ShoreTel iDevice dock: Is this actually useful?

11
We couldn't help but goggle when we received a media release yesterday from enterprise telephony vendor Shoretel pushing what the company dubs "the first enterprise-grade docking station for Apple iPad and iPhone".

Vic Govt splurges on IT in budget

8
Those of you with your eyes on public sector IT spending will no doubt be hanging out for next week's Federal Budget, where there are always a few multi-million-dollar gems laid out in terms of big-spending IT packages. However, it's not always the Federal Government which splurges on major IT projects, as this week's budget in Victoria showed.

AFP questions Attorney-General for not switching off phone on plane

37
Oh, dear. It appears as though Australia's new Federal Attorney-General is at least as arrogant as the previous two. An article in the Daily Telegraph published late last week tells us that Mark Dreyfus, who replaced Nicola Roxon in the portfolio in February, refused to turn off his mobile phone in a recent flight and was subsequently met by the AFP when the plane landed.

Google’s Sydney HQ gets hacked … kind of

4
The security staff at Google Australia’s flashy new headquarters in the Sydney CBD most likely spend most of their time worrying about physical breaches of the building’s security, making sure that the company’s local network routers and PCs aren’t broken into by Internet nasties and trying to keep nutbag journalists from conducting satirical exercises outside their front door. But do they spend much time worrying about the in-building network controlling functions such as air conditioning? Probably not. However, if this article by Wired is any indication, perhaps they should be.

It’s not just HP: Boral picked Oracle too

0
Oracle takes a chunk of Boral, alongside HP.

Cisco picks up 4G work with Vodafone

6
When you get into the datacentres of Australia's big telcos (as I've had the chance to do on occasion), what you'll find is that their network infrastructure is highly heterogenuous. You get a lot of Juniper, a lot of Alcatel-Lucent, a lot of Ericsson, a lot of Nokia-Siemens Networks and if you look hard enough you'll even be able to find some old Nortel gear tucked away in a corner and even some (gasp!) Huawei. However, if I had to make a bet, I'd say that the most ubiquitous brand in the core is Cisco.

VMware talks Aussie datacentre

3
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.

Adobe dumps Creative Suite: ‘Cloud’ subscription only for next version

15
Overnight in the US, Adobe revealed it would exclusively focus on its subscription offerings in future. That's right: If you want to buy Photoshop or other applications in Creative Suite in future, you won't be able to -- you'll only be able to lease them.

NBN: Can’t we all just get along?

9
So far the National Broadband Network debate over the past several years since Malcolm Turnbull became Shadow Communications Minister has been broadly polite, with both sides rationally examining and critiquing each other’s policies in a calm manner, while engaging in a friendly rivalry about who has the best polic. Oh, wait, I’m wrong. It’s actually become a a bile-filled cesspit of misleading statements, public slander, irrelevancy and flat-out lies. How could I forget?

QBE shifts 100 IT roles to India

2
Insurance giant QBE continues restructuring operations in its IT department by offshoring 100 roles, according to the Finance Sector Union.

Rumours swirl around ANZ Indian IT sale

0
According to the Hindu Business Line, one of the country’s main business papers, top-tier Australian bank ANZ may be looking to sell its Bangalore operations to Indian IT outsourcer Wipro, which has long had a relationship with ANZ.

It’s official: Alphawest is now just Optus

0
Now, according to an Optus media release issued yesterday, there is no difference. Alphawest is Optus. Optus is Alphawest. It's a giant "synergy", or "integration of some kind".

Productivity Commission chief is ex-DBCDE head

15
It escaped our attention at the time, but the more astute among you may have noted in November last year that Peter Harris, the head of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, was appointed to chair the Government’s Productivity Commission.

HP Slate 7 to land in Australia shortly

0
If there's one thing we like more than hot new gadgets entering the Australian marketplace, it's inexpensive hot new gadgets, and this appears to be precisely what global tech giant HP is about to deliver with the Australian launch of its Slate 7 Android tablet.

“Truth”: Kogan wins ispONE fight

11
If you were watching Ruslan Kogan’s Twitter feed closely this afternoon, you would have seen the Kogan chief claim victory in his company’s contentious court battle against mobile wholesaler ispONE.

Telstra has 2.1 million 4G customers

8
This morning the telco’s deputy chief financial officer Mark Hall casually told Macquarie Bank’s Equities Conference that Telstra already has 2.1 million customers on its 4G network.

UNSW deploys Cisco 802.11ac Wi-Fi

6
It’s a slow process, but gradually the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard is making its way into consumer and corporate locations to gradually upgrade 802.11a/b/n installations. 802.11ac wireless routers are being sold in stores and mobile devices are gradually getting support. One of the first major organisations in Australia to deploy the technology en-masse will be the University of NSW.

NSW Govt consults on ICT policy

0
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.

Gen-i Australia may completely shut down

6
You couldn’t exactly say that the Australian division of IT services company Gen-i was in rude health, with the company revealing in mid-March that it would sack most of its staff and stop competing for most local contracts, as it shifted focus to only serving Trans-Tasman contracts as per the instructions of its parent Telecom New Zealand. However, according to CRN, things may be even more dire

Jetstar deal the Asian wind beneath Telstra’s wings

0
Telstra is talking up the international prospects for its Network Applications and Services (NAS) arm after securing a significant contract to manage IT management and procurement on behalf of expanding regional budget airline Jetstar.

Consoles to suffer as tablets triple mobile games downloads by 2017

4
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.

Despite Aussie windfall, does Apple profit slide suggest hard times ahead?

3
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.

Customs foregoes standalone CIO role in IT shakeup

0
The status of the title of Chief Information Officer continues to wax and wane as Australia’s Customs and Border Protection Service eliminates the role’s standing as a separate concern during a shakeup of its IT operations that began earlier this month and is expected to be complete by 1 July.

Delimiter named among Australia’s five best business blogs

23
Delimiter was named as one of five finalists in the AWC's Best Australian Blogs 2013 Competition, which recognises excellence in Australian blogging and brings together entrants in categories including commentary, lifestyle/hobby, personal and parenting, business, and words and writing.

Samsung Galaxy S4 hits Australia, but will it match the S3’s success?

15
If there was any question whether Samsung has become a superstar of the smartphone market, it was put to rest with last night’s Sydney Opera House launch of its flagship Galaxy S4 phone – in which the mobile giant pulled out all the stops to show the world the device that it hopes will consolidate its market lead over rival Apple’s iPhone 5.

Privacy commissioners issue please-explain about Google Glass

25
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.

‘Digital dividend’ spectrum battle will be over quickly: analysts

10
Australia’s long-awaited ‘digital dividend’ auction kicks off today, but may be a relative non-event with the reserve set relatively high and Telstra expected to dominate proceedings as it rushes to snap up as much spectrum for its 4G LTE services as possible.

Big fish, bigger fish: iiNet, M2 considered merger

19
Australia’s market recently dodged a potential merger that would have created an NBN-era telecommunications behemoth by combining M2 Telecommunications and iiNet.

Spend-less Shoes replaces dated ERP platform

0
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.

Dream or nightmare? IT dept from scratch

7
It's not often that you see a whole new IT department and associated systems set up from scratch, but that's kind of what appears to be happening at ice cream giant Peters, which was recently bought by a private equity firm and is currently separating its systems from global food manufacturer and ex-parent Nestle.

Pushed for Coalition contingency plan, NBN Co reveals rollout costs

109
A growing amount of information on the costs of NBN Co’s fibre-to-the-premise (FttP) rollout may have brought some long-wanted clarity to the national broadband network (NBN) debate, but calls by NBN joint parliamentary committee chair Rob Oakeshott for a revised NBN Co corporate plan – to account for potential changes due to the election of a Coalition government and implementation of that party’s alternative NBN – confirm the government is facing increased scrutiny as observers push for further transparency in the pre-election NBN debate.

NBN Co cranking up rollout to eleven – but can it rock ‘n’ roll?

87
A week after the Coalition debuted its anxiously-awaited alternative NBN policy, Labor seems to be cranking the project up to eleven as it works to reverse months of problems and improve the appeal of its NBN policy to voters. Telecommunications industry figures, however, aren’t convinced NBN Co can deliver on its promises, according to a report on technology site iTnews.com.au.

Game on: NBN Co fires broadband afterburners with 1Gbps services

136
The election’s just months away and it’s game on at NBN Co, which this morning announced it will add three more speed tiers to its services, now offering a maximum 1Gbps wholesale service at a wholesale access price of $150 per month.

KIRA elaison: Has Toshiba burned Apple’s Retina Display?

17
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.

Australia’s 4G mobile services more reliable than 3G: J.D. Power

7
Emerging 4G networks are proving to be more reliable and deliver a better wireless experience than established 3G networks, a J.D. Power and Associates study has found. The 2013 Australia Wireless Network Quality Study measured problems per 100 (PP100) based on ten common problems that impact overall network performance, including dropped calls, calls not connected, audio issues, failed or lost voicemails, and more.

Would your company ban Facebook Home?

15
It’s only been two weeks since Facebook launched its home-screen replacement for Android phones, and hours since it was launched in the UK. But as privacy advocates wrestle with the ever-increasing efforts of Web giants bent on collecting and utilising personal information to line their own pockets, some in the security community are calling for companies to ban Facebook Home for the myriad and untested security vulnerabilities they fear may be hiding inside it – as well as the usual concerns over Facebook’s (often-questioned) privacy.

Absolutely phabulous: When is big, too big?

19
Just when is a smartphone too big? Manufacturers have been pushing the boundaries for some time as they dance with higher resolutions and larger screens, but the latest offerings from Huawei and Samsung may have clinched the deal as both companies produce 'phablets' – smartphones with screens in the six-inch range.

Retail giant gets wild-and-Woolies with Google Apps

5
Point-of-sale terminals may seem to be changing on a weekly basis, but it’s not every day that the country’s largest retailer makes a major back-end platform shift. Little surprise, then, that there has been such great interest in a company blog post announcing that Woolworths has decided to shift its 26,000 employees to the cloud-based Google Apps platform.

Some Delimiter housekeeping

25
Just a quick note to let readers know that for the next couple of weeks I'll be getting some assistance with Delimiter from long-time and very experienced technology journalist David Braue.

Greenfields lobbyist sees nine-figure windfall in Coalition NBN

12
blog The Coalition’s NBN policy launch may have been variously greeted with both strong derision and cautious support in varying measures, but with Labor’s...

Australian Bitcoin mining probably not worth it

6
You may recall that MacTalk founder and all-round geek Anthony Agius has been conducting something of an experiment to determine whether an Australian Bitcoin miner could make enough money to justify the practice. Well, the results are in: And the answer is: “Most likely not”.

Turnbull has “saved” the NBN, says Kohler

37
It's hard to recall, given Tony Abbott's enthusiastic support for the Coalition's 'NBN lite' policy released this week, but there was a time when the Opposition Leader and others in the Coalition had pledged to "demolish", "dismantle" and any other 'd' word you can think of, Labor's National Broadband Network policy. Until Malcolm Turnbull took control.

FTTP too hard: Informa analyst backs Coalition

19
Informa senior analyst Tony Brown backs the Coalition's Fibre to the Node vision for the National Broadband Network.

Twitter buys Aussie startup We Are Hunted

0
Australian startup We Are Hunted, which was formed out of Wotnews as a side project and survived its death, has just annoucned that it has been bought by social networking site Twitter.

FTTN cabinets “hideous”, say designers

34
Not everyone is particularly enthused by the idea of placing tens of thousands of broadband cabinets around Australia to realise the Coalition's fibre to the node National Broadband Network vision. And one of those not happy with the idea is UNSW building academic Alec Tzannes.

Pia Waugh takes control of data.gov.au

13
Long-time IT industry openness advocate Pia Waugh takes control of Government 2.0 initiatives in the Federal Government.

Google Play Music finally hits Australia

12
Were you there when Apple’s iTunes Music Store first launched in Australia? I was. It was back in October 2005 and I was a journalist at technology news site ZDNet Australia. At the time it was a huge deal for Australian music fans, who had previously been resorting to naughty platforms such as Napster to get their digital music fix on. Well, things have changed a lot in the IT industry, but the iTunes Music Store is still around and kicking. Now it’s got a new competitor: Google.

TechOne saves 20-30 percent in Gmail switch

1
Australian software vendor Technology One deploys Google's Gmail email platform.

The Reject Shop deploys Win7, InTune

1
A case study published by Redmond this week details how retailer The Reject Shop deployed Windows 7, plus Microsoft’s remote management tool InTune, to its several hundred PCs and other devices across Australia.

$94 billion NBN? It’s a nice, unproven, soundbite

0
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.

25Mbps in flats? Turnbull “dreaming”, says strata association

17
The issue of how to treat those Australians living in multi-dwelling units such as apartment blocks has always been a thorny one for both Labor and the Coalition.

Kogan drags ISPOne into court over mobile

6
blog Remember how Kogan issued a strenuous denial that it was its fault that high-usage customers were being dumped from its fladgling "unlimited" mobile...

PM Gillard meets global Huawei chair

2
Julia Gillard meets with Huawei's global chair during a visit to China.

Actually, Australia trains more IT than fitness staff

9
Remember last week when REA Group chief information officer Nigel Dalton published a somewhat disturbing article on his site noting that Australia currently trains more fitness instructors than IT professionals? As it turns out, Dalton may have been wrong.

IBM received leaked info during Qld Health payroll bid

0
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.

Samsung skips Exynos CPU for Aussie Galaxy S4’s

7
Most of you probably already suspected this, but just to put it on the record: Korean smartphone giant Samsung has confirmed that its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone will ship in Australia in the lesser quad-core version of its processor rather than the top of the range eight-core Exynos processor which many people have been looking forward to.

Can man survive off Bitcoin mining alone?

8
Melbourne geek Anthony Agius’ newest venture is attempting to ascertain whether he can make enough money from mining the Bitcoin virtual currency to keep himself in new servers and fast broadband in the style to which he has become accustomed.

WikiLeaks to run in Vic, NSW and WA

15
Thought you wouldn't be able to vote for Julian Assange's WikiLeaks political party because you don't live in Victoria? Worry not. Come the September Federal Election, voters in NSW and Western Australia will also be able to back the transparency horse, according to an extensive press conference the party's Victorian headquarters held over the weekend.

Optus loses networks chief Ottendorfer

0
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

Coalition policy claims NBN to cost $90bn

52
This morning the Daily Telegraph reported that an analysis contained in the Coalition's rival policy purported to show that the real cost of Labor's NBN project would be up to $90 billion.

Chromebooks for Port Macquarie school

8
It’s only been a few weeks since Google’s Chromebooks landed in Australia, but at least one organisation has already started deploying them. According to Computerworld, St Columba Anglican School in Port Macquarie, NSW, is fully into Chrome OS.

NBN debate full of falsehoods, say academics

80
It should come as no surprise to regular Delimiter readers that our National Broadband Network debate has been poisoned by a constant series of inaccurate and misleading statements. It’s the done thing, after all — politicians are doing it, newspapers are doing it, television stations are doing it — why wouldn’t everyone want to get in on the bandwagon?

Digging into the Creative Cloud cost picture

2
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.

Healthcare Australia dumps in-house Exchange for cloud

5
The shift to cloud computing/software as a service models in Australian enterprise IT circles is endless, it appears. Yesterday it was retailer Dick Smith switching to Google Apps, and today it’s medical recruiter Healthcare Australia switching off an in-house version of Microsoft Exchange and onto Office 365.

John Birmingham skewers Game of Thrones pirates

142
Personally, I have been somewhat stunned about the incredibly vitriolic reaction which so many readers have responded with, after our article yesterday reporting that Australia, on a per-capita basis, pirates Game of Thrones more than any country in the world.

Australia trains more fitness than IT professionals

19
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.

Dick Smith deploys Google Apps

4
The latest Australian company to deploy Google Apps as its document management and collaboration suite appears to be electronics retailer Dick Smith, at least according to a post on Google's Australian blog today.

Non-4G Lumia 720 hits Australia

3
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.

Screw cloud: Coogans upgrades mainframe instead

4
To paraphrase Francis Urquhart, you might very well think that no Australian organisation would be spending much money these days upgrading their old mainframes or deploying new ones. Isn't everything about cloud computing these days, after all? Well, true, it is, but that hasn't stopped some Australian groups from hanging onto their old mainframe infrastructure and even pushing it further.

Vote for Delimiter to be Australia’s best blog

42
We'd be mighty chuffed if you would vote for Delimiter in the 'People's Choice' component of the Best Australian Blogs Competition for 2013.

Leighton confirms telco business sale

0
You may recall that diversified contract and industrial group Leighton Holdings has been looking to sell its NextGen, Metronode and Infoplex telecommunications and technology businesses for some time. At one stage interested bidders apparently included Telstra, but as it turns out, a somewhat different organisation has bought them.

NBN a “horrible hoax”, says Turnbull

45
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.

Kogan issues updated mobile usage policy

12
Telecommunications comparison WhistleOut has dug up the news that Kogan has issued a new acceptable usage policy for its so-called "Unlimited" plans.

Uni of Adelaide appoints new CIO

0
The University of Adelaide has appointed a new chief information officer, Mark Gregory, it announced last week.

Further evidence Kogan’s Agora doesn’t do 850Mhz

21
PCWorld has tested the Kogan Agora and affirms in a new article that the smartphone doesn’t support 850MHz mobile phone networks. Bummer.

IT price hike inquiry will approach record labels

11
How seriously can we take Apple Australia managing director Anthony King's claim that Apple doesn't have anything to do with setting digital content prices in Australia through the company's iTunes store? I guess we're about to find out.

Lockheed Martin is ASG’s mystery bidder

0
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...

Fujitsu wins huge passport CRM deal

0
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.

Nexus 7 draw: The winner revealed

7
Announcing the winner of Delimiter's Nexus 7 random draw.

Apple’s Australian tax is mainly on iTunes

22
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.

NBN Co has “major credibility issues”: Budde

96
NBN Co has "major credibility issues", according to telecommunications analyst Paul Budde, following the unexpected downgrade of its rollout schedule yesterday.

Optus “increases focus” by sacking 290 staff

4
Over the past decade your writer has been a technology journalist, we've seen quite a few weasel-worded media releases, and this morning's emission from SingTel subsidiary Optus is a good example of the genre. Sacking some 290 staff? Why not apply a little of the old doublespeak treatment and label the initiative as "increasing focus"?

NBN Co chair quits, says AFR

33
Last night the Financial Review reported that NBN Co chairman Harrison Young (pictured) was planning to quit as the company's chairman, with current board member Siobhan McKenna to step into his place.

An update on our iTNews fact-checking effort

14
I want to apologise to iTNews and to readers for not getting the time to pursue the fact-checking article I planned to.

Amazon wins more Aussie financial services work

2
Cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services has been relatively quiet about the numbers of Australian customers signing up to use its elastic infrastructure since it launched a dedicated datacentre in Australia in mid-November last year. At the moment the situation is unclear: Are Australian customers signing up to use the facility in droves, are they ignoring it, or are things somewhere in between?

Brickworks details ERP integration project

0
In a case study published by Microsoft this week, Brickworks details how it has integrated various accounts payable and invoicing systems together using a combination of SharePoint, software from smart processing company Kofax and Microsoft partner Efficiency Leaders.

Use a Surface Pro as your desktop? It’s possible

23
Local Microsoft Office 365 MVP Loryan Strant has been successfully conducting an experiment in using his new Microsoft Surface Pro tablet as his full-time desktop, complete with multiple monitors.

Syntheo hands NT work back to NBN Co

39
So that we can all enter wholesale into yet another orgy of doubt and self-flagellation about the current status of the NBN project, here's Syntheo's (very brief) statement this morning that it's handing back work in the Northern Territory to NBN Co.

Pre-launch web startup Canva raises $3m

0
Australian web startup Canva this morning revealed it had picked up a $3 million seed round from a number of early stage investors and venture capitalists in Australia and Silicon Valley.

Australia’s carriers want to sell you a Galaxy S4

15
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.

Chromebooks finally land in Australia

16
Google announced on its Australian blog this morning that 2013 is the year. Finally, Chromebooks are in Australia. The only problem is … will anyone actually want to buy them? We’re not really sure.

Troubles mount at EnergyAustralia as CIO leaves

0
If you're fond of a good enterprise IT disaster story (hell, Australia seems to have more of them than it can handle these days), you'd be well advised to check out a (paywalled) story published by The AustralianIT this morning about electricity retailer EnergyAustralia.

Leaked numbers show NBN fibre rollout lagging

113
I've been quite optimistic about the speed at which NBN Co is rolling out its brownfields fibre infrastructure, but that optimism has been challenged today by what appears to be the inadvertent release of new statistics regarding the company's rollout progress.

ACMA blasts Groupon for spamming

1
It was only a matter of time. The Australian Communications and Media Authority has cottoned on the fact that online deals retailer Groupon hasn't been as ... honest and diligent about its email newsletter habits as it could have been. Last week the regulator issued a statement strongly cautioning Groupon about its behaviour.

Someone’s still trying to buy ASG

4
Australian tier two IT services outfit ASG has raised a few eyebrows over the past few months through its admissions that it's currently being targeted by a mystery buyer. This morning ASG confirmed it was still being targeted.

AGIMO releases Big Data discussion paper

0
When it comes to enterprise IT buzzwords, ‘Big Data’ is right up there at the moment, alongside cloud computing, BYOD and social networking. That’s why we’re sure a few of you will be interested to know that the Australian Government Information Management Office late last week released what it termed a Big Data strategy issues paper.

SAP generates 120 new Melbourne jobs

2
Looks like German software giant SAP isn’t doing too poorly in Australia. According to a media release issued by Victorian Technology Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips last week, the vendor is all set to create 120 new jobs in Victoria.

Crown Casino loses $32m in IT security breach

9
The ABC reports that a high-roller gambler has scammed Melbourne's Crown Casino of $32 million, with what looks to be the assistance of the casino's own in-house surveillance system.

Fast-growing M2 buys Dodo, makes Eftel offer

7
According to a cluster of media releases and company presentations issued to the Australian Stock Exchange this morning, fast-growing telco M2 Telecommunications has bought independent ISP Dodo for $203.9 million and has made an offer for similarly independent ISP Eftel for $44.1 million.

Happy Friday! And see you next week :)

40
hey everyone, just a quick note to let you know that I'm taking today off from writing on Delimiter.

ATO still struggling with WinXP upgrade

24
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.

Galaxy Note 8.0 lands in April, from $459

2
Samsung's Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet set to land in Australia in April.

Why the NBN needs a safe pair of hands

0
When I think about the future of the National Broadband Network project, what mainly concerns me is that whoever is in charge of the initiative keeps it moving forward, keeps it on track and delivers better broadband to all Australians within the next decade.

Slater moved off NAB’s IT operations

1
NAB replaces group executive of Group Business Services Gavin Slater with Lisa Gray.

“Burning ambition”: Brisbane launches digital economy strategy

15
It seems virtually everyone's getting on the whole "digital economy" bandwagon these days. The latest cab off the rank is Brisbane, which has appointed a chief digital officer and this week launched its new 'digita strategy'. Nice.

Shocker: Qld Health payroll tender was rushed

6
From Computerworld this week comes the incredible, unbelievable, amazing news that the tendering process for Queensland Health’s colossally botched payroll systems upgrade may have been just a teensy bit rushed, and that the Government may not have allocated sufficient funding for the project.

Media Watch weighs in on Ross NBN coverage

79
We were pleasantly surprised with the conclusions which Holmes drew on last night’s program regarding the National Broadband Network coverage which ABC Technology + Games Editor Nick Ross has been generating over the past year.

Corrosion drastically impacts BT FTTN speed

53
If BT's rollout in the UK is any indication, fibre to the node may not be the perfect broadband solution it has been hyped up to be.

NBN on Media Watch tonight

90
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.

Emperor Turnbull has no clothes

26
In a new scathing commentary published this afternoon, ZDNet columnist David Braue rips the recent performance of Malcolm Turnbull as a flailing Shadow Communications Minister to shreds and leaves the mangled corpse behind in the dust.

NBN should abolish speed tiers, says economist

114
According to one economist, the NBN might actually see higher uptake if just one flat speed (presumably 100Mbps, initially) was provided.

A thoughtful digital economy speech from Australia Post

4
Australia Post chief executive Ahmed Fahour gives a great speech about the Digital Economy and how it's impacting Australia Post.

Govt CTO explains new role; with Lego

2
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?

Ten’s The Project whacks Turnbull with ABC article

67
The young presenters of Ten's The Project pointedly question Malcolm Turnbull about the Coalition's NBN plans, using information sourced directly from Nick Ross' controversial ABC article on the subject to do so.

Vodafone CEO backs Quigley NBN study

13
Vodafone chief executive Bill Morrow backs NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley's proposal to have the Communications Alliance carry out a study into Australia's broadband future.

Kim Dotcom may list Mega on ASX

0
Kim Dotcom expresses an interest in listing his new Mega business on the Australian Stock Exchange.

As expected, Mailes to lead Vic Govt IT

0
As has been widely known inside the Victorian Government for a while now, former South Australian whole of government chief information officer Grantly Mailes has been appointed to a permanent role as Victoria's first chief technology advocate -- a new style of role recommended in the state's new ICT strategy which Mailes coordinated.

Google Glass will ‘end privacy’, claims Cory Bernardi

42
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.

Help us fact-check iTNews’ NBN figures

45
Help us fact-check iTNews' claims that NBN Co is fudging its rollout figures in an attempt to make its progress look better on paper.

Telstra won’t renegotiate $11bn NBN fee

67
David Thodey has already reportedly started playing hardball with respect to the $11 billion in payments which Telstra is set to receive as part of its deal with the Government and NBN Co.

This is how Google changes country MDs

7
Other companies' Australian managing directors exit gracefully, in a carefully stage-managed process which sees a replacement privately sourced almost before the incumbent leaves. But not Google. Google just dumps a new job ad on its country page as the local MD leaves the country.

NBN Co inks $300m Arianespace satellite deal

9
This morning NBN Co inked a $300 million contract with French aerospace giant Arianespace to launch its two satellites into space in 2015. Now that's progress.

A complete picture of NAB’s IT transformation

0
You may have noticed that National Australia Bank enterprise transformation EGM Adam Bennett gave a speech at a CEDA lunch in Sydney this week. The executive's comments have caused a flurry of articles in the media. A brief overview, for your Friday afternoon reading pleasure, can be found here.

Pollenizer celebrates five years with a book

0
Startup consultancy and incubator Pollenizer celebrates five years with a new book about the lifecycle of startups, Startup Focus.

Surface Pro for Australia in “coming months”

9
Just one month ago Redmond launched the supposedly flagship device in the US and in Canada, but made no mention of launches in other first-world, early technology adopter countries such as Australia. Just one month later, overnight last night in the US, the company said Australia and a number of other countries would receive the Surface Pro "in the coming months", but without giving a firm date.

Senior editor for The Australian backs data retention

13
We don’t pretend to know what goes on in the minds of journalists who work for News Ltd, but sometimes some really quite unexpected views appear in their articles. A perfect example is this (paywalled) article by Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of News Ltd newspaper The Australian backing Labor’s extremely controversial data retention scheme.

Australia flooded with cheap Android tablets again

11
Interested in buying one of the new flock of incoming smaller Android tablets from the likes of HP, ASUS and Kogan? Or is it all a bit meh?

Ludlam tables anti-data retention petition

1
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’.

BlackBerry CEO to hit Australia in March

0
Yesterday it was revealed BlackBerry chief executive Thorsten Heins would bring his smile to Australia on Monday 18 March to launch the new BlackBerrys and share the happiness. Praise be.

Turnbull should welcome Quigley review: Budde

42
We were a little bit surprised when Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbul abjectly rejected a move by NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley last week to back an independent industry investigation into the merits of various high-speed broadband technologies. And, it appears we're not the only ones to think that way.

Shock: Queensland Health to get IT review

9
From the department of why the hell haven't they already done this comes the news that that bastion of IT systems stability and competence Queensland Health (yup, the very same, you'd be surprised how often it pops up in Delimiter stories) will undertake a review into its IT procurement practices and IT governance arrangements.

ABC hack protests anti-Islam interview

14
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.

Jobs go as Brisbane outsources to HCL

3
It’s been coming for a while, but Brisbane City Council has finally bitten the bullet and inked a wide-ranging IT outsourcing contract with Indian firm HCL. According to the Brisbane Times, some 55 jobs are set to go and staff are not happy.

Class action lawsuit starts against Vodafone

10
Just when you thought Vodafone’s problems couldn’t get any worse … they just did. Remember that potential class action lawsuit which local firm Piper Alderman had been promoting back in December 2010 in the wake of Vodafone’s ‘Vodafail’ problems? Well, it’s back, it’s on, and some 23,000 people have joined the action.

“Terminate copper”: France’s €20bn fibre splurge

28
Last week the French Government revealed that a combined €20 billion investment in fibre broadband technology, representing a combination of public and private funding, would be ploughed in to help bring the nation's ageing telecommunications networks up to spec and "terminate the copper".

More criticism of the ACS

11
Well-known IT industry figure Tony Healy adds to Freelancer.com chief executive Matt Barrie's criticism of the Australian Computer Society.

Is the Coalition’s NBN policy fundamentally different?

58
Is the Coalition's NBN policy fundamentally different to that of Labor? Yes, according to the ABC's Nick Ross. But others disagree.

WA Police, FBI raid Aussie Xbox insider

17
Western Australian man raised by the FBI and Australian police for releasing Xbox trade secrets.

Telstra’s Sensis sacks 648 staff

13
It seems like we’re always hearing about redundancies at Telstra’s directories and digital division Sensis. Last week it was half the division’s staff, this week the number has firmed at 648, according to an official Telstra media release issued this morning. Apparently the restructure is aimed at “digital growth”. Right.

Telstra adds 900Mhz 4G band, trials LTE-A

16
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.

Vodafone achieves 67Mbps in 4G tests

9
We want to just briefly highlight the fact that ailing mobile telco Vodafone has finally kicked off trials of its new 4G network and is achieving top-range speeds of up to 67Mbps and upload speeds of up to 30Mbps.

Fire & Rescue dumps GroupWise for hosted Exchange

0
Fire and Rescue NSW finally ditches Novell GroupWise for a hosted version of Microsoft Exchange.

Dick Smith’s amazing iTunes specials

19
Incredible value -- zero dollars off. Spotted in Randwick. A $50 iTunes voucher for $50 -- who would have thought?!

Google CFO woos Gillard with Glasses

9
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.

Turnbull wants ‘user pays’ FTTH model

74
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.

“Victoria will decide”: Conroy on ‘Senator’ Julian Assange

17
In this brief video filmed at a doorstop press conference last week, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy -- a Senator for Victoria -- gives his reaction to the news that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has made an application to register the Wikileaks Party in Australia and will seek election in September as a Senator for Victoria.

Qld’s new IT Minister has zero IT experience

51
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?

NSW may sack 610 IT support staffers

10
We're not happy to hear from The Register that the NSW Department of Education and Department may be about to sack some 610 technical support officers.

The NSW RTA’s iMacs lasted a full decade

24
The NSW RTA (now the RMS) finally reveals plans to replace the 'sunflower' iMacs in its motor registries around the state, a decade after they were first deployed. Now that's what you call return on investment.

“The greatest information-sharing tool in history”: Ludlam’s epic Internet ode to Aaron Swartz

13
The untimely death of US-based Internet entrepreneur and activist Aaron Swartz passed most in the Federal Parliament by without a murmur, but the deep-thinking Ludlam, ever the advocate of the power of the Internet for good (clearly, he’ll never be Attorney-General), paid attention, and gave this landmark speech in the Senate late in the evening on 6 February. We commend it to you in its entirely.

Sensis to chop 50 percent of staff?

4
Telstra's online and directories business Sensis hasn't been a great place to work for a while now. Executive departures and job cuts have proven to be pretty much the norm at the once-great home of the White and Yellow Pages empire over the past several years. But according to The Australian, we may not have known quite how bad things were.

This is what the NBN debate has come to

70
If you had any shred of belief that Australia's debate over the National Broadband Network had further depths to sink to, let that belief be laid aside. Today, News Ltd published an article attacking the amount of money which NBN Co spends on ... coffee. That's right; coffee.

Adobe CEO hits Australia amid price crisis

17
Adobe global president and chief executive Shantanu Narayen visits Sydney in the midst of a high-profile crisis regarding the company's Australian pricing.

Assange registers Wikileaks party; targets Victorian Senate seat

13
Crusading Internet activist Julian Assange has delivered on his promises to run for Australian political office in the upcoming Federal Election in September, reportedly registering the WikiLeaks Party in Australia yesterday and flagging his intention to become a Senator representing Victoria.

Adobe harmonises Aussie Creative Cloud prices

20
Hot on the heels of news of Federal Parliament’s decision to summon Adobe (alongside Apple and Microsoft) to answer questions about its Australian pricing habits, the recalcitrant vendor has this afternoon revealed plans to harmonise the local prices of at least one of its product lines, Creative Cloud, with its US prices.

Google Fiber shows what the NBN is capable of

80
The argument that the construction of the NBN will engender great things for Australia has just been bolstered by closer examination of what's happening in the areas in the US where Google has already laid its own fibre to the premise network.

Parliament runs out of money for Win7 rollout

27
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.

Brisbane City Council plans IT offshoring

5
All the cool kids are conducting IT outsourcing initiatives this year. Boral’s doing it, Woolworths is doing it; it’s basically par for the course if you’re a major corporation or government department. But that hasn’t stopped one of the Brisbane City Council’s main unions from jumping up and down over Brisbane City Council’s plans to shift up to 50 IT roles offshore.

ATO suffers minor IT security breach

3
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.

R18+ fail: Qld bans God of War: Ascension

22
Kotaku brings us news that the Sunshine State has has banned Kratos’ new blood-soaked romp, God of War: Ascension.

Video games “screw up” kids’ minds: Gerry Harvey

43
According to Gerry Harvey, one of "the great tragedies" of our modern age is that kids spend way too much time ... you guessed it ... playing video games. Wow.

Treasury dumps BlackBerry for iPhone 5, iPad

2
The Federal Department of the Treasury has told ZDNet that it's ditching its fleet of BlackBerrys for Apple iPhone and iPad devices.

“Like Sol Trujillo”: Conroy blasts Vodafone CEO

15
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has taken an axe to complaints by Vodafone Australia's chief executive Bill Morrow about the national telecommunications regulatory regime, comparing Morrow to outspoken former Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo.

Get em young: Windows 8 indoctrination

29
Many young Australians head off to school these days with a collection of Apple paraphenalia; iPhones, iPods and now iPads are common items to see in the schoolbags of students heading off to both high school and primary school. However, for at least one young man, there won't be any Apple in his forseeable future.

Turnbull would win if leader, says Windsor

56
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.

Telstra sold 500,000+ iPhone 5’s last year

22
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.

You heard it here first

62
Delimiter editor Renai LeMay has "jumped the shark", according to Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull

Not absolutely everything is the NBN’s fault

58
Despite what you may read in the media, not everything that goes wrong in early stage NBN rollout zones has anything to do with NBN Co. Take the problems outlined in this article published today by Computerworld, for example.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop jets in to Australia

12
You may have noticed from the flurry of articles from the mainstream media this morning that Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop is in Australia at the moment checking on the progress of the Finnish smartphone manufacturer Down Under.

First interviews surface with new Defence CIO

0
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.

The difficulties of ordering a Surface Pro in Australia

8
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.

New Govt tax taskforce may tackle Google, Apple

8
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.

NSW reforms ICT services contracts

0
Looks like the New South Wales Government is making good on its promises to reform the way the state purchases technology services, as part of its overall IT strategy. This week we received a media release on the issue from Minister for Finance and Services Greg Pearce.

NSW Police reportedly settles with Micro Focus

3
Remember how NSW Police was allegedly caught red-handed pirating software from enterprise IT vendor Micro Focus? And how the whole story was the subject of an extensive and embarassing documentary report by the 7:30 Report in April 2012? Yeah. Not precisely the best look for the boys in blue. Well, it appears that NSW Police has come clean in the case.

Samsung ATIV S for Australia in Feb?

0
Australian Windows Phone enthusiast site Windows Phone Down Under says it's likely Australia will see Samsung's Windows Phone 8-based ATIV S in February.

Assange’s mum confirms he will run for Senate

16
Julian Assange's mum has confirmed he will run for the Australian Senate in this year's Federal Election, claiming that he will be "awesome".

“Stupid, quasi-religious”: Turnbull slams fibre fans

237
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.

The irony, it burns: Telstra’s NBN price complaints

280
Wait, back up a bit. Did Telstra just argue that NBN Co’s wholesale prices would be so high that they would not allow retail ISPs to charge reasonable prices to end user customers? And that this would stop those ISPs from investing in their own products and services? And that this wouldn’t be in the long-term interest of end users?

Thank you for the platitudes, Sir Berners-Lee

29
Why doesn't Australia have enough confidence in ourselves without these father figures looking on? I just don't know.

Does Telstra have a million 4G devices or not?

4
Does Telstra have a million 4G devices on its Next G network or not? It depends who you ask, apparently.

Apple Australia’s tiny tax bill “staggering”: Husic

35
Apple made more than a billion dollars more revenue from Australia over the year to the end of September 2012, but it paid (according to its financial statements) about $54 million less tax.

A great Aussie virtual desktop case study

7
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.

More R18+ games approved for Australia

7
It was only a little over a week ago that the Classification Board approved the first R18+ video game to be launched in Australia in the form of Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, following new legislation supporting R18+ games taking effect on 1 January. And now we have word that that wasn’t an anomaly, with the news that the Classification Board has approved two more games as R18+ in Australia.

Parliament trials Windows 8 tablets

24
ZDNet publishes an interview with Federal Parliament chief information officer Eija Seittenranta, detailing the fact that the Parliament is conducting a trial of Windows 8 tablets.

Debunking the “cyber-security” hype

27
Crikey correspondent Bernard Keane has published an extensive, highly referenced article debunking eleven recent “cyber” attacks, in response to Prime Minister Julia Gillard's spate of announcements in the area yesterday and today.

Surface storage misleading? Choice files complaint

38
You may have noticed, if you've bought one of Microsoft's new Surface tablets, that you haven't actually gotten the storage you paid for. Consumer watchdog Choice objects to this kind of behaviour, and has referred Microsoft to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over the situation.

Google Nexus 4 hits Harvey Norman

7
Frustrated at not being able to buy Google’s Nexus 4 handset (manufactured by LG), which Delimiter recently rated as the best non-4G handset available in Australia? Worry not. LG has just announced the handset will be on sale through Harvey Norman imminently. Praise be.

Rejected: No Surface Pro for Australia, yet

13
Just a quick note that Microsoft has left Australia off the list of countries which will receive the Surface Pro tablet when it launches in February.

Exceed your quota … somehow it’s the NBN’s fault?

63
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.

Two Sydney universities get hacked

2
It hasn't been a good few weeks for university IT security in Australia, with the Universities of Western Sydney and New South Wales both being broken into.

Coalition must support FTTH, says Oakeshott

90
Ever the supporter of the Federal Government's National Broadband Network project, independent Rob Oakeshott has come out swinging this week to demand that the Coalition must support the fibre to the premises basis of the NBN, not the FTTN model the Coalition currently supports.

Australian commentary on Aaron Swartz

5
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.

Kim Dotcom wants Mega servers in Australia

18
Kim Dotcom flags plans to host some servers for his new Mega venture in Australia.

Oracle chief Mark Hurd hits Australia

5
Oracle's global co-president Mark Hurd is in Australia to meet with key clients and to catch up on his tennis.

A round-up of 2012 in government IT

3
It's 2013 already (I know, I know, it's not yet formally 2013 in Australia until after Australia Day, but still), but as we think about the year ahead in public sector technology projects, it's worth giving ourselves a quick refresher course in what happened last year.

Valve may re-issue Left 4 Dead 2 as R18+

16
Thanks to the new laws allowing R18+ video games to be sold in Australia, Valve is strongly investigating re-releasing its Left 4 Dead 2 game locally in its original gory form.

FoI activists mock Conroy’s big red button

15
Some of the more high-profile members of Australia’s Internet community are currently waging something of a war against Stephen Conroy's big red cybersafety button through filing Freedom of Information requests about it, presumably to demonstrate the Government’s ineptitude in implementing the project.

Optus re-opens startup funding applications

0
Just wanted to post a brief note that Optus has opened the second round of applications for Australian IT startups to attract seed funding under its Innov8 program.

Medicare moves into Human Services IT family

10
It’s been a while now since the Federal Government signed into being the Department of Human Services, the new super-department formed by the merger of Medicare, Centrelink, the Child Support Agency, Australian Hearing and CRS Australia. However, DHS’ IT department, which largely consists of Centrelink’s very successful IT department with more resources, has only just now taken responsibility from long-time outsourcer for much of Medicare’s IT systems.

Pirate Party Australia feuds with parent

12
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.

NBN originally just a “media stunt”, says IPA

69
Just how well-developed was the NBN policy, five or so years ago when it was first put together by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and then-PM Kevin Rudd? According to free market thinktank the Institute for Public Affairs, not very well-developed at all.

Sexism and douche-baggery in the hackersphere

28
Australian online technology activist Asher Wolf slams elements of the hackersphere which she says have been demonstrating sexism.

Taxi 2.0 service Uber now in Melbourne

10
Following the launch of next-generation taxi service Uber in Sydney in late October last year, the US startup has now annoucned that it has launched quietly in Melbourne.

Bishop visits Twitter HQ as Aussie office planned

4
Late last week Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop tweeted that she was visiting Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, and confirmed that the company was planning to open an Australian office.

Shoes of Prey outs itself as a Google Apps fan

12
We thought we’d point readers to this blog post on the blog of Google Australia by Mike Knapp, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Sydney-based ecommerce startup Shoes of Prey, which has achieved notoriety over the past few years for its innovative site, which allows women to design and order their own shoes, getting around the normal retail grind. In the blog, Knapp outs Shoes of Prey (which has around 40 staff) as a long-time Google Apps user.

Turnbull continues to attract IT industry bile

66
Not since Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was strongly pushing the Internet filter project several years ago have I seen this level of frustration with a politician regarding a technology policy.

Global roaming stupidity

97
Like most people, when I travel overseas I make sure to avoid huge global roaming charges through the use of Wi-Fi networks, cheap local SIM cards, IP telephony and other measures. But apparently some of our nation's most venerable technologists and politicians are not capable of doing the same.

Sony’s Xperia Z lands in Oz in March

11
Probably the most interesting announcement from CES so far for Australians is a new hero smartphone from Sony, the Xperia Z, which Gizmodo reports will land in Australia in March.

Fletcher takes a big fat swing at 4G auction

32
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.

#NatSecInquiry may not land before election

1
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.

Bill Clinton wants $50bn US NBN

25
Seems like it's not only Australian politicians who can get the NBN bug. We're a bit late to this party, but we thought it would be worth getting on the record that in late December, former US President and all-round good guy Bill Clinton jumped on the NBN train wholesale courtesy of a keynote speech at Dell's annual confab in Austin, Texas.

Govt delays IT startup funding decisions

1
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.

A fascinating startup brain dump from Phil Morle

3
If you're interested in Australia's IT startup ecosystem, you could do a lot worse than read this fascinating braindump by Morle posted amid the dying embers of 2012.

Server timestamps: Abbott was right after all

13
The Department of Parliamentary Services appears to have cleared Abbott of any wrongdoing in fudging James Ashby-related media release timestamps, admitting that its systems haven't been up to spec.

802.11ac to wire up your garage datacentre? Why not?

15
Fascinating blog post this week from MacTalk founder and all-round geek Anthony Agius, who chronicles his attempts to use two 802.11ac routers to link his new garage-based server farm to his house network.

Debunking Abbott’s “server timestamp” claims

48
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.

Reality check: China’s not getting an “NBN”

48
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”.

Qld sets royal commission into Health payroll

7
It's time. One of Australia's greatest ever IT disasters is now going to have the *ahem* privilege of having a royal commission conducted into how precisely it went wrong.

Assange forms Wikileaks party for Senate bid

16
It's been in the works for a while, but Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has finally come right out and confirmed that he's definitely forming an Australian Wikileaks political party with the intention of backing his bid to run for the Senate in 2013.

Nexus 7 draw: The winner revealed

26
Announcing the winner of Delimiter's Nexus 7 random draw.

Qld may hold Royal Commission into payroll bungle

11
It's been one of the biggest IT-related disasters in Australia's history, it's going to take $1.2 billion to fix, and it's even the subject of complex legal discussions between prime contractor IBM and the Queensland Government. Welcome to the world of Queensland Health's colossal payroll systems overhaul bungle. Today's news is that the state's LNP Premier Campbell Newman has canvassed setting up a commission of inquiry (also known as a royal commission) to get to the heart of the matter.

Merry Christmas from Malcolm Turnbull

40
Following on from yesterday’s Christmas card from the good Senator Stephen Conroy, we’ve now received a similar message of Yuletide cheer from his opposite, Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

US ambassador slams Australia’s “cloud protectionism”

38
US Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich has slammed Australia's "cloud protectionism" in wanting datacentres located on-shore.

Stephen Conroy wishes you Merry Christmas

36
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.

Huge surprise (not): Telstra wins ABC telco deal

15
In what is not precisely the most unexpected news of the century, Telstra and the ABC have announced that they are once again planning to cosy up so that the telco can provide sweet, sweet telecommunications services to help the broadcaster, well, broadcast stuff.

Apple Maps losing Victorians in forest

14
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.

iiNet pulls out of anti-piracy scheme

58
Remember how a coalition of most of Australia’s major ISPs proposed a scheme about a year ago which would see Australians issued with warning and educational notices if they were caught pirating content online? The one which could have seen users’ details handed over to the copyright lobby with a subpoena? Well, it’s looking increasingly like the scheme is dead in the water.

LG Optimus L9 hits Australia

0
This week LG added another model to its Australian line-up in the form of the Optimus L9.

Vocus buys Newcastle-based Ipera

6
The ongoing consolidation of Australia's telecommunications sector is showing no signs of slowing down. Sometimes it seems like every time I think there can't possibly be more buyouts and mergers in the industry, another one happens. This morning it's Newcastle-based fibre and datacentre operator Ipera, which has been bought out by Vocus Communications.

Webjet adopts Office 365, Windows Azure

0
The latest missive to emanate from the Microsoft monolith is regarding Webjet, which has adopted both Windows Azure and Office 365, and is even dabbling in Windows 8 apps.

Turnbull’s NBN media war blows back

100
This morning, long-time telco commentator David Braue skewers Turnbull for this ongoing war on the media, in the erudite fashion which Braue readers have become accustomed to.

Jim Hassell quits NBN Co

21
One of the most visible NBN Co executives over the past several years has been the company's Head of Product Development and Industry Relations, Jim Hassell. And now, just two and a half years after he joined the company, he's leaving.

A govt IT insourcing success story

9
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.

Woods Bagot deploys SharePoint 2013 early

7
It’s only just been formally released for official use, but Australian architectural design firm Woods Bagot has been using early versions of Microsoft’s SharePoint 2013 software since early this year, a new case study published by Microsoft recently has revealed.

Now Qld Health bungles e-health program

15
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, given the ongoing disaster that is Queensland Health's payroll systems overhaul, but news has emerged that the department is also suffering problems with its electronic health program, with the first two tranches of the initiative being at least two years late.

Ninemsn shifts hosting to … Amazon?

6
We knew Amazon Web Services had robust infrastructure — after all, the Commonwealth Bank hosts some of its services with the cloud computing giant — but we didn’t know that it was quite this robust. The AustralianIT reports today (we recommend you click here for the full article) that one of Australia’s largest web sites, Ninemsn, is actually hosted with Amazon:

Telstra builds four new datacentres

0
Telstra late yesterday revealed plans to expand its cloud computing business through constructing four new datacentres located around the nation to cater for demand. Now if only the telco could announce some new cloud computing customers.

Microsoft’s war on Google Apps gets nasty

15
Microsoft Australia produces case study scorching towards Google Apps and Gmail.

No demand: Qantas dumps in-flight Internet

12
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.

Delimiter is slowing down for Christmas

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Thanks for a great 2012, here's looking forward to a great holiday season, and let's make 2013 even bigger!

HTC Windows phones hit Telstra, Optus

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We've more or less known about these launches for a while, but today HTC finally confirmed the details of its Windows Phone 8 launches in Australia. There's two new models on offer here, both looking especially spiffy.

NAB starts deploying Windows 7

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In 2009 the bank started investigating the next move, to Windows 7, and now that 2013 is almost here, according to iTNews (we recommend you click through to the full article), the bank is actually deploying some Windows 7 machines:

WikiLeaks blockade based on Australia’s misinfo

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VISA and Mastercard appear to still be relying on outdated comments by Australia's Federal Government to block the ability of Wikileaks to take donations.

CSIRO cuts jobs in rich Wi-Fi division

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In what we'd have to say was one of the more curious funding decisions of the year, it appears as though Australia's peak research agency the CSIRO has decided that the division which made it the most money over the past few years -- the one which sued many major global technology vendors over its patented wireless innovations -- has too much fat and should be trimmed down to keep costs low.

FTTN “viable”, says Mike Quigley

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NBN Co chief Mike Quigley concedes a fibre to the node rollout would be viable in Australia.

Windows 8 sales disappointing in Australia

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It won't come as a surprise to many, given its drastically altered user interface and mixed reviews, but the news is already bad for Microsoft's new flagship operating system Windows 8 in Australia.

ASG clouds Tax Practitioners Board

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IT services outfit ASG has revealed it has been chosen by the Tax Practitioners Board to deliver an “all cloud solution” for its enterprise IT needs.

Leave Google’s tax alone, Victoria tells Federal Govt

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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.

Regulator forces ANZ off Salesforce.com

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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.

IBM adds 150 new jobs in Ballarat

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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.

Atmail picks up $2m from Starfish

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Anyone who still thinks there aren't sufficient funding options in Australia for startups had better take another look at that belief, because over the past year we've seen an absolute heap of decently sized early funding rounds for fast-growing local IT companies. Now there's one more to be added to the list -- email and collaboration company Atmail, which has picked up $2 million from Starfish Ventures.

Huawei’s quad-core D1 Android hits Australia

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A quad-core smartphone with a 4.5" screen and close to stock Android, for $499 outright? Sounds like a bargain, and that's precisely what Chinese manufacturer Huawei has a reputation for delivering. The Ascend D1 quad will hit JB Hi-Fi this week, and if it's anything near as solid as the P1, we think quite a few people will be interested. Stay tuned for our review sometime soon.

“Click Frenzy” was a marketing/PR hypno-orgy right from the start

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Confused about what the hell this whole "Click Frenzy" online retail phenomenon thing that we've all been reading about over the past several weeks was all about? Join the club: I'm a paid-up member. Maybe I didn't get the original press release. Thankfully, local IT geek and Delimiter reader Dawnstar (not his real name) has posted several epic rants and deconstructions of legendary proportions on his blog to explain it to y'all, complete with SPAM Act illegality, journalist/public relations/marketing love-ins and a health dose of sarcasm.

SAP confirms Australian datacentre

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The rumours that German software giant SAP would follow rival Oracle and cloud giants Amazon and Rackspace and start providing software as a service-based services from an Australian datacentre have been flowing around Australia’s technology sector for quite a while now. They surfaced in the pages of the Financial Review in May this year, and gained strength as SAP’s SuccessFactors launched an Australian datacentre that same month. And now they’re reality, according to iTNews.

A detailed report into Australia’s IT startup scene

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The From Little Things blog created by Australian startup incubator Pollenizer recently has been turning up some solid content; profiles of Australian startups, interesting tidbits about the local investment and more. And today it’s gone one better, publishing a detailed report into Australia’s IT startup scene and how it compares internationally.

NBN + climate change deniers: A rebuttal

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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 contractors: No problem with rollout speed

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A lengthy article published by the ABC last week (we recommend you click here for the full article) appears to blow claims of slow rollout speeds out of the water, with NBN Co’s contractors telling Aunty that getting the deployment done on time would be no problem.

NSW Govt progresses private cloud talks

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Remember that private cloud computing environment that the NSW Government is planning to develop for its departments and agencies? The one it discussed in a public forum last month in front of the creme de la creme of Australia's IT industry? Well, according to Intermedium , the state is actually doing something about the plan, kicking off private talks with key vendors.

Optus gets first dibs on 4G HTC One SV

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The newest handset on the block from HTC is the One SV, which is a 4G model exclusive to Optus and its subsidiary Virgin Mobile at this point and with some pretty strong specifications -- although it's not absolutely top of the line.

CommBank CIO is major cloud fan

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It hasn't been until this week that the full extent of CommBank CIO Michael Harte's enthusiasm for the cloud computing medium has been made clear.

Budde praises Coalition NBN plan

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Fans of the Coalition’s rival broadband policy can be hard to find in Australia’s technology sector, with most preferring the Labor Federal Government’s more expansive National Broadband Network policy. However, according to telecommunications analyst Paul Budde, the Coalition’s plan may be better than many people think.

Telstra launches 4G Lumia 920, HTC 8X on way

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If you are one of those looking forward to the incoming wave of Windows Phone 8-based smartphones to Australia, you're in for a treat. Telstra yesterday revealed it had started taking orders for Nokia's incoming flagship Windows Phone 8-based device, the Lumia 920.

NAB CIO gets promotion amongst reshuffle

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The National Australia Bank appears to have conducted a minor reshuffle of its executive leadership team, including what appears to be a promotion for NAB chief information officer Adam Bennett.

Qld may ditch $1.2bn Health payroll project, start again

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Remember Queensland Health’s botched payroll systems overhaul? The project which was initially estimated to a relatively small initiative, but ballooned out in value to more than $1.2 billion and stil doesn’t quite work? Yeah. According to an article in the Courier Mail this morning, the new LNP administration in Queensland is considering ditching the whole thing and starting again.

NBN Co defends business plans

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NBN Co head of Product Development and Sales Jim Hassell has sent us this post in response to our analysis of NBN business broadband plans last week.

Australia won’t get the HTC One X+

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Interested in HTC’s One X+ smartphone? Prepare to be disappointed. Ausdroid has dug up this post on HTC Australia’s Facebook page, where the Taiwanese company makes it clear Australia’s not getting the handset.

An iPad lover’s new Surface romance

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Australian Microsoft professional Loryan Strant goes into detail about how he's switching from the Apple iPad to the Microsoft Surface.

Telstra wants to buy Leighton assets

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According to the Financial Review, Telstra's going after some of the telco-related assets which Leighton Holdings recently put on the block.

Google Nexus 4 launching soon in Australia

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Discouraged by Ausdroid’s reports (here, here and here) that Google’s new flagship Nexus 4 handset (manufactured by LG) isn’t going to launch through Australia’s mobile carriers? Worry no more. According to Gizmodo (we recommend you click here for the full article), the hyped Android 4.2 handset is set to launch locally through retailers anyway.

Optus to shut down Unwired from Feb 28

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Optus has starting emailing customers on Vividwireless' Unwired network to let them know they only have a few months before their broadband goes AWOL.

AARNet peers with Amazon Web Services

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Work for one of Australia's universities and use Amazon Web Services? Your life just got a little better. Today AARNet, the telecommunications network serving Australia's university sector, announced it would peer with AWS for fun and profit.

Foxtel launches streaming iPad app

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Pay TV giant Foxtel this morning launched its live streaming service Foxtel Go on the iPad. For existing Foxtel subscribers, the offering allows them to watch Foxtel channels live on their iPad.

Airbnb officially launches in Australia

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A quick search of accommodation crowdsourcing website Airbnb reveals that it’s been operating in Australia for a while (or at least taking bookings and accommodation advertisements from Australians), but the US-based startup hasn’t previously had an official presence Down Under. Until now.

Slow day today

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Just as an FYI, today (Friday) will be a very slow posting day for Delimiter (maybe one or two articles). It's been a huge and very busy period over the past few months, so we're taking it easy today to step back and get some perspective on things. We'll be back at full steam next week! Thanks for reading :)

Happy nine month birthday, Classification Review. Time for Conroy’s filter to finally die?

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Today is the nine month anniversary of the publication of the Classification Review, which readers may remembers as the key document which would guide the development of Labor's infamous mandatory Internet filter policy.

IBM Australia suffers disaster quarter

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Things haven’t been going well at IBM Australia recently. And now, according to a juicy article in The AustralianIT, things have gone from bad to worse in terms of the company's finances.

‘Daring yet awful’: An epic Windows 8 rant

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We hate Windows 8 on the desktop just as much as the next man, but we haven’t tested it as extensively as Taswegian and technologist Simon Reidy, who penned this epic rant on Google Plus this week detailing why Microsoft’s new opus is the company’s “most interesting, daring, different, ridiculous, contradictory, frustrating, and awful Windows yet”.

A roundup of Australian Windows 8 trials

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Now that Windows 8 has launched in Australia, what do we know about enterprise trial deployments of the technology? Surprisingly, quite a lot. A lot of people might believe that Windows 8 is the new Windows Vista, but when you look around on the actual ground, it appears as though major Australian organisations are at least dabbling with Microsoft's new operating system opus.

Paul Budde dumps Foxtel

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Welcome to the IPTV club, Paul Budde. The well-known Australian telecommunications analyst revealed on his blog this morning that his household recently terminated its Foxtel service.

You can’t actually buy Windows 8 in Australia [Update: Well, kind of]

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Windows 8 has launched in Australia. But you can't actually buy fully boxed copies of it locally. No, really.

#NatSecInquiry: Tracking Australians in real time

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The ongoing National Security Inquiry has dislodged quite a few stones from the bottom of the paranoia well. One aspect that took my interest in particular is the relationship between data retention and mobile or cellular telephone data.

Trainhack: Students crack ticketing system

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Forget Black Hat in Las Vegas. Australia’s Ruxcon is where it’s at, complete with public transport ticketing hacks and shadow figures involved in advanced network security exercises.

White House clears Huawei of spy claims

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Well, well. Seems as though there just still isn't any evidence that Chinese networking giant Huawei is involved in espionage for the Chinese Government or military, and now some rather large players are finally coming out in public to say so.

A solid overview of Australian startup funding

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Mark Greig, the commercial director of Pollenizer Global (and chairman of Pollenizer’s Investment Council) has published an extremely common sense blog post outlining some the basic things you need to know about investing in Australian IT startups.

Woolworths dumps BlackBerrys for iPhones

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This morning The Australian newspaper reported (we recommend you click here for the full article) that BlackBerry is completely out and iPhone in at the retailer.

Macquarie Telecom suffers major outage

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Last month was a good one for local enterprise telco and hosting company Macquarie Telecom. The company hosted Julia Gillard for a ritzy launch of its new datacentre, drank champagne and toasted its success. But the past two days haven't been quite as rosy for the firm.

Melbourne IT knocked Twitter URLs offline

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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.

Wikileaks’ Assange may sue PM for defamation

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video Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is threatening to sue Julia Gillard for defamation, following the Prime Minister's comments in late 2010 that Wikileaks' publication of US diplomatic cables was "illegal" (the Australian Federal Police subsequently found nothing to charge him with under Australian law).

4G Galaxy S III a “huge battery sucker”

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blog Is the 4G Galaxy S III handset a "huge battery sucker"? Yes, according to Gizmodo. We can’t say we’re surprised by this, given the fact that a similar handset, the HTC One XL, also sucks battery pretty rapidly. But it is slightly disappointing if true.

Past history: When the Nationals backed the NBN

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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.

IT glitch takes down CityLink tunnels

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Bad news this morning for Melbourne commuters, with a mysterious glitch at CityLink taking down the Burnley and Domain tunnels. Traffic apparently slowed to a crawl, to howls of protest.

NBN nightmare install escalated to CEO, fixed

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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.

Lotus position: ABS a “happy Notes camper”

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We couldn't help but laugh when we read this excellent interview with Australian Bureau of Statistics chief information officer Patrick Hadley, describing the agency's ongoing commitment to IBM's Lotus Notes/Domino platform as part of its recently released and wide-ranging ICT strategy.

Coalition concerned Turnbull too close to NBN

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Coalition MPs apparently concerned Turnbull is too close to Labor's National Broadband Network policy.

Qld towns build their own goddamn NBN

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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.

US designates Assange ‘enemy of state’

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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.

Police want “indefinite” data retention

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According to the ABC and a plethora of other media outlets reporting from parliamentary hearings yesterday Australia's friendly police want data retention laws extended to cover a period lasting ... forever.

Vodafone’s iPhone 5 speeds are awful

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We've known for a while that the iPhone 5 would be dramatically slower on Vodafone's network, as it doesn't support 4G speeds like Telstra and Optus do in some areas. And now we know just how slower it will be.

Brumby wants Huawei to list on the ASX

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Former Victorian Premier John Brumby's suggestion that Huawei list in Australia is mere parochialism, in my opinion.

When NBN installs go wrong: A nightmare tale

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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.