.
Anti-piracy laws will increase piracy, says Budde
It's no secret that a large percentage of the technology sector thinks that the current proposal by Federal Attorney-General George Brandis (pictured) to crack down on Internet piracy will have little impact, given that most such attempts in the fast have broadly failed, and the commonly held belief that commercial avenues represent the best way to handle the situation. However, some commentators feel things will go still further. Veteran telecommunications analyst Paul Budde wrote this morning on his blog that he expects the anti-piracy measures to actually increase piracy.
iiNet to splurge $350m on content, media
Over-the-top plays have not always gone well for Australia's telcos and Internet service providers. While the sector's big players -- Telstra, Optus, TPG, iiNet and Vodafone -- have proved themselves able at selling telecommunications services, in most cases they have also found it hard to make money from content or services sold over the top of their telco packages. But this doesn't appear to daunt iiNet, which tells the Financial Review this week that it has a war chest for just this purpose.
Stephen Conroy wishes you Merry Christmas
Yes, the above is a Christmas card sent by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to Delimiter. It was addressed to "Ms Renai LeMay" (oops), but we choose to believe that it expressed sentiments by the Minister not to me personally, but to the Delimiter community as a whole, as the site's strength is not in one person's voice, but in the many.
No Android ABC iView? “Outrageous”, says Huawei
Chinese device manufacturer Huawei severely criticises the ABC for not developing an Android version of its popular iView iOS app.
NBN Co’s wireless rollout also behind
Bad news upon bad news is continuing to pile on for the Federal Government's National Broadband Network project. Hot upon the heels of the asbestos scandal which continues to plague Telstra as it remediates its pits and pipes for the NBN infrastructure, the Financial Review has reported this morning that the wireless component of the NBN rollout is also significantly behind.
Granularity enters APRA’s cloud computing stance
As I wrote a few weeks back, the debate around cloud computing in Australia is becoming more granular and tactical -- as organisations gradually shift to a more mature understanding of this new class of technologies. In some ways, this is not a revolution; but an evolution; not a black and white scenario, but one of shades of gray. It's good to see some recognition from APRA of this fact.
The plot thickens: Going deeper into NBN Co’s spat with Turnbull
For those who've been watching the developing situation between Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the board of NBN Co, particularly its chair, Siobhan McKenna (pictured above), there are two new pieces of content this morning which you may be interested in.
Gillard watches Game of Thrones legally
This day had to come. Ladies and gentlemen, the science fiction and fantasy worlds so beloved by IT geeks the world around have now gone mainstream. The Guardian's Australian edition reports this morning that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is a huge fan of Game of Thrones, the popular TV adaptation of George R. R. Martin's excellent A Song of Ice and Fire epic series. And what's even more interesting is that the Prime Minister is watching Game of Thrones completely legally.
US designates Assange ‘enemy of state’
Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Philip Dorling has uncovered the fact that the US has designated Wikileaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange an official target.
Australia’s IT startups need more capital
According to Phil Morle, the co-founder of startup incubator and consultancy Pollenizer, the situation still isn’t where it needs to be in terms of IT startup funding in Australia.
Ashley Madison hacker may be Australian, likes AC/DC
Pioneering US security journalist Brian Krebs — who has broken a number of major hacking stories over the past several years — thinks he may have tracked down one of the Ashley Madison perpetrators. The kicker? He appears to be Australian and may be a fan of local supergroup AC/DC.
Kogan loses licence in high-speed police chase
We know we’ve pinned Ruslan Kogan for a certain degree of … arrogance, previously, but we really didn’t expect the maverick online retail and consumer electronics guru to go quite this far in proving our point.
HP issues waffle statement on job cuts claim
Help us decipher HP's waffle.
Need a 3G SIM? MacGyver it from your power meter
From Tasmania today comes a tale of woe and piracy … apparently the electricity meters in the state have SIM cards embedded in them for Telstra’s Next G network, and they can be used for ill. Who knew?
Sources claim Oracle has completely dumped its Australian support centre
Delimiter has been contacted by several sources who have stated that The Register's report is accurate, and that Oracle has indeed completely offshored its Australian support centre in the past month.
“Bragging rights?” Telstra has 1,000 4G base stations
Telstra has hit the 1,000 base station mark for installations of its 4G mobile network around Australia, and Optus and Vodafone are nowhere near catching up.
CommBank CIO reveals troubled youth
He’s probably Australia’s highest-profile chief information officer; a high flier who is currently leading a billion dollar core banking transformation project the envy of the entire financial services sector. But CommBank CIO Michael Harte wasn’t always a good boy, according to a fascinating profile of the executive by iTWire’s Beverley Head.
Video: Quigley hits the 7:30 Report
We encourage you to check out this excellent interview 7:30 (previously the 7:30 Report) conducted with NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley, in the wake of the company’s problems negotiations with contractors to roll out fibre around the nation and the questions raised about any role Quigley and NBN Co CFO Jean-Pascal Beaufret may have had in Alcatel-Lucent’s bribery allegations.
Is this Mike Quigley’s car?
This little gem was spotted by Twitterer Wade Roberts, cruising around Castle Hill, Sydney. We’re not sure at this point whether it belongs to NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley (actually, we’re pretty sure it doesn’t, but one can dream!), although after all, Castle Hill isn’t that far from Quigley’s place in Mosman.
The ATO’s decade-long Mac denial
The reluctance of the Australian Taxation Office to provide a working version of its e-tax lodgement software for the Apple Macintosh has been a long-time bug-bear with Mac users around Australia for a long time. But some of them may not realise just how long angry parliamentarians and others have been harassing the agency about the issue.
Iranian refugee goes from a ‘boat’ to working for Google Australia
Michael Ascharsobi arrived by boat in Australia as an asylum seeker. Now he works for Google and teaches at the University of Technology, Sydney. Not a bad effort -- not bad indeed.
CenITex turfs almost all contractors
Those of you with a long-term interest in Victorian Government IT shared services provider CenITex will remember that the agency was several years ago known far and wide for the high rates it was paying its extensive contractor workforce. No more: Most of those contractors are now gone.
Chinese spy concerns: Key Australian defence agencies ban Lenovo
According to the Financial Review, PCs made by Lenovo have been banned from the “secret” and ‘‘top secret” networks of the intelligence and defence services of Australia, the US, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, due to similar spying concerns as have been published about Chinese networking vendor Huawei.
Qld towns build their own goddamn NBN
They weren't getting much joy from the Federal Government's National Broadband Network and were only slated to receive satellite services under the plan, so half a dozen Queensland towns have reportedly decided to build their own fibre backhaul network connecting the region to the main NBN infrastructure.
NBN should abolish speed tiers, says economist
According to one economist, the NBN might actually see higher uptake if just one flat speed (presumably 100Mbps, initially) was provided.
SA Police want face recognition CCTV everywhere
I'd just like to be able to pop down to the shops quickly now and then for a packet of chips without some police system automatically scanning my face for matches with some massive crime database. Is that too much to ask?
Telstra pays tiddlywinks for huge privacy breach
We can't help but suspect that the telco considers itself to have gotten off relatively scot-free from the debacle, paying an infringement notice of only $10,200 in relation to its contravention of an earlier direction on the issue by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
First interviews surface with new Defence CIO
It’s been a couple of months since the new Department of Defence chief information officer, Peter Lawrence, stepped on board to replace the now legendary Greg Farr, and the first interviews have started to surface with Lawrence.
Reminder: Delimiter is giving away an Apple iPad mini 4!
Just a quick post to remind you that Delimiter is currently holding our first reader giveaway since our relaunch!
Reality check: Femtocells are not an Optus scam
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Ultimately, Optus' femtocell launch is a positive step forward for Australia's telecommunications industry and its customers.
G-Cloud, or G-String?
We can’t say we’re surprised by the news that Canberra’s public sector chief information officers are discussing sharing computing capacity with each other, in what many are starting to call a government cloud or “G-Cloud” cloud computing-type situation. After all, such an idea was mentioned in AGIMO’s recent cloud computing paper.
NAB loses CIO Denis McGee
As reported by half a dozen media outlets over the past 24 hours, long-time National Australia Bank senior IT executive Denis McGee, who has most recently held the post of chief information officer, has resigned.
Turnbull would win if leader, says Windsor
According to Independent Tony Windsor, if Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull were to contest the upcoming September Federal Election as Leader of the Opposition, the Coalition would be a shoe-in for victory.
PayPal: A new bank or a Web 1.0 dinosaur?
If Australia's major banks -- or, indeed, anyone in the world -- can come up with an alternative to PayPal's dubious internet payments monopoly, I say bring it on.
NBN nightmare install escalated to CEO, fixed
Remember Andrew Devenish-Meares, the Armidale resident who penned a nightmarish tale several weeks ago relating to his ongoing struggle to get the National Broadband Network fibre connected to his house? Well, the situation has been resolved, and Devenish-Meares is now a happy NBN camper with Internode.
Woolworths dumping Windows for Chrome OS
Huge news coming from Computerworld today with respect to retail chain Woolworths, which is reportedly set to switch 85 percent of its PCs across to Google's Chrome OS operating system, shifting off Windows in the process.
No core IT overhaul in Westpac’s future
Westpac has stepped away from its core banking IT upgrade plans for now, according to the Financial Review.
Sydneysiders quit Google to fix … Gmail
What is hilarious and very telling about Google's current corporate culture is that three entrepreneurs felt it necessary to resign from their (no doubt high-paying) jobs in the supposedly innovative GooglePlex in order to push the envelope forward on email, an area which Google itself revolutionised almost a decade ago with Gmail.
Troubling allegations swirl L.A. Noire
When blockbuster cross-platform video game L.A. Noire was released last month, many Australians got a wee bit patriotic and teary as we realised the game was substantially put together by Australian development house Team Bondi, as the nation's biggest ever and most successful video game project. However, since that time, a series of troubling allegations have emerged.
Qantas’ Amazon website cloud move will save it $30m
Over the past several years it has become a very common story to see major organisations shifting IT infrastructure, particularly their public-facing websites, into cloud computing facilities. Major banks have done it. Government departments have done it. And now, as has been outlined in a slew of articles over the past week, has Qantas -- well, at least it's in the throes of the migration.
Farce: WA Health can’t manage to find a CIO after six years
Every major organisation in Australia needs a senior executive to hold its top technology role. The minute you abandon that concept, is the minute you invite the kind of IT disasters and cost blow-outs that are already rife within Australia's state-based public sector.
Lenovo’s IBM server + Motorola buys will raise new security questions
Remember when the Financial Review reported in August that devices manufactured by Chinese vendor Lenovo (including its extremely popular ThinkPad line) had been banned from use in the “secret” and “top secret” networks of the intelligence and defence services of Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, because of similar espionage concerns as have been leveled at Chinese networking vendor Huawei? Well, Australian government agencies just got a whole new kettle of fish to worry about, with two key acquisitions by Lenovo which have taken place over the past week or so.
Surprise! PlayStation Now delayed for Australia
From the Department of No Surprises comes the news that Sony’s cloud-based PlayStation Now service — which allows users of its gaming consoles to play games online without having to download the content — will not initially be available to Australians when it launches in the middle of this year.
Delimiter needs you: Help convince Conroy to open up about tech policy
In which I request the help of Delimiter's readership in convincing former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to speak to me about technology policy.
“Nightmare scenario”: Vodafone reveals extensive Govt wiretapping
If you thought you had a solid grip on just how extensive Government surveillance of our electronic communications systems was, think again. The revelations just keep coming. Late last week mobile telco Vodafone revealed an extensive bucket list of surveillance measures which are used by governments in dozens of countries it operates in — including Australia — to retrieve information about its customers.
The Australian’s still on Conroy’s back
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy won't have been too happy this morning when he picked up his copy of The Australian newspaper -- if he still reads it, that is, after his public attacks on the masthead last month.
SA Govt forgets to pay phone bill
Think the Queensland and Western Australian State Governments have got problems with their technology shared services divisions? Well, they have. But at least they (we assume) pay their telephone bills on time. That isn’t precisely the case in South Australia, where the state’s Finance Minister yesterday revealed it couldn’t even get that right.
Transformer Pad Infinity lands Aug 7
The ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity looks set to hit Australian from August 7 this year.
Bugcrowd picks up $1.6m funding
There might not be enough capital floating around in Australia’s IT startup ecosystem for it to expand at the rate some would like, but some startups, at least, are not finding much difficulty with raising capital. Crowdsourced security startup Bugcrowd today revealed it had picked up $1.6 million in funding from Australian and US investors.
Australia’s carriers want to sell you a Galaxy S4
In case you missed it, we thought we'd let you know that we've received fevered media releases from all of Australia's major mobile carriers over the past few days letting us know the somewhat obvious news that they will be stocking the new Galaxy S 4 model when it launches in Australia.
How much more do servers cost in Australia?
How much more do the hardware servers used by small businesses and large organisations cost in Australia? Quite a lot more than in the US, according to a report by small business technology media outlet BIT, in yet another case of the Australian technology tax striking fear into Australian wallets.
CIO gives top seven tips for cloud adoption
Excellent blog post here from Altium chief information officer Alan Perkins, who gives his top seven tips for the most important things to consider when moving enterprise IT services into the cloud.
Why is Transport for NSW signing a 10-year, 1bn deal with IBM?
IBM might have been banned from signing new contracts with the Queensland Government over the Queensland Health payroll systems disaster, but that apparently hasn’t stopped other Australian jurisdictions from dealing with the vendor. The Financial Review reports this morning that Transport for NSW (which was formed from the merger of the NSW RTA, maritime, transport construction authority and Country Rail groups) is poised to jump into bed with Big Blue in a big way.
Court rules Optus coverage ads misleading
There you have it, folks -- in black and white. A court has decided that Telstra's network covers a geographic area nearly two and a half times greater in land mass than that of Optus. That's a figure we'll be pulling up regularly in future as Optus makes claims about its coverage.
Australia’s biggest ever global float: Atlassian worth US$5.8bn
Great news from the US, where Australian software firm Atlassian has at long last started selling its shares on the NASDAQ, under the ticker TEAM. The Guardian reports that the share price of the company has already soared on its first day. The share sale apparently represents Australia's biggest ever share float on the international market.
Tesla Powerwall to hit Australia first, in late 2015
Reneweconomy reports that US car manufacturer and burgeoning battery giant Tesla is looking to launch its home and commercial battery storage solution Powerwall into Australia in late 2015, with retailers such as Canberra-based Reposit Power already going public with its plans to act as an integrator.
Coalition NBN policy: Costed or not costed?
Call us sticklers for the truth, but it does seem rather like Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been jumping back and forth recently over the issue of whether the Coalition's rival National Broadband Network policy has been costed.
Optus loses networks chief Ottendorfer
Optus revealed last week that it's losing its highly regarded networks chief Günther Ottendorfer, who's been the driving force between the rapid rollout of its 4G network. To put it mildly, this is a huge loss for Optus
Apple Maps losing Victorians in forest
We haven’t found Apple’s new mapping application in iOS 6 to be that much of a headache — in fact, it does offer some noticeable improvements in some areas over the previous Google Maps tool — but then we weren’t trying to use the platform to navigate by road to the Victorian town of Mildura. According to the Victorian Police, quite a few people have made that mistake — and ended up in the middle of nowhere.
Now You Should Listen to This, Because This Concerns You
In the movies, it's common for a new prisoner to wait until lunch, then find the biggest, baddest dude in the room and beat...
Qld Govt hacked Brisbane’s traffic systems
You would hope, you would really hope, that a major city such as Brisbane, which is about to host the G20 group of twenty global finance ministers and central bank governors, would be in the practice of ensuring that the traffic management systems which govern the operation of systems such as stoplights would be secure from attack. But not so.
Alleged LulzSec hacker charged with trivial offence
Remember how the Australian Federal Police’s high-tech crime unit held a high-profile national press conference in late April to announce that they had charged a 24-year-old Australian man with hacking offences? Well, it was revealed today that the AFP has basically charged the man with … almost nothing.
‘Champagne gold’ HTC One hits Telstra
If you're an Android user but also a fan of the new gold option on Apple's iPhone 5S, you may be interested to know that Taiwanese vendor HTC has just announced a 'champagne' gold version of its flagship One handset through Telstra.
Corruption raises its ugly head in Australia’s technology sector
The newspaper alleged, and Leighton has substantially verified, the fact that staff from Visionstream were suspected of aiding Silcar staff in stealing Visionstream tender files relating to a $240 million contract to deploy Optus’s 4G network, which the two contractors were competing to bid. I’ll have a separate article on that situation shortly.
What you may not realise is that this not an isolated incident.
Medibank Private dumps seven other telcos, keeps Telstra and … Skype?
I've got a number of questions about this deal ... namely: How the hell was Medibank Private -- a huge corporation -- even using eight different telecommunications suppliers in 2015 to start with? Why has it taken the company so long to consolidate the numbers of suppliers down? And since when, as Telstra detailed in its media release, has Telstra been selling Skype for Business services (owned by Microsoft) as part of its service offering?
Union issues ‘please explain’ on 400 Sensis job cuts
Well, it didn’t take long. Just one month (one month!) after Telstra agreed to sell 70 percent of its ailing directories and advertising business Sensis to US-based private equity firm Platinum Equity, up to 400 jobs are reportedly set to be cut at the division.
Abbott, Turnbull: No NBN talks with Murdoch
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull both deny they've held discussions with News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch over the National Broadband Network.
Four months later, Govt cloud, IT audit stall
The new Coalition Government appears to have made little progress so far on enacting core elements of its centralised IT policy.
KIRA elaison: Has Toshiba burned Apple’s Retina Display?
Laptop stalwart Toshiba has beaten Apple to the punch by offering an extremely high-resolution display in a slimline Ultrabook that has been clearly designed to appeal to buyers’ deep love of everything shiny.
The new NBN fibre/ADSL digital divide
In amongst all the noise from the politicians over the National Broadband Network rollout in Tasmania was buried a very interesting comment from a business owner in Smithton who’s had NBN fibre for six months already.
UNSW publishes detailed cloud/data sovereignty toolkit
The University of New South Wales's widely respected Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre has published what I would consider to be a very useful whitepaper investigating data sovereignty issues related to cloud computing in the Australian context.
Rejected: No iTunes Radio for Australia
If you were following the many announcements made by iconic technology giant Apple at its Worldwide Developers Conference in the US overnight, you would have likely been well-pleased by the news that Cupertino is finally launching an Internet streaming music service (ad-supported) to compete with the likes of Spotify, Rdio and the like. But what you may not realise is that iTunes Radio won’t immediately be available in Australia.
IBM received leaked info during Qld Health payroll bid
The somewhat disturbing revelations from the Commission of Inquiry into Queensland Health’s payroll systems disaster just keep on coming. The Brisbane Times reports today that prime contractor IBM was actually forwarded leaked information that could have helped it win the payroll upgrade contract.
Tasmanians have copper cut off before NBN connected
You would think ... you would really think, that there would be no possible way that NBN Co, Telstra and retail ISPs like Eftel could so badly coordinate the changeover process from Telstra's copper network to NBN Co's fibre network that any resident could be left without telecommunications access. You would think.
Symantec smoking own cybercrime hype
It looks as if Symantec commissioned a report by a company called Strategy One which claimed to show the global cybercrime trade caused losses as large as the value of the global trade in illicit drugs. Shocker.
Amazon’s Australian datacentre gets closer
That Australian datacentre which Amazon was planning to build? It's been a while since we heard a good rumour on that one, but The Register delivers this week, with news that the US cloud computing and online retail giant's local plans are still on.
iHype: Welcome to the iPhone 5 hypno-orgy
Apparently, the iPhone 5 is already a success, before it even launches.
DTO looking to create Govt cloud marketplace
If you've been following public sector IT for a while, you're probably aware that Australia's Federal Government has not precisely set the world on fire when it comes to its adoption of cloud computing platforms. Most Government CIOs consider the cloud a little risky, both for control reasons, but also because of data sovereignty issues. However, much of that may change, if Malcolm Turnbull's Digital Transformation Office gets its way.
Despite Aussie windfall, does Apple profit slide suggest hard times ahead?
blog Even as it marks the tenth anniversary of iTunes and its companion iPod device, Apple’s first profit decline in a decade has many observers contemplating the future of the pioneering company – and asking whether Steve Jobs’ spirit of innovation has in fact passed along with the company’s co-founder.
Specsavers deploys Google Apps, loves cloud
Optometry chain Specsavers has deployed Google Apps to its Australian staff and hopes to continue moving almost everything else into the fluffy happy land of cloud computing, the company's Asia-Pacific IT director Simon Baxter has told iTNews on the sidelines of the CIO Strategy Summit the week before last.
Politicians flood launch of #fintech hub Stone & Chalk
blog Sydney-based financial technology startup hub Stone & Chalk launched last night to great fanfare, with a solid wedge of politicians from both major...
CommBank ads to pimp core banking overhaul
Word on the street is CommBank is about to take its much-heralded, $730 million core banking modernisation project on the road, with a series of advertisements planned to go to air late on Boxing Day to inform the public about how the core overhaul will affect them, with buzzwords like "real-time banking" and a winsome lass toting an iPhone 4 to boot.
Australian commentary on Aaron Swartz
Many of you will be aware that earlier this month one of the Internet's brightest young stars, Aaron Swartz, was tragically lost. And due to his global influence, a number of Australian writers have penned pieces discussing the themes of his life.
October iPhone 4S looking very likely
It is looking increasingly likely that Apple will launch the next version of its flagship iPhone smartphone line in Australia around October or November this year.
Which department banned Yammer?
blog Our favourite local e-government specialist Craig Thomler has a fascinating post over on his blog about a Federal Government department which has recently...
Huawei confirms Ascend P6 for 15 July
We've been getting gradually more impressed with the smartphones launched in Australia by Chinese vendor Huawei over the past several years, although they haven't quite measured up to the best that top of the line vendors like Apple, Samsung and HTC have been able to deliver. The newest cab off Huawei's rank is the Ascend P6.
ATO still struggling with WinXP upgrade
Remember how in October 2011 the Australian Taxation Office revealed that it would finally ditch Microsoft’s legacy Windows XP operating system and adopt Windows 7? Yeah, not so much.
Gizmodo has been chasing people around Sydney that might be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto
Gizmodo has revealed that it, too, has been tracking Craig Wright and his friend Dave Kleiman for some time regarding the claim that they may jointly be the creator of Bitcoin. The media outlet has gone as far as visiting people associated with Wright and Kleiman in Sydney and asking them for further information.
What should the ACCC’s role be in guiding infrastructure spending?
Those of you who have been in the industry for some time may recall that the national competition regulator played a substantial role in the previous Labor Government deciding to restructure the telecommunications sector through implementing an all-fibre model for its National Broadband Network project. This week, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull made a few somewhat controversial comments about the ACCC's historical role in the situation.
Lockheed Martin is ASG’s mystery bidder
blog After a few months of speculation, it has emerged that the mystery bidder attempting to buy Perth-headquartered IT services firm ASG is Lockheed...
NBN a “horrible hoax”, says Turnbull
The claim by Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull that Labor’s National Broadband Network project will take 20 years and up to $100 billion has been pretty comprehensively debunked at this point, NBN Co’s latest rollout speed downgrades notwithstanding. However, the Earl of Wentworth continues to trot it out during his visits to small community meetings.
Turnbull reportedly hires Henry Ergas for NBN cost/benefit analysis
If you were seeking to hire independent experts to conduct a cost/benefit analysis on an important piece of national infrastructure, you would probably seek to hire, well, experts who were independent, right? Experts who hadn't previously formed a fixed view on what would be the best way to deploy that infrastructure? Wrong, at least if you're Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Ireland subsidises FttX to rural areas
If all you know about Ireland is sourced from St Patrick's Day festivities, then you might be surprised to learn that internationally the country is considered a centre for technology innovation, largely because its Government has continually invested in the industry through favourable taxation laws and investment. In the newest move to come from this island nation, broadband is the focus.
Telstra Desires get Gingerbread … sans HTC Sense
We're not sure if this is good news for Telstra customers who own one of the original HTC Desire handsets or not. It appears everyone concerned has finally tired of trying to get HTC's custom Sense interface to work with the latest version 2.3 (Gingerbread) of Google's Android platform when running on the HTC Desire. The solution? Just cut it out.
Defence kicks off mammoth ERP transformation program
Those of you who got too deep, too early into the silly season around Christmas time may have missed the fact that the Department of Defence has taken a strong step forward in the mammoth ERP consolidation program known as "Defence Insight".
Turnbull “gets” the NBN, claims Oakeshott
Independent MP Rob Oakeshott has stated that he would be more willing to deal with a Coalition Government led by Malcolm Turnbull than Tony Abbott, due, among other reasons, to the fact that Turnbull "gets" the need for the National Broadband Network project to go ahead.
Salesforce.com is making in-roads into Australia’s banking sector again
Cloud computing vendors such as Salesforce.com have had a bit of a difficult relationship with Australia's banking and financial services sector. This week from the company's Dreamforce conference in the US comes news that Salesforce.com is yet again making some headway.
Parliament runs out of money for Win7 rollout
In an exchange in a Senate Estimates hearing yesterday (PDF transcript here), DPS secretary Carol Mills revealed the department didn’t have enough money to complete the rollout to Windows 7 it has been working on.
Google protecting pirates, says film giant
Film and entertainment giant Village Roadshow is decidedly unhappy with Google Australia for taking what the search giant believes is a realistic approach to dealing with Internet piracy. Go figure.
Defence worthy of a High Court victory? “Yes, Minister”
Given iiNet's conclusive victory in its High Court defence against AFACT this morning, it seems an appropriate time to remind readers of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's opinion of the case, aired in March 2009.
Debunking Abbott’s “server timestamp” claims
Unless you live in an area of Australia where it's impossible to get television or radio reception (an idea which has seemed attractive to your writer at times, in the current media environment), it would have been hard to escape the news that a Federal Court judge has thrown out the sexual harassment case against former Federal House of Representatives Speaker Peter Slipper. But it's one particular comment by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that has Australia's IT industry perking up its ears this morning.
Sexism and douche-baggery in the hackersphere
Australian online technology activist Asher Wolf slams elements of the hackersphere which she says have been demonstrating sexism.
Google publishes book on Aussie innovation
Google Australia has published a new 47 page book. Dubbed 'Australia's Innovation Generation' and part of the search giant's Start with Code campaign, the book chronicles the stories of ten innovative Australian entrepreneurs, including high-fliers such as Atlassian's Mike Cannon-Brookes and entrepreneur-turned-investor Niki Scevak.
Tragic accident reported in NBN Kiama build
NBN Co has been advised of a reported fatality at Kiama that occurred just before noon today. The Ambulance Service responded and Police are in attendance.
Turnbull to restore some NICTA/Data61 funding a year after it was chopped
According to Financial Review correspondent Phillip Coorey — currently travelling with now Prime Minister Turnbull on an extensive overseas trip stopping off at Germany — Turnbull is set to reinstate at least some of the funding chopped from NICTA.
Will Samsung try to block iPhone 5 sales in Australia?
If you read between the lines of a number of articles about Samsung's ongoing legal action against Apple on the patent front, it starts to appear increasingly possible that the company will try to block sales of Apple's iPhone 5 when the device launches in Australia -- expected to be before the end of this year.
Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes has kicked off a Reddit AMA
In Australia's technology pantheon, Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes is somewhere near the top. Cannon-Brookes successfully developed a massive software company still largely based in Australia, has invested in scores of other local technology startups, and is trying to save Australian Technology Park in Sydney. Now you'll get the chance to ask the entrepreneur anything you want, courtesy of a Reddit AMA he's starting to promote the closing date of the latest intake round for the Startmate incubator.
Worst of the worst: Send us all your FTTN node photos
Right around Australia, right now, the NBN company and its contractor are deploying thousands upon thousands of brand Fibre to the Node cabinets and micronodes. But sometimes it stuffs up and places them in terrible locations. So send us all your node photos and we'll publish the "worst of the worst".
Telstra now has 10,000 offshore staff
Wondering how many staff the nation’s biggest telco Telstra has located overseas, following its decision over the past several years to end its previous moratorium on offshore support? Wonder no more, for, through the magic of journalism, the Sydney Morning Herald has discovered the full extent of the big T’s offshoring efforts.
Telstra gets $150m for NBN FTTN trial
Remember how in early June, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull revealed that Telstra was working on a wide-scale trial of the Coalition’s preferred Fibre to the Node network rollout style that would encompass about a thousand nodes? Well, it looks like the pedal is about to hit the metal with the trial, with the Financial Review quoting Turnbull this week as stating that the two telcos had signed a deal which would see the trial go ahead.
Core banking overhaul is a false dichotomy
The CBA has been on a high-spending tech roadmap for the past decade — first with the CommSee project, and now with its core overhaul. But then, it needed to — it probably had the most archaic systems of any bank to start with. And why should all of the other banks play follow the leader if there are bigger problems that need to be solved?
Madness? Holmesglen TAFE upgrades GroupWise
It’s been a while since I’ve seen any Australian organisation of any kind have any words of praise for Novell’s ailing GroupWise collaboration suite. The trend is overwhelmingly that organisations are continually ditching it for alternatives, typically Microsoft’s Outlook/Exchange platform. However, if an article published by ZDNet is to be believed, at least one organisation is sticking with the Novell warhorse.
Danger, Will Robinson: Commission of Audit wants Centrelink core IT systems outsourced
Yours truly hasn't yet had the chance to comb through the recommendations contained in the Abbott administration's Commission of Audit report released this afternoon; that will take the better part of a week. However one notable item which has already been picked up by technology media outlet iTNews this afternoon is that the report includes some rather ... drastic recommendations for Centrelink's extremely complex and high maintenance core IT systems.
The ATO raided alleged Bitcoin ‘billionaire’ over a paltry few million dollars
To your writer's mind, the amount of money the ATO is chasing from Wright severely diminishes the case that Wright is Nakamoto. If this is indeed true, there would be no need for the cryptologist to get involved in a legal case with the ATO over a handful of millions.
Ex-staffer threatened ISP director with axe
If you thought you were having a bad day, spare a thought for the company director of an un-named South Australian ISP, who was recently threatened with an axe by an angry individual who had also allegedly hacked into its servers.
Is this man Australia’s top geek?
Oh, dear. There exists a possibility that Internode chief Simon Hackett could win iiNet’s ‘Top Geek’ competition. He’s got our vote :)
Reality check: China’s not getting an “NBN”
You wouldn’t believe the number of outraged readers who’ve contacted me today encouraging me to take The Australian newspaper to town for its controversially headlined story in this morning’s edition, entitled “A billion Chinese to get an NBN for a third of the cost of ours”.
Equinix expands third Sydney datacentre
Just how much new datacentre space is needed in Australia? A lot, if you believe the industry. New listed datacentre player NEXTDC has been busy setting up new facilities all over the place, HP just built a mammoth new centre in Western Sydney, and this week established datacentre provider Equinix announced the expansion of its third Sydney datacentre.
New Nexus 7 launches in Australia
Google has launched the new version of its Nexus 7 tablet in Australia.
SA e-Health system could cause fatalities
It used to be pretty rare that Australia would see an IT system implemented or maintained so poorly that it had the potential to cause fatalities or serious injury. But not any more. This year we’ve seen three such cases in Victoria alone, linked separately to failing IT systems at Victoria Police (which actually did result in several deaths), a Victorian hospital and, most worryingly, with relation to children’s safety under the care of the Department of Human Services. Well, last week South Australia got its own potentially fatal IT system.
Pollenizer celebrates five years with a book
Startup consultancy and incubator Pollenizer celebrates five years with a new book about the lifecycle of startups, Startup Focus.
Huge Chrome OS success for Fire + Rescue NSW
Those among you with longish memories will recall the slight hullaballoo which emergency services agency Fire and Rescue NSW caused in November 2012 when it revealed it had dumped plans to deploy new traditional PCs throughout its operations in New South Wales, opting instead for a widespread deployment of 400 units of Google's Chromebox cloud-based desktop platform. Well, according to to the group's IT director Richard Host, the rollout has been a huge success.
This is what happens with vertically integrated monopolies
If you were under any illusions about Telstra's nature as a vertically integrated telecommunications monopoly being wholly intact in Australia, just case your eye over what's happening with the ongoing attempts by Foxtel to launch its own broadband service in Australia.
Qld Govt depts home to botnets
Anew audit report coming out of Queensland has sharply criticised a number of major Queensland Government departments (including the IT Minister’s own Department of Science, Information Technology Innovation and the Arts, the Department of Transport and Main roads and the Treasury, as well as the Brisbane City Council) for having zero plans to deal with IT security issues. Surprise!
Great article series on Australian DevOps/agile
If you've spent any time working in the global technology industry over the past five years, it would have been pretty hard to miss the growing importance of the 'DevOps' movement -- in short, the increasingly powerful attempt to break down the traditional disconnect between 'development' and 'operations' activity within IT shops, particularly associated with agile development techniques. So what's happening in Australia in this area? iTNews has this morning published several excellent feature articles on this topic, and we recommend you spend this morning reading them instead of actually doing work.
NBN politics stems from missed targets
It is the delays with Labor's National Broadband Network project which has opened the door for the Coalition to attack the project.
You can’t actually buy Windows 8 in Australia [Update: Well, kind of]
Windows 8 has launched in Australia. But you can't actually buy fully boxed copies of it locally. No, really.
A challenge for Telstra: Show us your best
Yesterday a lot of people complained that our photo gallery of the "worst of the worst" of Telstra's copper network didn't fairly represent the strength and quality of the network as a whole. So today, we're challenging Telstra to show us its best.
Dogecoin co-founder an interesting Sydney chap
If you follow the crypto-currency scene (think Bitcoin and its many imitators), you might have noticed that the co-founder of one of the more outlandish currencies, Dogecoin, is an Australian. Jackson Palmer is a product marketing manager at Adobe, is based in Sydney, and is one of the key figures in the development of the good Doge. And, if you read this excellent online interview with Palmer produced by new Australian tech media outlet Techly, you'll find that he's also a man of many interesting opinions.
Aussie email firm Atmail beats Gmail, Office 365 to Raine and Horne deal
Those of you with long memories may recall that Australia has its own version of Google’s Gmail or Microsoft’s Office 365 email platforms. The company is called Atmail and it’s based in Queensland. In November 2012 it picked up a cool $2 million in venture capital from Australian VC firm Starfish Ventures. Well, already Atmail looks to be picking up new local corporate clients. The AustralianIT reports this morning that real estate agency Raine and Horne recently picked Atmail for its new email platform, serving some 3,500 mailboxes.
Melbourne IT knocked Twitter URLs offline
No doubt there are some red faces at Melbourne-based web hosting and IT services firm Melbourne IT this morning, after the company admitted a human error by one of its staff yesterday resulted in an outage which took down the URL shortening service used by global social networking company Twitter.
#NatSecInquiry may not land before election
The Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's report on the package of National Security Inquiry reforms has already been delayed to the extent that it is unlikely that any associated legislation will reach Parliament before the next Federal Election.
Turnbull and Clare: Best of mates
If you attended the Australian American Leadership Dialogue in Melbourne over the weekend, you might have caught a most unusual sight: Australia's noble Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and his Shadow, Jason Clare, breaking bread together in a most congenial display of bipartisanship.
Apple’s Australian tax is mainly on iTunes
Extensive analysis on the day of Apple's appearance before the IT price hike inquiry finds that the company's Australian markups are mainly on digital products sold through its iTunes store.
Tech MPs Ed Husic + Wyatt Roy are engaged in a bipartisan beard conspiracy
In their day jobs, Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Digital Innovation and Startups Ed Husic are supposed to be at each's necks, as they cover the same innovation portfolio from opposing sides of politics. But in practice the pair -- two of the most tech-focused MPs in Federal Parliament -- appear to be sometimes thinking along the same lines.
Telstra offshores 34 Tasmanian jobs
Your writer can't imagine that it's easy working at Telstra. Although Australia's biggest telco has an extensive workforce with many career opportunities, it also conducts regularly redundancy rounds as part of its ongoing drive to become more efficient and cut costs.
Kotaku alleges abuse, gross staff neglect at retailer EB Games
In which Kotaku alleges an odious culture of gross staff neglect and out and out abuse at national retailer EB Games.
They just keep on quitting: NBN Co loses wireless exec
NBN Co has lost the executive in charge of its wireless rollout, according to the Financial Review.
Govt CTO explains new role; with Lego
We're pleased that John Sheridan has published the complete text of a lengthy speech he recently gave explaining his new role as Australian Government chief technology officer. Plus, he does so using a stack of cool lego pictures and a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica. Really, what else could you want?
AngelCube: Melbourne’s mysterious new tech startup incubator
Know anything about it? Nope. Neither do we. We're investigating, for now :) Get in touch, angels, if you're out there.
Govt delays IT startup funding decisions
According to From Little Things, the Gillard Government is currently sitting on its hands with respect to decisions about supporting Australia's IT startup sector and hasn't responded to its own review in the area.
Conroy is a massive Dr Who fan
Former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy used his ministerial powers to keep Dr Who on the air, the ABC has revealed.
Will Netflix launch in Australia, or not?
Over the past week several fascinating articles have been published speculating about the possibility of US-based IPTV giant Netflix launching in Australia.
Is the Coalition’s NBN policy fundamentally different?
Is the Coalition's NBN policy fundamentally different to that of Labor? Yes, according to the ABC's Nick Ross. But others disagree.
Optus to shut down Unwired from Feb 28
Optus has starting emailing customers on Vividwireless' Unwired network to let them know they only have a few months before their broadband goes AWOL.
NBN questions needed for Q&A
I thought I would do a quick post noting that Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull will be appearing on the ABC's Q&A program tonight. If you have questions that you would like to see the Earl of Wentworth respond to, on any issue, but especially the hot button topic of broadband policy, then I recommend you submit those questions as soon as possible online here.
CSIRO + NICTA merger still not nailed down
We can't imagine the staff morale at Australia's peak IT research group NICTA is fantastic at this point. The Federal Government cut all funding to the organisation in the 2014 Budget, the CSIRO merger plan to save the group has been in negotiations for six months, and even now the situation in terms of hundreds of redundancies continues to be unclear.
Palantir exposed: Crikey reveals surveillance giant’s Aussie operations
According to a wide-ranging expose on Palantir Technologies published by Crikey, it has become clear that the firm is rapidly growing its operations down under.
An iPhone app will not fix Australia’s e-health woes
Hilarious news comes from the Federal Government’s flagship e-health conference in Melbourne this week, where Health Minister has revealed that part of Labor’s $466.7 million national e-health project will be spent on … an iPhone app for doctors.
NBN Strategic Review misrepresents HFC adoption
Those of you who’ve actually read the National Broadband Network Company’s Strategic Review document will be aware that, as I wrote in late December (Delimiter 2.0 link), it’s actually surprisingly favourable to use cases involving ubiquitous fibre broadband being deployed around Australia. Although it’s the Coalition’s preferred HFC/Fibre to the Node-focused ‘Multi-Technology Mix’ approach which has gotten all the airplay, in actual fact the document itself is quite positive to the use of Fibre itself. Telco commentator David Braue reminds us of this fact in a well-written piece for ZDNet.
Investigation reveals significant problems in Defence’s Telstra deal
In April 2013, the Department of Defence signed a massive new contract with Telstra. With a value of $1.1 billion, the deal was one of the largest telecommunications services contracts signed by any customer organisation in Australia. However, as iTnews reports today, the deal is suffering significant problems.
New $50m fund to target Aussie IT startups
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Now is a fantastic time to be involved in an Australian IT startup. It used to be that it was tough to find finding for great new ideas in the Australian technology sector, but the plethora of sizable investment deals over the past several years proven that the local funding environment has changed substantially.
Privacy commissioners issue please-explain about Google Glass
It’s been hailed as the vanguard of wearable computing, derided as a plaything of perverts and stalkers, and in a Seattle bar even though it’s not broadly available in the wild and is still untold months from release. No doubt about Google Glass is already brewing a firestorm of controversy – and its possibilities for public snooping have proved worrying enough to Australia’s privacy watchdog that he has requested a meeting with Google to discuss its implications.
Google CFO woos Gillard with Glasses
What would you do if you were a multinational technology vendor who the Federal Government was currently chasing over “double Dutch sandwich” tax avoidance techniques which could have cost Australia hundreds of millions of dollars? You’d probably dispatch your global chief financial officer with some hot new technology to hold private briefings with Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Don’t protect Australia’s mobile telcos, Mr Turnbull
Let's get real about this: Australia's mobile telcos can take care of themselves.
AUSTRAC tracks every AUD-Bitcoin conversion
The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) admitted in a Senate Estimates session in Canberra this week that it is literally tracking every conversion between Bitcoins and Australian dollars. Wow. Talk about privacy-invasive.
AFP blocks FoI access to social media info
Some five months ago, Pirate Party Australia founder Rodney Serkowski made what many would consider to be a fairly standard Freedom of Information request with the Australian Federal Police, relating to data collected through social media channels. The request has been denied in its entirety.
Which router is best for the NBN?
PCRange chief executive Raaj Menon (also known as the first man in South Australia to get the NBN) has been busy putting his fledgling fibre connection to good use.
Digging into the Creative Cloud cost picture
Local Melbourne blogger Dawnstar Australis has found that Australians may end paying substantially more over the long-term to use Creative Clowd than traditional boxed copies of Adobe software.
New Nexus 7 may hit Australia in Sept
We don’t have any inside information to share, but according to Ausdroid, the new Nexus 7 may hit Australia as early as September. Niiiice.
Coalition concerned Turnbull too close to NBN
Coalition MPs apparently concerned Turnbull is too close to Labor's National Broadband Network policy.
AAPT is up for sale … yet again
The Financial Review reports today that Telecom New Zealand is once again trying to offload its AAPT asset (when is it not?)
Slater moved off NAB’s IT operations
NAB replaces group executive of Group Business Services Gavin Slater with Lisa Gray.
NodePony versus T-Pony: Fight!
What emerged this week was that NodePony apparently has a rival. Yes. Let us tremble with fear and loathing at the birth of what can only be a dark side rival ... the T-Pony.
Retail POS startup Kounta kicks off investment
We're seeing a great deal of investment in Australian technology startups at the moment. After years in the wilderness after the dot com crash, the local funding scene appears to be running hot. The latest cab off the rank is point of sale startup Kounta, which last week announced it had kicked off its first venture round, with Reckon founder greg Wilkinson kicking in an unspecified amount and joining Kounta's board.
US cable giant Cox to deploy 1Gbps
The list of US telcos and cities which are expressing a strong desire to deploy gigabit broadband speeds just keeps on growing. First it was Google, which is currently looking to take its Fiber offering to a further 34 US cities. Only a few weeks ago it was AT&T, which is also looking to deploy gigabit fibre, in its case to some 100 cities. And of course, the City of Los Angeles also has a gigabit project it is seeking partners for. The latest news comes from the Tech Times, which reports that US cable giant Cox Communications is now getting on the gigabit bus.
UXC Connect ties itself in iPad knots
One can understand the frustration of technology companies in dealing with the media. In this view interview with business and investment commentator Peter Switzer, one gets the feeling that UXC Connect chief Paul Timmins feels like he’s trying to swim upstream.
Virgin wants in on Australian IPTV scene
It seems that no matter where you look, someone is trying to fix the Australian Internet television market. Attorney-General George Brandis, as his Labor predecessor Mark Dreyfus did before him, is trying to block Internet piracy. Quickflix and FetchTV are still trying to create viable competitors to Foxtel's pay TV operation. And Foxtel itself is obviously trying to make as much hay as possible while its sun still shines. Into this fraught situation comes Richard Branson's Virgin Group.
No demand: Qantas dumps in-flight Internet
It's hard to be surprised by this move, given Qantas' on-again, off-again relationship with in-flight Internet access, but one can't help but be disappointed. Australian Business Traveller reports this morning that Australia's premiere airline has exited a trial of in-flight Internet running since March this year.
iiNet launches Budii Lite modem
I know that mentioning consumer-grade modems such as the Budii Lite on Delimiter can be fraught with danger -- many readers, including myself, prefer options such as FRITZ!Box, D-Link or Linksys. However, I wanted to flag this as something that readers may especially find useful to recommend to friends and family. I get constantly asked by personal connections for broadband recommendations.
Delimiter files FoI requests for Reinecke, NBN Co reports
It's a historic day for Delimiter today. Tonight we filed our first Freedom of Information requests to the Federal Government.
Thank you for the platitudes, Sir Berners-Lee
Why doesn't Australia have enough confidence in ourselves without these father figures looking on? I just don't know.
‘Red’: Vodafone overhauls plan structure
Bit by bit, cell tower by cell tower upgrade, customer by customer, Vodafone is attempting to bring its ailing operations in Australia back into the black. Today's new initiative from the big V is a new mobile plan structure which will see three price points established with "infinite standard calls" and "infinite texts".
Telstra adds 900Mhz 4G band, trials LTE-A
Right now, Telstra's greatest issue with its mobile infrastructure as a whole might just be keeping ahead of customer demand for it. With this in mind, this morning the telco revealed it would add a second spectrum band, 900Mhz, to its existing 1800Mhz 4G infrastructure, as well as undertake a variety of other initiatives to keep its mobile network on track.
Ludlam tables anti-data retention petition
Greens Communications spokesperson Scott Ludlam has tabled a petition in the Senate compiled by the Pirate Party which contains almost 1,500 signatures opposing proposed changes to national security legislation collectively known as the ‘National Security Inquiry’.
Delivery drones: Approach with caution
As many people will be aware, yesterday an Australian startup named Flirtey announced that it in March next year, it would launch a commercial drone package delivery service, using "fully automated drones" to deliver packages in inner Sydney through short flights. But can this claim be believed?
HP brings SAP’s hosted HANA on-shore
SAP and HP announced this morning that they would be provided HANA as a service, and (for once), Australia is the first location globally to be able to access it.
Consoles to suffer as tablets triple mobile games downloads by 2017
Tablet makers are set to reap a windfall in coming years as gamers continue to shift their gaming dollars away from dedicated gaming devices and into the wallets of increasingly agile mobile-gaming developers, new figures from Juniper Research have suggested.
New NSW Govt may reject NBN opt-out
blog We were kind of stunned when the new Coalition Government in Victoria rejected the 'opt-out' approach to rolling out the National Broadband Network....
Senate contempt order: Could Conroy face gaol?
Frankly, I agree 100 percent with David. Labor is onto a winner with its National Broadband Network policy. There's a critical mass here. All it needs to do is eat a bit of humble pie and release one or two documents that the public, after all, has already paid for. Why is this too much to ask? It's a flaming democracy, after all.
Cloud-first: SaaS “the ultimate buy”, says Coles
We’ve been hearing rather a lot about the philosophy of buying corporate IT platforms on a “cloud-first” basis recently. The US Government more or less kicked off the trend several years ago, and over the past 12 months the Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian Governments have followed. Only last week the new Coalition Government’s Commission of Audit recommended a cloud-first approach for the Federal Government. So we’re not surprised to hear that the private sector has gotten on the bandwagon as well.
ABC hack protests anti-Islam interview
The ABC has confirmed that one of its websites has been hacked following the airing earlier this month of an interview held by Lateline with anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders.
The perfect demonstration of an NBN false dichotomy
We couldn't help but be amused by the brouhaha caused when smart cookie, self-confessed Liberal voter and Redditor James Brotchie created the very Web 2.0-ish site How Fast is the NBN, which attempts to graphically demonstrate the difference between the rival National Broadband Network policies of the two major sides of politics.
Trojan takes down entire WA Parliament IT, phone system
Bad news for the Western Australian Parliament, which, it appears, didn't have the most hardened IT security systems on earth. The ABC is reporting today that a "trojan virus" has knocked the Parliament's IT and telephone systems offline.
A quick update on Delimiter’s changing use of social media
When I first started publishing Delimiter back in January 2010, the Internet was quite a bit simpler. Fast forward more than five years and things are obviously drastically different. The Internet is a much more active, dynamic, fluidly updated place, and Delimiter has changed with the times.
Aussie Google store hobbled for Nexus 7 launch
We shouldn't have to find out weeks after the Google Nexus 7 is unveiled through investigative work by bloggers that Google's latest tablet will be hobbled in Australia. Google should be more up-front about this kind of stuff.
Optus a “disgusting” company, says AFL chief
AFL chief Andrew Demetriou has reportedly blown his stack over Optus' appeal in the ongoing legal drama over the telco's TV Now Internet TV recording system, labelling the company "a disgusting organisation" which was undermining the rights of sports companies.
VMware talks Aussie datacentre
Apparently virtualisation giant VMware isn't content with having its software used by virtually every major organisation in Australia, and wants to push things a little further by launching its own public cloud offerings globally. And an Australian datacentre appears to be on the cards.
Regulator forces ANZ off Salesforce.com
Just when you thought Australia’s banks and the banking ecosystem in general were making some headway in their acceptance of cloud computing technologies, international regulators throw a spanner in the works. iTNews reports todaythat the Monetary Authority of Singapore has forced the hand of ANZ Bank when it comes to cloud computing.
The difficulties of ordering a Surface Pro in Australia
Want to buy one of Microsoft's new Surface Pros in Australia? Well, As we covered a couple of weeks ago, you're out of luck, as Microsoft isn't shipping them locally yet. But you may not know quite how out of luck you truly are: It's probably not even worth ordering one from overseas through the usual avenues.
Exceed your quota … somehow it’s the NBN’s fault?
Herald Sun columnist burns through her Telstra broadband quota on the NBN and has her connected slowed as a result, then blames the National Broadband Network infrastructure. Wonderful.
The NBN FTTdp option in detail
If you’ve been following Australia’s national broadband debate for some time, you’re probably familiar with most of the “fibre to the” terms. Fibre to the Premises is what Labor wanted to do with its National Broadband Network policy, Fibre to the Node is the watered down Coalition alternative and Fibre to the Basement is what most of the telcos want to build to apartment buildings. But what about Fibre to the Drop Point (FTTdp)? The concept, which would see fibre extended to the lead-in pit in front of Australian premises but the existing copper reused from that point on, has been explored in an extensive article published by the journal of the Telecommunications Society of Australia.
Mirvac dumps BlackBerry for iPhone; and a few thoughts about the model
The nation's number two telco Optus and its subsidiary Alphawest has revealed that they recently helped shopping centre giant Mirvac ditch its fleet of BlackBerry mobile phones for an Apple iPhone replacement.
Fletcher takes a big fat swing at 4G auction
This morning, it appears, it's Liberal MP and former Optus executive Paul Fletcher's turn to whale on the Government's wireless spectrum auction, which Vodafone has already deserted and which Optus thinks is way too expensive.
Why Australia should tax Apple + Google less
Writing on the ABC's The Drum site, Institute of Public Affairs senior fellow Julie Novak argues that globally, countries are competing to be centres of taxation, and that Australia should start playing the game better, as low-taxing countries such as Ireland have.
A govt IT insourcing success story
With all of the IT disasters that have come out of the Victorian State Government recently, sometimes it’s hard to believe that anything has gone right recently in the state with regards to government technology use. That’s why we were pleasantly surprised to read this case study detailing how utility Yarra Valley Water has successfully switched away from an outsourcing model and brought its IT support in-house.
Huston calls for active FTTP NBN
There are actually few Australians who your writer considers to be actual, verifiable experts on the current class of broadband technologies being debated as part of the National Broadband Network discussion. However, Geoff Huston is one of them.
Dutton kicks off e-health review
New Health Minister Peter Dutton is moving ahead with a review of Labor's troubled Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record Scheme.
TPG’s PIPE Networks anti-competitive? Who would have thought?
If you didn’t laugh, you’d have to cry. Your writer has watched with great amusement over the past week as Megaport chief executive Bevan Slattery has been bitterly complaining about the fact that TPG Telecom has blocked certain types of third-party access to PIPE Networks’ datacentres. You can find Slattery’s problems outlined here on the blog of Megaport, which aims to build an interconnection fabric between various carriers and cloud computing providers.
Turnbull’s credit card details exposed in Stratfor hack
By now many of you know that a number of Australian organisations have had their credit card numbers compromised by a major hack of the US security intelligence firm Stratfor, with Australian victims including ANZ Bank, BHP, HSBC, Westpac, Woodside and so on. But did you know that Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull's security has also been compromised?
Telstra sold 500,000+ iPhone 5’s last year
Every time I think I know just how dominant Apple's iPhone unit is in Australia's mobile phone ecosystem, I am forced to confront new information showing that I had underestimated the situation.
Our Father Quigley, who art in NBN Co
The number of biblical references to NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley are getting out of hand. First we had an industry insider proclaim they were “a believer” at Quigley’s landmark speech during the election cycle, then we had a stab at a prayer in his honour a few months back, and now this.
Planking? Gen-i CEO’s got it covered
When Delimiter issued a call on Twitter about a month back for pics of any IT industry personalities engaged in the social art of “planking”, we thought we’d get a few willing takers. But we never imagined we’d see pictures of the chief executive of one of Australia and New Zealand’s largest IT services companies, Gen-i, engaged in the practice. Hats off to Chris Quin — looks like he’s got a fairly taut six pack going on there. Nice work!
When mainstream media covers cloud startups
Hilarious video above of a segment broadcast recently on Channel 10 news about Australian cloud computing startup OrionVM.
TPG ads: Has the ACCC gone too far?
In this case, it has to be said that it looks like TPG is on solid ground defending the ACCC’s lawsuit.
Fixed-line broadband competition in Australia
It gets more depressing every day ...
Dick Smith’s amazing iTunes specials
Incredible value -- zero dollars off. Spotted in Randwick. A $50 iTunes voucher for $50 -- who would have thought?!
$145m project collapse: AFP fails to upgrade 18-year-old case management system
As regular readers of Delimiter will know, Australia's police forces have not precisely covered themselves in glory when it comes to upgrading their ageing IT systems.
A great Aussie virtual desktop case study
Virtual desktops, bring your own device computing, integrated datacentre components. These are three of the hottest trends to hit Australia’s enterprise IT sector at the moment, and they all come together in this highly recommended article by iTNews writer Chris Jager looking at a huge virtual desktop implementation at RMIT University.
Turnbull wants ‘user pays’ FTTH model
Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has made some interesting comments backing BT’s ‘user pays’ fibre to the premise model in the UK, which sees the telco’s fibre to the node rollout extended upon user demand.
ASD has open access to Indonesian telcos
I'm sure you've been wondering (as many people have) just how Australia's premiere electronic surveillance agency Australian Signals Directorate was able to gain access to the telephone data of high-ranking Indonesian officials in that country's government. Well, wonder no more. According to The Guardian, the agency has a massive level of access to Indonesia's telco networks.
It’s IT upgrade time at Australia’s universities
Yup, it's that time of year again -- that brief window of opportunity where Australia's universities, many of which are working off three semesters a year now, get a couple of weeks around Christmas to upgrade their IT systems.
“Stupid, quasi-religious”: Turnbull slams fibre fans
Those who believe the fibre to the node mode for Australia's National Broadband Network is a second-rate option compared to fibre to the home are just "stupid", and pursuing a "quasi-religious" approach to the technology, according to Malcolm Turnbull.
ABC tech reporter founds micro-transactions startup
Some of you may remember the name of Nick Ross, the editor of the ABC’s Technology & Games site who wrote several in-depth articles criticising the Coalition’s rival National Broadband Network project. Well, what you probably didn’t know is that Ross has also been spending a great deal of time and effort on a side project. Known as ‘Nanotransactions’, the project is micro-transaction technology which Ross hopes will “save high-quality journalism”.
Qld Health payroll gets another $384 million
Those of you who thought that the Queensland Health payroll debacle had gone away, think again. The LNP State Government landed its annual budget this week, and included in it is a massive dollop of change for the ailing project, which continues to bedevil the department and the State Government at large, as well as the politicians and partners involved.
Metronode launches NSW Govt datacentre
Those of you who’ve been paying attention to the developing situation with respect to IT inside the NSW Government will be aware that the state is currently attempting to consolidate its far-flung IT infrastructure down to just two datacentres, operated by Leighton subsidiary Metronode. This morning, Metronode tells us in a media release, one of those facilities launched to great pomp and ceremony.