Federal Government spends $5bn on ICT annually
Special Minister of State Gary Gray has released a report summarising expenditure by government departments in 2008–09 and 2009–10, which states that the Australian Government is a major consumer and producer of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) products and solutions, with an annual expenditure of $5 billion.
Vendors poach another Qld central Govt CIO
Queensland-based software vendor Technology One has poached the executive in charge of the state government's IT renewal program to become a business development executive, in a move that will further stimulate ongoing questions about the close relationship between the state's public sector and its IT vendors.
OneTable is scaling with Microsoft Azure
Ben Jackson has discussed how his organic food startup OneTable is scaling using Microsoft Azure, after a deliberately lean first year spent building support from the customers and developing the concept.
Webjet adopts Office 365, Windows Azure
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.
Unita dumps MYOB, Excel spreadsheets for NetSuite
Interior-construction company Unita has replaced a number of instances of MYOB, Accentus and Excel spreadsheets with a single instance of NetSuite OneWorld to manage its core business processes.
Federal Govt to establish new telco services panel
The Federal Government has announced it will establish a new telecommunications services panel to replace three existing bodies that will expire this year.
UK retail chain poaches Woolworths CIO
UK retail chain Morrisons has poached long-term Woolworths chief information officer Dan Beecham, in a move aimed at applying the executive's substantial skills in retail IT transformation to IT systems Morrisons itself has admitted are severely aged.
ASG picks up $35m CIMIC IT services deal
Perth-headquartered IT services group ASG this week revealed it had picked up a deal worth at least $35 million over five years with CIMIC Group — the massive construction and contracting group previously known as Leighton Holdings.
Hack shuts down NSW Trainlink booking system
NSW TrainLink has announced that its online reservations system has been taken offline following a hack and that some users' credit card data may have been compromised.
Shoes of Prey outs itself as a Google Apps fan
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.
Heartbleed, internal outages: CBA’s horror 24 hours
The Commonwealth Bank's IT division has suffered something of a nightmare 24 hours, with a catastrophic internal IT outage taking down multiple systems and resulting in physical branches being offline, and the bank separately suffering public opprobrium stemming from contradictory statements it made with respect to potential vulnerabilities stemming from the Heartbleed OpenSSL bug.
Woods Bagot deploys SharePoint 2013 early
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.
NSW Govt progresses private cloud talks
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.
Govt knee-deep in IPv6 transition
The Federal Government's top IT strategy branch has revealed it is knee-deep in the midst of a government-wide transition to version 6 of the Internet Protocol, as global availability of addresses in the current version 4 standard continues to run low.
Q+A: Oracle’s banking chief Ashwin Goyal
Delimiter recently conducted an interview with Ashwin Goyal, Oracle's global vice president & general manager, Financial Services.
Chinese spy concerns: Key Australian defence agencies ban Lenovo
According to the Financial Review, PCs made by Lenovo have been banned from the “secret” and ‘‘top secret” networks of the intelligence and defence services of Australia, the US, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, due to similar spying concerns as have been published about Chinese networking vendor Huawei.
Coles rolls out contactless payments
Wesfarmers-owned supermarket chain Coles is set to roll out a contactless card payment service at their stores later this month. Customers will be able to pay for their purchases at Coles with a wave of their wallet over the new Ingenico pinpads, making checkout much faster than with the traditional card swipe-and-sign or PIN method.
Defence brings massive IT services deal back to the market
The tender was put on ice some two years ago, as it was undertaking several other major IT purchasing efforts at the same time. However, iTnews reported today that the contract had been brought back.
Microsoft goes Windows Azure crazy: Aussie deployments ahoy as TechEd kicks off
Redmond has just published three extensive case studies of how Australian customers and partners are using its Windows Azure platform (which encompasses infrastructure as a service, storage as a service, and even platform as a service, to name a few of its aspects).
Cloud and fury, signifying nothing
This week, many prominent figures, political and commercial, gathered in that most august of locations, Australia's Parliament House, to launch what was lauded as a landmark report into the development of the nascent cloud computing industry in this nation. But I'm not quite sure what it was all about.
IBM, VMware sign strategic cloud partnership
IBM and VMware have agreed a strategic partnership aimed to make it easier for businesses to advantage of the cloud’s speed and economic factors.
Qld’s Grant joins analyst firm IBRS
This week it emerged that Peter Grant, the two-time former Queensland Whole of Government CIO (pictured), has joined well-regarded analyst firm Intelligent Business Research Services (IBRS). We’ve long had a high regard for IBRS, and so it’s fantastic to see such an experienced executive join its ranks.
Vic Govt releases motherhood ICT strategy
The Victorian State Government has released the draft of a new whole of government information and communications technology strategy, with which it aims to start addressing extensive IT project and service delivery issues which have resulted in more than a billion dollars in budget overruns and a string of failed IT projects over the past half-decade.
Auditor General: WA Govt should “prioritise online delivery of services”
Western Australian Auditor General Colin Murphy has released a report saying there are "significant savings and benefits" to moving government services online.
Defence CTO takes Immigration CIO role
The Department of Defence's widely respected chief technology officer Matt Yannopoulous will replace Tony Kwan as chief information officer at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, it was revealed this week.
Microsoft inks giant cloud, software deal with NSW Govt
The New South Wales Government this morning revealed it had signed a new deal with Microsoft that will give the state access to the vendor’s extensive product suite on a wide-ranging basis, with a focus on departments and agencies adoption collaboration and cloud computing technologies.
Brocade delivers LAN with New IP for secondary college
Networking solutions firm Brocade has announced that it has rolled out a comprehensive campus LAN upgrade, including a New IP networking solution, for Mazenod College in Lesmurdie, Western Australia.
New Qld Govt CIO a chance for ‘industry unity’
There is the chance for a fresh start in Queensland at the moment. And if the various CIOs, politicians and industry players can get behind that, perhaps the state can avoid having virtually every major whole of government technology project, and many others, savaged by its auditor-general in a few years' time when the next round of audits comes up.
WA Govt exposes dodgy IT deals
An investigation by Western Australia's Corruption and Crime Commission investigation has found that more than $1.2 million of IT software was purchased by a former council CEO without going to tender or getting quotes -- over a period in which they received gifts and benefits from the supplier.
Amazon wins more Aussie financial services work
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?
Qld Govt launches ICT action plan, IT dashboard
The Queensland State Government this morning launched an ICT Action Plan containing dozens of measures designed to transform its extremely troubled ICT project and service delivery capabilities, as well as switching on its US-style ICT dashboard designed to give onlookers direct information about the state of its ICT projects.
Sydney Water IT faces audit
The NSW State Government has announced it will conduct an audit of the IT and marketing budget of utility Sydney Water, in the wake of revelations the company spent some $7.1 million on the development of a new website, which went live in March this year.
Optus wins $60m deal with Virgin
Based on the amount of activity we're seeing from Optus at the moment, it looks as though the telco is really taking it to big brother Telstra. And that, as anyone who is in favour of strong competition in Australia's telecommunications sector will agree, is a fantastic thing. Nice one.
Westpac demotes CIO, makes CTO redundant
Westpac Banking Group has dramatically shaken up its senior IT executive team, slicing some responsibilities away from previous top IT dog Clive Whincup and reportedly making its chief technology officer Jeff Jacobs redundant.
Amazon’s Australian datacentre gets closer
That Australian datacentre which Amazon was planning to build? It's been a while since we heard a good rumour on that one, but The Register delivers this week, with news that the US cloud computing and online retail giant's local plans are still on.
NSW ‘ChildStory’ IT project drags heels on deployment
The NSW Department of Family & Community Services’ (FACS) ChildStory project has finally reached the deployment phase, despite being announced as far back as September of last year.
NAB appoints acting tech chief
National Australia Bank has appointed a new acting Chief Technology and Operations Officer (CTOO), following Bob Melrose's move to the role of Executive General Manager, Retail Banking.
Fairfax wants to dump Office, Exchange for Google
Media giant Fairfax has announced plans to will ditch Microsoft's Office and Exchange platforms for most of its 11,000-odd staff, with the company to become one of the largest known Australian organisations to shift onto Google's Apps platform for both email and office productivity software.
IBM suffers “catastrophic failure” at health dept
The Federal Department of Health and Aging has accused technology giant IBM of causing a “catastrophic failure” in its IT systems stemming from an update to its storage environment that took down a number of services for a period of time this week.
Cisco hikes Australian prices by 13 percent
It's not easy being a buyer of technology products and services in Australia at the moment. The continually sliding value of the Australian dollar means that vendor after vendor is hiking the Australian prices of their products. Australians are increasingly paying more Australian dollars for precisely the same product.
Tasmania wants on-island private cloud
The Tasmanian Government has gone to market for an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or private cloud solution that can be used across its operations, telling potential suppliers that any supplied option must be located in the state and that it envisages transitioning most of its services to the environment in the long-term.
Victorian agency reports schoolboy to police for informing it of IT security hole
Public Transport Victoria has reportedly reported a 16-year-old Melbourne schoolboy to Victoria Police for merely informing it of substantial security holes in its IT infrastructure.
Your problem: Rich-Phillips hands CenITex to Mailes
Those of you who’ve been around for a while will know that we’re not the greatest fans at Delimiter of Victorian IT shared services agency CenITex. From unethical procurement practices to a basic inability to deliver some of the services it promised, the agency has a penchant for getting itself in hot water with the media, politicians and even the internal Victorian Government agencies it’s seeking to serve. Which is why the State Government sacked its board and is now hot in the process of outsourcing its core functions. The next step, according to a media release issued by the Victorian Government this morning, is to start refreshing the agency’s board.
Optus signs ICT services deal with QBE
Optus Business has inked a new three-year ICT services deal with QBE Australia to deliver voice, mobile and data network services for the insurance multinational.
UXC Oxygen delivers SAP HANA migration for SA Power Networks
UXC Oxygen, a specialist SAP consulting and services company now owned by CSC, has deployed a new SAP HANA platform for Australian electricity distributor SA Power Networks.
Q+A: Hills CIO on the company’s “complete rip and replace”
Hills Limited is an Australian company that makes home, hardware and electronic products. We had a chance to catch-up with Derek Brown, CIO, at Hills to discuss how he and his IT team of 40 employees is transforming the company’s IT infrastructure and enabling flexible, cloud-based collaboration.
Hospital’s Windows XP virus has spread into other facilities: Read the internal email
Sounds like there is still quite a bit of work to do in nailing this one down, and making sure this kind of situation never happens again.
Questions & answers: Yammer Australia
Ross Hill is a well-known personality in Australia’s social media and entrepreneur space, having founded the Hive networking event series for entrepreneurs and worked as an innovation analyst at Deloitte Digital. Since January 2011 he’s been an enterprise relationship manager with enterprise 2.0 social networking company Yammer. In this interview, Hill answers our questions about Yammer in Australia.
Qld IT agencies downsize by 600 staff
We’ve known for a while that the new Campbell Newman-led LNP administration in Queensland has been slashing and burning when it comes to IT jobs inside departments. But we haven’t quite been able to get full visibility on just how drastically some of the state’s key IT-focused agencies have been shrinking until now.
AGL to launch $300 million digital transformation
AGL has announced the launch of a three-year, $300-million digital transformation programme aimed to improve customers' experience with the company.
A handful of complex Australian Oracle rollouts
Over the past month, Oracle has revealed its involvement in a series of new Australian technology rollout projects, with all of the initiatives using multiple pieces of the US software giant's complex software stack and some additionally using some of the hardware products which it has been pushing following its integration of Sun Microsystems.
Two mid-size Aussie retailers go NetSuite
Cloud business software vendor NetSuite has revealed that two mid-level Australian retailers, Indian handcraft store Tree of Life and veterinary and pet healthcare supplier Vet-n-Pet, have deployed a broad swathe of its e-commerce and business management software in an effort to get their growing operations under control and scale for growth.
Govt finally introduces data breach laws
Those of you who work in the IT security field might want to pay attention to this. If your organisation suffers a major data breach, you're now going to be required to tell affected stakeholders about it.
NSW Govt “confident” it can avoid IT disasters
The two most senior ministers responsible for delivering technology projects in the NSW State Government have declared they are “confident” the state has sufficient IT governance procedures in place avoid the sort of billion-dollar IT disasters which have plagued Queensland and Victoria over the past half-decade.
Disaster ahead? NSW Govt unveils massive SaaS ERP consolidation
The New South Wales State Government has unveiled plans for a massive technology-led project to consolidate a number of different enterprise resource planning systems onto just two new platforms, in a style of project which has historically led to cost blow-outs and extended project delays for similar initiatives accross Australian State Governments.
Atlassian buys HipChat
Australian enterprise software firm Atlassian revealed this week that it had acquired San Francisco-based HipChat.
New Microsoft Surface + Lumia devices to hit Australia before Christmas
Microsoft’s new range of Surface convertible table devices will launch in Australia in mid-November, the global technology giant announced this week, as well as a clutch of new Lumia-branded handsets to keep Windows mobile enthusiasts happy.
ANZ Bank renews Optus telco deals
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has renewed its telecommunications and managed services agreements with Singtel and Optus Business, extending both to 2020.
Someone’s still trying to buy ASG
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.
Questions & answers: Zendesk Australia
Michael Hansen is the Asia-Pacific managing director of software as a service firm Zendesk, which offers a Web 2.0-style hosted helpdesk solution. Zendesk has recently expanded strongly in Australia, hiring staff and announcing that it has 1,000 Australian customers. In this interview, we ask Hansen about the company's local expansion plans.
Does IT matter … in Australian supermarkets?
But leading with technology doesn’t mean throwing technology at the problem. You need to do something different with it. That’s the challenge for Woolworths.
Qld wrestles with WinXP upgrade
Work in the Queensland Government and stuck on a dated desktop PC running Windows XP? Bad news.
Peregrine deploys Microsoft Power BI in IoT pilot
South Australian convenience retailer Peregrine Corporation has announced plans to pilot an Internet of Things (IoT) and Microsoft Power BI data analytics solution to reduce business risks.
Lockheed Martin is ASG’s mystery bidder
blog After a few months of speculation, it has emerged that the mystery bidder attempting to buy Perth-headquartered IT services firm ASG is Lockheed...
BoQ deploys Salesforce.com CRM
Bank of Queensland today revealed that it is deploying a new software as a service-based customer relationship management system which would deliver it a dramatically simplified and flexible platform for dealing with customer accounts, with the technology reported to be supplied by US-headquartered vendor Salesforce.com
Digging into the Creative Cloud cost picture
Local Melbourne blogger Dawnstar Australis has found that Australians may end paying substantially more over the long-term to use Creative Clowd than traditional boxed copies of Adobe software.
Adobe misleads IT price hike inquiry
Adobe appears to have given a number of misleading and highly contestable answers to key questions posed to the software giant by the Federal Parliament's inquiry into IT price hikes in the Australian market, in a move which builds on questions currently being debated about the company's future relationship with its customers.
Ruckus to deploy Wi-Fi network at Western Sydney University
Ruckus Wireless has been selected to roll out 'smart Wi-Fi' across all Western Sydney University (WSU) campuses.
BPOS holdouts have “head in the sand”, says MVP
Office 365 MVP Loryan Strant has some pretty harsh words today for those Australian customers who have proven unwilling to migrate off Microsoft's defunct Business Productivity Online Suite platform (which is being essentially shut down) and onto Office 365.
Victoria to trial IoT tech for better water management
In what it is calling "an Australian first", Victoria's South East Water has started trials of a new low-powered Internet of Things (IoT) technology to improve real-time monitoring and help to boost the reliability, efficiency and safety of its water and sewer assets.
Govt CTO Sheridan on open source, cloud
Federal Government chief technology officer John Sheridan gives his views on cloud computing and open source use in the Federal Government, in a wide-ranging speech to Forrester's Summit for chief information officers in Sydney.
As expected, Mailes to lead Vic Govt IT
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.
Gillard’s PC hack surfaces in Stratfor leaks
A document published by Wikileaks on the public Internet appearing to be an internal briefing document from global intelligence firm Stratfor has mentioned the alleged security breach on Prime Minister Julia Gillard's parliamentary computer and has alleged that similar hack attacks have occurred before.
Poor Victorian IT system affecting child safety
The Victorian Auditor-General has told the state's Department of Human Services to treat the need for a better client information system as a "priority", with revelations that the department's existing system was difficult to use and not being used correctly, as well as the fact that staff are still using cumbersome fax-based technology to report abuse.
NBN Co appoints John McInerney as CIO
The National Broadband Network Company has appointed former Telstra and HP executive John McInterney to be its new chief information officer starting on 3 December this year, following the departure of inaugural-NBN Co CIO Claire Rawlins in August.
Tasmania’s huge payroll overhaul may go cloud
The Tasmanian Government has flagged plans to overhaul its dated whole of government human resources and payroll systems, in a move which will affect some 28,000 employees and may see the state shift its systems into a cloud computing/software as a service model.
WiPro outsourcing takes chunk out of Woolworths
Retail giant Woolworths has confirmed the jobs of some 64 in-house technical staff will be affected as part of a wide-ranging IT infrastructure outsourcing contract inked last year with Indian IT services company WiPro.
ASD adds ‘little clouds’ to list of Govt-approved cloud computing platforms
The Australian Signals Directorate appears to have added two smaller providers to its list of approved cloud computing services for use by Federal Government departments and agencies, with small local suppliers Sliced Tech and Vault Systems taking pride of place alongside major multinational vendors.
Atlassian doubles staff, revenues in 18 months
Australian enterprise software group Atlassian overnight revealed it had approximately doubled its headcount and revenues over the past 18 months, as it rapidly expands its operations internationally on the back of the $60 million in venture capital investment it took in mid-2010.
Defence dumps distributed computing plans
The Department of Defence has taken the unusual step of abandoning plans to go to market for one of the three major tranches of IT outsourcing programs it has been evaluating over the past several years, opting instead to renew a contract in the area with Unisys, despite the fact that it will shortly be forced to re-examine the deal anyway.
Too late? WA wants central Fiona Stanley PMO
The Western Australian Government has gone to market for a provider to establish a project management office (PMO) to will coordinate development activities between its problematic Fiona Stanley Hospital build and its wider health department, just weeks after it admitted that the IT systems associated with the hospital had blown out in cost by an amount expected to be between $25 million and $50 million.
Qld Police trial Segways for crime-fighting
The Queensland Police Service yesterday revealed that it would kick off what it said was the first Australian trial of the Segway personal transportation vehicle in pedestrian areas, to test their suitability for police operations.
Digital Transformation Office unveils gov.au prototype
The Digital Transformation Office (DTO) has revealed the "Alpha" prototype of gov.au – the new governmental web platform that aims to present information and services based on usability, rather than the structures of government.
Vic Govt mulls choose your own device policy
When it comes to working in government departments and agencies, you know the drill when it comes to personal IT infrastructure. Public servants are typically issued with an ageing desktop PC bought about five years ago and running Windows XP (or sometimes, God forbid, Windows Vista), a BlackBerry for their mobile phone, and they'll have to argue with their IT support team to get permission to install something as basic as Mozilla Firefox. We've all been there at one time or another. However, if an article published by Intermedium last week is to be believed, the Victorian Government is seeking to shake this paradigm up.
NSW Govt super group can’t afford to upgrade its IT systems
The New South Wales Government has announced that it may sell off state-owned superannuation services company Pillar instead of spending the estimated $30 million the fund needs to update its IT systems and deal with other internal matters.
Australian CIOs optimistic about future
Microsoft and Fujitsu this week revealed the findings from the pair's first Insights Quarterly Report of Australian CIOs, offering a window into the issues steering IT strategy in Australia’s businesses and government bodies. The planned quarterly survey by independent research firm Connection Research found a high level of optimism among the 207 Australian CIOs who were part of the study.
NSW Govt settles Tcard dispute
New South Wales Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian has announced the settlement of the long-running Tcard legal dispute with Videlli (formerly ERG). The trial had been due to start next Monday in the Supreme Court of NSW. The resolution of the matter will spare taxpayers a potential loss of around $200 million.
IT upheaval at Qantas as IBM wins big
Remember how embattled airline Qantas revealed plans in late February to cut some $200 million out of its technology budget over the next three years? It seemed at the time like an impossible dream that the company would never be able to achieve. Well, The Australian has published what appears to be Qantas’ comprehensive roadmap for hitting its goals. As the newspaper writes, the solution is … outsourcing everything to IBM.
IBM’s NASH deal gets terminated
The National E-Health Transition Authority this afternoon confirmed it had “terminated” a $23.6 million contract with IBM to build a key component of the Federal Government’s Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record project, just 18 months after the contract was initially inked.
Privacy risks plague cloud computing, says commissioner
In a recent speech on ‘Privacy risks and potential benefits in the cloud’, Acting Victorian Privacy Commissioner Anthony Bendall has highlighted some of the privacy concerns with cloud computing, particularly in its use by the local government.
A great Aussie virtual desktop case study
Virtual desktops, bring your own device computing, integrated datacentre components. These are three of the hottest trends to hit Australia’s enterprise IT sector at the moment, and they all come together in this highly recommended article by iTNews writer Chris Jager looking at a huge virtual desktop implementation at RMIT University.
Police unions want $100m national case management IT system
Police unions nationally have called for a mega-IT system to allow them to collaborate more effectively.
Watch out, CIOs — CMOs are stealing chunks of your IT spend
Chief marketing officers are increasingly making technology decisions for their organisations, according to a new study published today by technology analyst firm Telsyte.
ING Direct appoints new head of IT
Financial services group ING Direct this week revealed it had appointed a new local head of its information technology division, importing the chief information officer of the company's Italian division for the role.
Defence appoints Mohan as new CTO
The Department of Defence has appointed a new chief technology officer, nicking senior Toll IT executive Aiyaswami Mohan to replace its previous CTO Matt Yannopoulous, who left in October last year to take up the role of chief information officer at the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
Turnbull’s Department seeks replacement CIO
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) is looking for a new Chief Information Officer following the departure of Radi Kovacevic to the DTO.
Loft Group deploys on IBM SoftLayer cloud
IBM's June 2013 acquisition of cloud computing company SoftLayer has started to pay off for Big Blue in Australia, with the company announcing last week that local creative digital agency The Loft Group had deployed its e-learning business platform on its Infrastructure as a Service infrastructure.
NAB starts deploying Windows 7
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:
Tasmania to build on-island cloud for community and government services
The Tasmanian Government has announced it will build an on-island cloud service that will host most government data and services in the near future.
Judge sides with IBM in Qld Health payroll lawsuit
This week it appears as though Queensland's actions have blown up in its face again with respect to its botched payroll systems upgrade at Queensland Health.
Talent manager builds on Windows Azure
Talent management firm PageUp People has picked Microsoft's Windows Azure public cloud computing platform to host its CareerPath application, according to a statement issued by Redmond late last week.
NAB to roll out new personal banking platform this month
National Australia Bank (NAB) is to roll out a new personal banking platform in a move it calls "the biggest technology overhaul in the bank’s history".
IBM inks cloud ERP deal with Coca-Cola Amatil
Global technology giant IBM this morning revealed it had signed a five-year, multi-million-dollar deal with Coca-Cola Amatil which will see the beverage company's revamped enterprise resource planning operations hosted out of an IBM datacentre located in Sydney.
Australia’s IT shared services paradigm is dead
It appears that shared services are having a hard time. Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria have all had their fair share of issues with shared services, and this is happening quite consistently in other parts of the world.
Improving technology’s grades in Australian education
In Australian society, so much of the ongoing narrative about the current generation of students in our schools is focused around the different way that they understand and use technology; and so much of that narrative is focused around fear. But it doesn't need to be, and there's more than one side to the story.
Pitcher Partners dumps desk phones for Skype for Business
Australian accounting and advisory firm Pitcher Partners has announced the replacement of desk telephones with Skype for Business, alongside the implementation of VPN-like service Microsoft DirectAccess.
Microsoft’s Dynamics AX for Azure cloud to launch in Australia
Microsoft has announced that Dynamics AX, the latest version of its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software product, will soon be available in Australia and hosted in local data centres.
Customs restructures IT with CTO
The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service has advertised for a new chief technology officer to ensure its strategic IT vision is aligned with its business operations; but it's not immediately clear how the new CTO will fit in with the company's existing chief information officer position held by Joe Attanasio.
Desktop disaster: So bad Vic Police use home PCs
Victoria Police's IT systems are so out of date that police officers often simply go home to open modern documents on their own PCs, a new report has found, and officers are also required to fax hardcopy documentation into a central repository following the end of their shift.
NSW cloud policy inadequate, says consultant
Marten Hauville, a technical business consultant at local firm buildpartner, has examined the NSW Government's new cloud computing policy in detail, and found it extremely lacking.
IBM says it “successfully delivered” Qld Health payroll
Global technology giant IBM has written to the new LNP Queensland Government claiming it “successfully delivered” against milestones agreed with the previous Labor administration with respect to the disastrous payroll systems overhaul at Queensland Health, which has already cost the state $417 million and will need another $837 million to fix over the next five years.
Commission of Audit backs high-risk shared services schemes
The new Coalition Government’s Commission of Audit (CoA) has recommended the Federal Government investigate the same kind of whole of government shared corporate services scheme which have abjectly failed most Australian State Governments over the past half-decade and resulted in widespread IT service delivery problems.
Microsoft Ignite 2015 (Gold Coast): Photo gallery
Several thousand Australian technologists are currently on the Gold Coast attending one of Australia's technology conferences -- Microsoft's Ignite conference. If you want to get a feel for what you're missing out on, we recommend you check out some of these great photos taken at the event :)
Fujitsu to deploy emergency dispatch system for Tasmania
Fujitsu has signed a contract with the Tasmanian Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management for the implementation of a new computer-aided dispatch system for emergency services.
Qantas deploys 2,200 iPads to pilots
Pilots on the nation’s biggest airline Qantas will shortly starting using iPads to access the wide range of operational information they need to do their job instead of printed paper, under a partnership announced today between the airline and telco partner Telstra.
Salesforce needs a more anti-social approach
As it continues its mega-push into what it has described as "social enterprise" technologies, Salesforce.com risks losing its focus on its core CRM products, particularly as its software as a service model has failed to prove itself in several key markets in Australia.
Sydneysiders quit Google to fix … Gmail
What is hilarious and very telling about Google's current corporate culture is that three entrepreneurs felt it necessary to resign from their (no doubt high-paying) jobs in the supposedly innovative GooglePlex in order to push the envelope forward on email, an area which Google itself revolutionised almost a decade ago with Gmail.
CBA’s Kaching app raises privacy concerns
One of Australia's leading privacy advocates has raised concerns about the Commonwealth Bank's new mobile, social and near field communications payments application, highlighting the fact that it has the potential to eliminate much of the anonymity offered by paying for goods and services through cash.
CSIRO still running Windows 98, NT
In an otherwise unrelated article on the organisation's adoption of Internet Protocol version 6, an article published by ZDNet.com.au yesterday revealed that Australia's peak scientific research agency was still running some copies of Windows 98 and NT4.
BlackBerry rises to knees with several local wins
Ailing smartphone and mobile device management company BlackBerry has announced several minor smartphone and software wins in the Australian market, as it continues its push to maintain relevance in the face of the continued onslaught of rival platforms such as iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
Yes, the AFR’s Lenovo story is still accurate
Right now, without saying where we have obtained our information, it seems clear that the Financial Review's report on this issue is broadly accurate. In short, although the specifics of the ban are unclear, the newspaper is correct that Lenovo machines are not used in certain areas of Defence.
Govt CTO explains new role; with Lego
We're pleased that John Sheridan has published the complete text of a lengthy speech he recently gave explaining his new role as Australian Government chief technology officer. Plus, he does so using a stack of cool lego pictures and a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica. Really, what else could you want?
Microsoft cranks up student indoctrination program
Chalk this one up to a bit of Microsoft mid-October marketing madness. The big M has started advertising for full-time students at Australian universities to spruik its products for it on campuses all around Australia.
Qld’s email project stuck in low gear
The Queensland-based Courier Mail newspaper revealed this week that the state's Labor Government has spent $46 million on its whole of government email platform, despite it so far catering to just 2,000 accounts.
Nokia Lumia rollout for Sara Lee
Finnish smartphone seller Nokia today added another name to the growing public list of large Australian organisations which have decided to deploy its Windows Phone-based Lumia line as their corporate smartphone, picking the series ahead of competing options from Apple and Android.
Medibank nicks ANZ exec to lead IT operations
Health insurer Medibank Private this week revealed it had nicked a senior IT executive from ANZ Bank who had also led IT for the UK’s National Health Service to lead Medibank’s IT operations.
Fujitsu wins huge passport CRM deal
Japanese IT services giant Fujitsu revealed last last week tha it had won what it described as a "multi-million dollar deal" to revamp the customer relationship management system administering Australia's passport infrastructure.
Govt pushes ahead with cloud-sharing approach
The Federal Government today revealed a standardised approach to sharing computing workloads between agencies, in a so-called 'community cloud' strategy that will attempt to leverage existing infrastructure operated by major departments such as the Department of Human Services to provide services to smaller agencies.
Treasury switches to virtual desktop platform from Nutanix
The Commonwealth Treasury has deployed a virtual desktop platform from Nutanix with the aim of facilitating the delivery of Australia’s economic framework, the Federal Budget.
Ansell turns to SAP as Oracle ERP project lags
Australian condom and medical protection giant Ansell this week revealed it had chosen to extend an existing SAP-based business systems platform from its acquisition of French protective equipment company Comasec to other areas of its business, instead of further extending its new Oracle ERP rollout, which has suffered significant problems.
NEXTDC opens Sydney datacentre: Photos
Listed datacentre operator NEXTDC this week opened its new ('S1') datacentre in the Sydney suburb of Macquarie Park, at an event attended by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull as well as customers, partners and the media.
NEXTDC inks leaseback deal for Brisbane DC
The directors of datacentre company NEXTDC have announced that the company has entered into a sale-and-leaseback agreement for its Brisbane datacentre property. During 2011, NEXTDC had announced a capital recycling program intended to unlock the increasing worth of its property assets and to re-invest the income in higher yielding datacentre infrastructure assets through sale-and-leaseback arrangements.
Uni of New England opens Lync to 23,000
Microsoft has revealed that Armidale's University of New England has licensed its Lync unified communications platform for the use of 23,000 students and staff, in a deployment which appears to set a new record for the use of the technology in Australian educational institutions and which opens UNE's remote learning doors further.
DSD approves iPhones, iPads for Govt use
The Federal Government's security evaluation agency has approved devices running version 5 of Apple's iOS platform (including iPads and iPhones) for classified government communications, after a lengthy evaluation period and the production of a detailed security 'hardening' guide for the popular mobile products.
ICAC finds training institute IT manager guilty of corruption
An investigation by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has found a former IT manager at the TAFE NSW South Western Sydney Institute (SWSI) guilty of corruption in his official role at the training organisation.
Optus inks $30m IT services, telco deal with UGL
The business division of Singtel subsidiary Optus today announced that it had signed a five year, $30 million contract for managed ICT and mobility services with Australian engineering and property services group UGL that will affect more than 8,000 UGL staff around Australia and throughout Asia.
Smart Grid program largely successful
The Federal Government's Auditor-General has published an extensive report on a trial of smart grid and other innovative technologies which was funded in the 2009 Federal Budget at a cost of $100 million, finding that quite a few components of the overall trial were delivered successfully, although some aspects did not quite deliver up to spec.
Cloud computing player Ninefold shuts down
Ninefold, the Macquarie Telecom-owned cloud computing company which provides infrastructure as a service offerings, has decided to shut down, with its last day of operation being January 30, 2016.
Brookfield deploys Windows 10 instead of “old” 7 or “jarring” 8.1
Australian company Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions has revealed it is in the throes of a major deployment of Microsoft’s new Windows 10 operating system, taking the opportunity offered by corporate restructuring to go ahead with the upgrade.
Locking Apple, Microsoft out: Electoral commissions want 6,000 Android tablets
Apple and Microsoft might be kicking goals when it comes to corporate tablet deployments, but one group of Australian state government agencies has baldly stated they prefer neither: Instead going to market for almost 6,000 tablets specifically using Google’s Android operating system.
Atlassian installs Valve-esque portals in offices
Not content with already being one of the best places to work in Australia, local software developer Atlassian has taken its coolness factor one step further by installing videoconferencing gear set up to look like actual portals (you know, from the popular video game ‘Portal’) in several of its offices so that staff in different locations can talk to each other virtually.
NSW Education SAP ERP project turning from bad into Queensland Health-style “complete disaster”
Here at Delimiter we've been tracking the NSW Department of Education and Communities' long-running Learning Management and Business Reform project for quite a few years already. And the project just keeps on going from bad to worse, by all appearances.
Technology and planned obsolescence
Very insightful blog post here by Longhaus managing director Peter Carr, who has made a sophisticated argument regarding planned obsolescence with respect to implementing technology in organisations.
Attanasio quits Customs as CIO role abolished
The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service has revealed plans to abolish its chief information officer role in the wake of the resignation of its incumbent CIO Joe Attanasio from the position in late November last year.
Actually, Australia trains more IT than fitness staff
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.
EPA Victoria deploys SAP CRM
German software giant SAP this morning revealed that version 7.0 of its customer relationship management platform was being deployed at the Victorian Government's Environmental Protection Authority, along with a number of other components of SAP's broader software suite.
Govt blocks PCEHR review release
The Federal Department of Health has moved to block the public release of a report reviewing the troubled Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records project, stating that there are not sufficient public interest reasons for the report to be released, despite the fact that Health Minister Peter Dutton has stated the document contains “a comprehensive plan for the future of electronic health records in Australia”.
Bankwest in massive Windows 8 rollout
Large Windows 8 rollouts have been thin on the ground in Australia since Microsoft released its newest operating system last year, but there have been a handful exposed -- and more are apparently coming. This morning iTNews adds Commonwealth Bank subsidiary Bankwest to the list.
DHS reveals year of IT outages
New Federal Government super-department the Department of Human Services has revealed it suffered 137 IT outages thoughout the year to the end of September 2012, with dozens of instances where customers of services such as Centrelink were unable to access online services through Centrelink's web site.
Microsoft reveals roadmap for new Windows 10 business features
Microsoft has published details of its roadmap for new Windows 10 business features that are likely to make their way to users' machines in the near future, with security seeming a high priority.
NAB fills CIO role as rejigged exec team stares down 2016 migration target
onths after it kicked off a major reshuffle of its IT executives, the National Australia Bank has finally firmed up the technology management team that will lead the institution through a massive Oracle systems upgrade that’s expected to be completed by 2016.
NetSuite in whole of business TurboSmart deal
Business-focused software as a service giant NetSuite has unveiled yet another win with a mid-sized Australian company, revealing a deal with automotive performance products manufacturer Turbosmart that has seen the company deploy a comprehensive suite of NetSuite products across its business.
Android in the enterprise: Three Aussie examples from Samsung
Forget iOS and Windows. Today we present three decently sized deployments of Android in the Australian market on Samsung's hardware, which the Korean vendor has dug up from its archives over the past several years for us after a little prompting :)
NT gives every police officer an iPad
The Northern Territory has reportedly confirmed plans to deploy Apple iPads to all of its frontline officers, in the latest local wide-scale deployment of tablet technology in a police force.
The Inside Track: What’s behind Macquarie Uni’s move to ditch Gmail
Macquarie University’s very public decision this week to dump the Gmail platform it adopted with great pomp and ceremony just five years ago sends a clear message to Australian chief information officers of what they can expect when they buck corporate IT trends: Internal insurrection and ongoing dissent.
CommBank CIO is major cloud fan
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.
NSW Govt implements new IT project assurance framework
The New South Wales Government is implementing a new set of procedures as part of its plan to monitor projects more closely and protect departments from issues such as runaway budgets.
Closed Govt: Coalition may walk away from transparency
The Coalition Federal Government has reportedly signalled it is reconsidering the previous Labor administration's commitment to join the multilateral Open Government Partnership aimed at increasing citizen engagement and government transparency, in a move which would place Australia alongside just one other nation to withdraw: Russia.
NT Police rapidly expanding use of facial recognition technology
news The Northern Territory Police Force has revealed it is rapidly expanding its use of facial recognition technology it has purchased from Japanese vendor...
Buildcorp deploys 150 Nokia Lumias
Construction firm Buildcorp has deployed some 150 new staff mobile phones in Nokia's Lumia line, the Finnish smartphone vendor announced this afternoon.
Federal Govt explicitly explores IT offshoring in landmark move
If you have spent any time working in IT in Australia's public sector, you are probably aware that there is something of a taboo in government departments and agencies using offshored IT services such as are provided from countries such as India, as well as increasingly Malaysia, the Philippines and other countries. However, this may be about to change.
IBM’s Watson is reportedly expanding into Woodside’s desktops
For most of the time that IBM's Watson artificial intelligence (for want of a better word) system has been around, I suspect many technology journalists such as myself have viewed the platform as something of a toy -- a pet project which Big Blue can use to demonstrate its deep technology research credentials and wow live quiz shows on television. But if this article by iTnews is any indication, Watson is moving past that into something rather more functional.
Cisco picks NSN exec to replace Williamson
Global networking giant Cisco today announced that Richard Kitts has been appointed as vice president for Cisco Australia and New Zealand. Kitts will take up the role sometime in mid to late March 2012. The position has been vacant since June 2011.
NextDC confirms second Melbourne data centre will follow equity raising
Australian firm NextDC has announced it plans to raise equity to fund the building of two new data centres, including a second facility in Melbourne.
“Alarming” amount of end of life software in Vic Govt: Microsoft + Oracle in...
Victoria’s acting Auditor-General has blasted the state’s departments and agencies for continuing to use IT systems which have reached their end of life state, as well as for ignoring its ongoing recommendation that the state put together a whole of government disaster recovery framework.
Construction giant trials ‘smart’ hardhats to track employee health
Multinational construction company Laing O'Rourke has come up with a novel way to monitor and protect employee health – an interactive 'smart' hardhat.
Macquarie opens kimono on IT operations
One of Australia's largest but most secretive IT end user organisations has this week given industry observers a tantalising glimpse of its broad IT strategy, including staff restructuring across the board, back-office systems integrations and offshoring moves.
CBA outage took down CommSee
The Commonwealth Bank's wide-ranging outage also took down its customer relationship management platform CommSee, one of its main unions has revealed, in a move which further illustrates how extensive the technology-related problems suffered by the bank over the past week truly have been.
Health seeks new ICT outsourcing advice
The Federal Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) has gone to market for an advisor to develop a strategy for its future information and communications technology needs, in a move which is likely to see it examine a key IT outsourcing contract with IBM which has not been formally tested in a tender process since it was signed in 1999.
Passion for Human Services: DHS CIO outlines vision
New Department of Human Services chief information officer Gary Sterrenberg gives a wide-ranging interview following his appointment and shows that the IT portfolio within DHS still has a powerful voice.
Fed Govt releases motherhood ICT strategy
The Federal Government today published what it described as a new strategy document which would set the overall direction for the Australian Public Service’s use of ICT in the future. However, the document contains few specific details of steps that will be taken, preferring to focus instead on a series of high-level motherhood statements.
Recipe for disaster: NSW Education Dept turfs 600 techs
If you assume, as I do, that many of these staff spent much of their time 'putting out fires' -- reacting to the latest crisis in terms of their schools' IT infrastructure -- then removing those staff will create chaos across the board.
NAB shifts UBank onto new core IT platform
The National Australia Bank today revealed it had migrated its UBank online brand onto its new Oracle-based core banking platform, in a move which is slated to deliver both the bank and its 300,000 UBank customers significant immediate benefits from the new technology.
Dick Smith deploys Google Apps
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.
Gartner details top 10 strategic Govt IT technologies
Technology research specialist Gartner has published what it considers the "top 10 strategic technologies" of 2016, aimed to help IT leaders to better carry out government transformation initiatives.
Parramatta first to Windows 8.1
Microsoft and Parramatta City Council today announced that the council would be the formally first in Australia to deploy the latest Windows 8.1 version of its flagship desktop and tablet operating system that Redmond is releasing this Friday.
RTFM: How to keep CIOs under control
Chief information officers never seem to understand. It doesn't matter if the servers are up or down -- that's a user problem. The real issue is whether they are configured properly in the first place. The system must be perfect, pristine. Users pollute that nirvana.
It’s official: Alphawest is now just Optus
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".
DHS issues show Turnbull’s innovation talk just ‘spam’, says Labor
Labor has criticised the Turnbull government over recent IT and other issues at the Department of Human Services (DHS), saying they reveal that the Prime Minster's talk of Innovation is just "spam".
Qld Govt fires bureaucrats over OneSchool IT nightmare
When major IT projects go wrong in government departments, often nobody loses their job. Public servants have significant tenure in their positions, and they're very difficult to fire -- even if it can be comprehensively demonstrated that millions of dollars have been wasted. However, in the unfolding case of the OneSchool IT systems glitch in Queensland, it appears the Queensland Government is taking the matter seriously enough that heads are rolling.
Kundra reforms hit Queensland: State Govt pledges ‘cloud first’, IT dashboard
The Queensland Government has committed to adopting two of the most radical measures implemented by then-US Government chief information officer Vivek Kundra in the Obama administration's first term, as it grapples with a government-wide ICT Audit released last week that starkly demonstrates the potential for further disasters akin to the Queensland Health payroll catastrophe.
Brisbane Airport deploys VCE private cloud
Brisbane Airport today announced it had selected technology from the VMware, Cisco and EMC coalition to deploy a new private cloud computing environment to meet its server processing needs, reportedly migrating on a previous IBM platform along the way.
Google Glass has not yet launched … but Westpac is trialling an app
Google's augmented reality and heads-up display headset Google Glass hasn't yet formally launched, but that hasn't stopped some of Australia's major corporations from developing an app for the latest hot platform.
Victoria Police links IT failure to tragic death
The sustained inability of Victoria Police to deliver major IT projects appears to have come home to roost at the organisation, with the force this morning laying part of the blame for an 11-year-old boy's death this week at the doorstep of its ailing IT systems, which failed to provide officers with sufficient information to apprehend an offender in a timely manner.
Two good Australian CIO interviews
There have been a couple of good interviews with Australian chief information officers done by various media outlets over the past couple of days -- good enough that we thought them worth highlighting to readers on Delimiter.
TransGrid: Dumping Oracle support for Rimini Street slashed fees by half
Electricity utility TransGrid has said dumping Oracle as the provider of annual maintenance and support for its own database product brought significant savings.
NSW Govt may scrap IT shared services units
The New South Wales Government has indicated it may follow in the footsteps of fellow states Queensland and Western Australia and drastically re-work its IT shared services strategy, in the wake of questionable benefits having flowed from the scheme.
NSW Health seeks CIOs in restructure
NSW Health has advertised two high-profile chief information officer roles, as the State Government's plan to ramp up improvements in healthcare through the use of technology impacts the organisation and it's eHealth NSW sub-division.
“Criminal neglect”: Qld Govt IT fixes to cost up to $6 billion
Queensland’s new IT Minister Ros Bates said this week it would cost the state between $3.7 billion and $6 billion replace the “mess of mismatched, miscellaneous and duplicated [ICT] systems” which the previous Labor administration had left the state with.
Queensland Police starts body-worn camera rollout
The Queensland Police Service (QPS) has announced it is rolling out body-worn cameras (BWCs) for frontline police across the state.
Govt ICT apprenticeships open
Spoiling for a career in IT in the public sector? You're in luck. The Federal Government has just opened its ICT apprenticeship and cadetship program again.
Hospital IT booking system ‘putting lives at risk’
A new IT booking platform at the Austin Hospital and Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in Melbourne is reportedly placing the welfare of patients with serious conditions at risk.
IT security as a service explodes in Australia
A very interesting article on Techworld last week highlights the fact that IT security as a service is currently exploding in Australia, with smarter, sleeker, cloud-based alternatives to the old models coming to the fold.
Vic Govt splurges on IT in budget
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.
Will a Coalition Govt pump IT outsourcing?
Those of you will long memories will recall that it was the Howard administration which first kicked the Federal Government into gear back in 1997 in terms of the now-common practice of outsourcing key IT services to the private sector. And now there are fears an Abbott administration could push down that road strongly again.
Victorian high school deploys Android tablets
Students and staff of years 9–12 at Brighton Grammar School, Victoria will each be provided with an Acer Iconia Tab A500, from this week onwards, Acer revealed in a statement yesterday. The move is part of what is being publicised as the first large Android program for an Australian school.
Macquarie Telecom suffers major outage
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.
Adobe faces piracy backlash over Australian pricing
Many Adobe customers have taken to the Internet to openly pledge to dump the software vendor's products or pirate them illegally, with thousands more signalling their general displeasure with what many saw as the arrogant refusal of its chief executive Shantanu Narayenlast week to answer the question of how the company can justify charging Australians up to $1,400 more for its software than US residents.
Delays hit NAB’s core banking project
Delays appears to have struck the National Australia Bank's core banking modernisation project, with the bank yesterday revealing it had pushed back the implementation of the foundation of its new Oracle-based platform to 2012, having focused on other aspects of the project this year.
Insurance network deploys Microsoft business intelligence
Insurance Advisernet (IA) has deployed Microsoft's Business Intelligence data visualisation suite in order to bring greater efficiency and customer understanding network of independent advisers.
Adecco dumps handsets for softphones with Optus, Cisco
news Human resources group Adecco yesterday revealed it had undertaken a substantial refresh of its internal telephony and Internet platform with the primary assistance...
LNP sacks 80 from CITEC
Not satisfied with terminating some 384 technology contractors already this year and running the axe over the IT department at the state's education department, Queensland's new LNP Government led by Premier Campbell Newman has now turned its attention to IT shared services unit CITEC.
Victoria Police appoints CIO without IT background
Victoria Police, which has one of the most troubled IT departments in Australia's public sector, has appointed as its new chief information officer a senior police officer with a distinguished career but who appears to have no specific experience with IT operations, in an effort to pull itself out of the deep mire which has swallowed its technology capability in recent years.
Finally some action on Windows Azure in Australia
Remember when software giant Microsoft made a big deal back in May 2013 about how it was going to launch two new Australian datacentres for its Windows Azure cloud computing service? At the time it seemed as though the company’s plans were quite advanced and that we’d be seeing Australia-based Azure in short order. Well, almost a year has come and gone since that time and Microsoft has so far failed to deliver. The latest blip of news on the cloud front from the company comes in an article published by The Australian newspaper this morning.
NSW Trade + Investment wants to go full cloud
The NSW Department of Trade and Investment has signalled plans to continue shifting more of its IT assets to cloud computing platforms as part of a "journey" away from managing and owning its own infrastructure, in the wake of the successful deployment of a wide-ranging ERP platform based on a SAP software as a service solution.
Atlassian sends graduates to beach house
Atlassian has stationed 10 of its finest software graduates at the ‘Hack House’, a beach house in Narrabeen up the coat from the company’s Sydney headquarters. The ‘Gradlassians’, as they’ve been nicknamed, will spend a week combining surfing fun and hard work, developing a new product innovation ready for shipment by the end of the week.
ShoreTel iDevice dock: Is this actually useful?
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".
Uni of Queensland to deploy private cloud
The University of Queensland has revealed plans to deploy a significant swathe of private cloud infrastructure, as it ramps up plans to provide its individual faculties and divisions with a centralised pool of computing resources that can easily provision hundreds of virtual servers.
Customs appoints new CIO, CTO
The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service has appointed executives to its newly created chief information officer and chief technology officer roles, as the agency continues its drive to extensively restructure its technology operations.
Getting beyond the cloud hype: A great interview with DFAT’s CIO
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade CIO Tuan Dao talks about his belief for cloud computing technologies, while also noting that he doesn't buy into the hype around the new paradigm.
Sayonara Fujitsu: NEC wins $37m DFAT deal
The local arm of NEC today revealed it had picked up a $36.6 million contract to operate the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s ICT support desk, in a deal which would appear to knock incumbent supplier and fellow Japanese technology giant Fujitsu off its perch.
Data#3 flags job cuts: Read the internal email
There was one little fact which Data#3 didn't disclose to investors during its financial results briefing session this week: Job cuts
NSW Govt seeks storage as a service
The New South Wales State Government has gone to market for storage as a service capabilities to replace its existing in-house storage solutions, in a move that will add to the rapid ramp-up of the state's adoption of cloud computing services.
Anatomy of Qld Health IT disaster: IBM should never have been appointed
The Queensland Government's formal inquiry into the payroll systems upgrade debacle at Queensland Health has found damning allegations of procurement impropriety in the appointment of IBM as prime contractor for the initiative, and has concluded that Big Blue should never have won the contract in the first place.
QBE appoints new CIO amid restructure
Insurer QBE has unexpectedly appointed a new chief information officer, with its incumbent executive holding the position shifting to another position within the group.
Qld Govt releases detailed, comprehensive cloud-first roadmap
The Queensland State Government has published an extremely detailed cloud computing implementation model which it will use to formally push its many departments and agencies into a cloud computing-first procurement model, as the state attempts to address its substantial issues with fundamental ICT project and service delivery.
Will Australia meet its April 2014 Open Government commitment?
Will Australia join Russia, becoming the second nation to withdraw? Or will it simply delay membership - one year, two years or more? Perhaps we'll find out with a government announcement in the next month regarding its OGP commitment. Or perhaps all we can expect is ongoing silence.
Westpac still running IE6
iTNews has published an excellent article today detailing how almost all of Westpac's staff are still running Internet Explorer 6, and, presumably, Windows XP).
NEXTDC M1 datacentre launch: Photos
In a ritzy ceremony, NEXTDC this week opened its new M1 datacentre in Melbourne. Attending the event were the company's founder Bevan Slattery, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, new NEXTDC chief executive Craig Scroggie, financial executive Mark Bouris, Conroy's chief of staff Shain Drabsch and others.
Why is Microsoft dropping support for Windows 8.1?
In a move certain to raise the ire of users of Microsoft’s Windows operating system the software giant has announced that next month it will cease support for Windows 8.1. But that operating system is barely eight months old and already an upgraded version of the Windows 8 system that failed to impress many users since its release in 2012.
The Westpac dialectic: IT outsourcing and warring narratives
At a certain point, corporate-speak becomes more than an abstraction. It becomes more than a useful metaphor. It becomes something which is simply undesirable in the honest relationship between an employer and and an employee. It becomes something which is all-too pervasive in our media-saturated society. It becomes ... spin.
Oracle reveals swathe of Aussie rollouts
Enterprise technology giant Oracle has published details of half a dozen sizable deployments of its technology by Australian customers, as it continues its push to convince local technology buyers of the popularity of its Fusion platforms.
DTO reveals progress on digital transformation projects
The Digital Transformation Office has revealed the state of progress on a number of Digital Delivery Hubs that were set up in October 2015.
IT price comparisons not useful, says AIIA
The IT industry's peak lobby group today said it was "not useful" to directly compare prices on technology goods and services between Australia and other countries and that increased Australian prices on such goods reflected different conditions and protections locally compared with other countries.
Microsoft jacks up Aussie Azure cloud prices by 26 percent
Personally, I'd suggest that 10 percent is a figure chief financial officers can understand in this context. But 26 percent is likely enough to raise more than a few eyebrows.
Delimiter files FOI request for Govt ICT Audit
Technology media outlet Delimiter has filed a Freedom of Information request seeking to retrieve the unreleased comprehensive ICT Audit which the Federal Government presented to Finance Minister Mathias Cormann in January this year.
NSW Parliament turfs “aged” Novell platforms
The New South Wales State Parliament will replace a broad swathe of Novell platforms it described as "end of life", "aged" and "legacy", replacing them primarily with new Microsoft software in areas such as email, identity management and file and print services that will bring its desktop IT infrastructure up to the "industry standard".
Defence dumps IBM from datacentre deal
Those of you who keep an eye on the extremely large IT purchasing habits of the Department of Defence will recall that the Department has had a long-running tendering initiative going for what it calls “Centralised Processing” services. The contract has been out to market for some time, with IBM, HP and Lockheed Martin previously being the players in contention. In September that list shrunk down to two, with Defence knocking HP out of the running at that point, and last week the list shrunk again, with Big Blue losing out and Lockheed Martin winning preferred tendered status.
Kate Burleigh to lead Intel’s Aussie unit
Chipmaker Intel has announced the appointment of Kate Burleigh (pictured, top) as general manager for Australia and New Zealand. Promoted from her role as national marketing and reseller channel organisation manager for Australia and New Zealand, Burleigh replaces Philip Cronin who moves up as director of regional sales and business development for the Asia-Pacific region. He will continue to work out of Sydney.
University of Newcastle to roll out Windows 10 to 10,000 devices
The University of Newcastle (UON) this week said it would roll out Microsoft Windows 10 to around 10,000 devices across its campuses by the end of 2016.
Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog targets Ultranet schools IT project
Victoria's Department of Education and Training’s $180 million Ultranet IT project is to be the focus of public hearings held by the state's anti-corruption commission next year.
Budget 2016: Govt establishes joint taskforce to fix myGov
The Government has established a joint taskforce to remediate its troubled myGov digital identity and verification platform, bringing in experts from a number of government departments and throwing $50.5 million at the project.
TelePresence saves Govt $12m
The Federal Government has saved an impressive $12 million in travel expenses by setting up Cisco’s TelePresence solution, according to a statement jointly issued by the networking vendor and its partner Telstra in Canberra this week, with just one TelePresence meeting involving 12 separate locations, for example, delivering a $100,600 saving in travel costs.
Companies forgoing corporate UC for Skype
Australian enterprises have started using more public telephony and softphone services as part of their voice and video communications mix, analyst firm Telsyte has found -- with commodity platforms like Skype winning out ahead of more premium enterprise IT-focused offerings from the likes of Cisco and Avaya.
Microsoft confirms shrunken TechEd Australia
Microsoft has confirmed it will radically overhaul its giant TechEd conference in Australia in a way that will essentially spell the end of the iconic conference in its traditional mega-format, with the company confirming it will hold smaller TechEd conferences in Sydney and Melbourne in October and additional dates and cities in planning for early 2015.
Executives carry more tech devices than ever
Corporate executives are increasingly carrying around multiple devices at work, new research from the University of Sydney has revealed.
High risk that Defence ICT will go off the rails
The Federal Government's chief auditor has warned that the Department of Defence's ICT operation is teetering on the brink of a dangerous precipice, in a landmark report published this afternoon into its current ICT governance structures and projects.
Bureau of Meteorology switches to managed email
The Federal Bureau of Meteorology has revealed plans to migrate its corporate email platform off an ageing Exchange 2007 platform and onto a managed services environment based on Exchange 2013, in a move congruent with a wider shift within major Australian organisations towards hosted or ‘cloud’-based email platforms.
Shocker: Qld Health payroll tender was rushed
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.
Buzzword bingo
This afternoon I received the following media release from NEC Australia. However, unfortunately I have no idea what it means. Can anyone tell me? The problem appears to be the sheer number of buzzwords inserted into the one press release -- I can't tell the content from the buzzwords.
Google Apps defeats Lotus, GroupWise in Australia
Google's popular Apps collaboration suite has knocked IBM's Lotus Notes/Domino and Novell's GroupWise platforms off their perch to become the second most popular office suite in Australian enterprises behind Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, analyst firm Telsyte revealed this week.
Service Stream deploys 1,400 Office 365 seats
Telecommunications infrastructure construction and maintenance firm Service Stream has revealed that it has deployed more than 1,400 seats of Microsoft's Office 365, in one of the largest known rollouts of the software as a service platform in Australia outside of the education sector.
Victoria dumps HealthSMART e-health project
The Victorian State Government has reportedly decided to walk away from its troubled central electronic health project HealthSMART, which has reached only a limited number of its goals over the past decade since it was initiated, despite soaking up several hundred million dollars worth of government funding.
Qld Health payroll: The lawsuit may be back on
The new LNP Queensland Government is reportedly attempting to source legal advice created for the previous Bligh Labor Government with respect to whether it would be feasible to sue vendors involved in the disastrous Queensland Health payroll systems implementation.
11,000 iPads in one hit: UWS goes Apple crazy
The University of Western Sydney has revealed that it will deploy some 11,000 iPads to students and staff this year, in one of the largest rollouts of the Apple tablets known in Australia so far and a move that will see every first year student at the institution receiving one of the devices.
Qld Govt inks $26.5m deal for Office 365
The Queensland State Government yesterday announced it had signed a $26.5 million deal with Microsoft which will gain the state access to Microsoft's Office 365 software and services platform. However, with the deal not covering operating system licences and not being mandatory for departments and agencies, it remains unclear what its impact will be.
Human Services Dept renews $484m contract with IBM
The Department of Human Services (DHS) has renewed a contract with IBM for the delivery of new technology that is aimed to drive new products and services.
Survey: Mainframe usage still growing in Australia
US software giant BMC has released survey findings revealing that mainframe usage continues to grow – both globally and in Australia.
Adobe dumps Creative Suite: ‘Cloud’ subscription only for next version
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.
VMware cans unpopular vRAM licensing
VMware has abandoned its unpopular memory-based licensing model introduced in 2011, in a move which will likely be welcomed by the virtualisation vendor's Australian customer base, some of whom had been vocal about the increased charges they saw as unreasonable.
Unisys picks up more Queensland Education work
Queensland's Department of Education, Training and Employment has extended an extremely long-term major IT services contract with supplier Unisys to the value of $29.4 million and simultaneously put a second tranche of IT services work on the market.
Symantec dumps Aussie support staff
According to iTNews, security vendor Symantec has dumped what little Australian technical support presence it had, offshoring the jobs overseas.
Google’s Sydney HQ gets hacked … kind of
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.
Chromebooks for Port Macquarie school
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.
Five months later, Defence seeks new CTO
It’s clear that things move very slowly within the Federal Government. But taking five months to post an advertisement seeking a replacement for an executive who has publicly announced their departure seems like a little long. As first reported by iTNews, the Department of Defence has finally advertised the position of chief technology officer.
Google takes on Microsoft with ‘free’ Apps offer
As part of its ongoing attempt to help itself to a big slice of Microsoft's pie, Google is offering companies 'free' use its online suite of apps for enterprise. There are conditions, however.
Government to retain ownership of Canberra’s ICON network
The Federal Government has announced it will not sell off the Intra Government Communications Network (ICON) – a fibre network connecting public service buildings throughout Canberra.
Parliament runs out of money for Win7 rollout
In an exchange in a Senate Estimates hearing yesterday (PDF transcript here), DPS secretary Carol Mills revealed the department didn’t have enough money to complete the rollout to Windows 7 it has been working on.
Brisbane City Council plans IT offshoring
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.
32 years later, CGU replaces insurance IT platform
Think core banking platforms last a long time? Check out the gray hairs and wrinkles on the positively ancient insurance IT system which CGU is still running. This thing is so old it should be code-named 'Methuselah'.
NSW Police wants fingerprint scanners for Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4
The New South Wales police force has gone to market for fingerprint scanners to add to its fleet of existing Samsung Galaxy Note 4 smartphones, as part of a national trend that is increasingly allowing law enforcement authorities to examine biometric data to verify identities in the field.
Offshore cloud providers popular in Australia
A study has found that two-thirds of Australian enterprises which utilise cloud computing services, do so from offshore providers whose servers are located outside Australia rather than opting for a local provider.
Unhappy dragon: Westpac IBM outsourcing spreads to St George
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that up to 200 jobs at Westpac subsidiary St George may be outsourced to IBM.
Budget 2016: NEC to deploy CrimTrac’s new biometrics platform
NEC Australia has been awarded the contract to deliver CrimTrac’s "next generation" biometrics crime-fighting tool, the Government has announced.
NAB CIO gets promotion amongst reshuffle
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.
Now Qld Health bungles e-health program
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.
DTO confirms govCMS as GOV.AU platform, ending cold war
The Federal Government's two centralised IT decision-making agencies have buried the hatchet in their cold war over which content management system will be used for Canberra's 1,500-odd websites, announcing plans for the GovCMS platform to be used for the new GOV.AU project.
ABC hack protests anti-Islam interview
The ABC has confirmed that one of its websites has been hacked following the airing earlier this month of an interview held by Lateline with anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders.
HP firms up multimillion deal with Downer EDI
Technology giant HP has announced a six-year multimillion-dollar infrastructure technology outsourcing services agreement with Downer EDI Limited, an Australian-based engineering and infrastructure management services company.
Mirvac dumps BlackBerry for iPhone; and a few thoughts about the model
The nation's number two telco Optus and its subsidiary Alphawest has revealed that they recently helped shopping centre giant Mirvac ditch its fleet of BlackBerry mobile phones for an Apple iPhone replacement.
Telstra deploys eHealth record solution for St John of God
Telstra Health has announced it has deployed an electronic medical record (EMR) system at St John of God Midland public and private hospitals in Perth.
Two years later, NTT sacking Frontline staff
Just two years after Japanese technology consortium NTT revealed it would purchase the majority of Australian IT services firm Frontline Systems (which also owns hosting company Harbour MSP), the trio have revealed plans to make a substantial number of Australian staff redundant as part of a reorganisation.
Brisbane reveals $353 million IT overhaul
Australia's largest council administration, Brisbane City Council, has revealed an ambitious plan to spend $353 million on a comprehensive new SAP-based business administration platform which will see some 62 legacy systems shut down and replaced with the aid of IT services firm Accenture.
Qantas signs up for Office 365
Qantas has reportedly revealed plans for a mass deployment of Microsoft's Office 365 suite, in a landmark move which will mark one of the first major Australian rollouts of the software as a service platform in a private sector entity.
La Trobe Uni deploys TechOne cloud app
La Trobe University in Melbourne has extended its existing partnership with Australian software as a service (SaaS) provider TechnologyOne with the signing of a Student Management SaaS deal.
WA Government to complete delayed school IT upgrades
The Western Australian Government has announced an IT investment at the state's schools that will allow students and teachers to use wireless devices around campuses and bring greater mobility to classrooms.
ANZ Bank appoints board-level tech advisory panel
ANZ Bank today revealed it had appointed what it described as “an international panel of technology experts” which it said would advise its board on the strategic application of new and emerging technologies and technological trends that could affect the bank’s strategy.
University of Melbourne launches new hybrid supercomputer
The University of Melbourne has launched a new supercomputing service called Spartan it says will boost research at the institution.
Aurecon appoints new tech chief
International engineering and advisory company Aurecon has appointed ex-Toll Group tech specialist Carl Duckinson as its new Chief Information Officer.
Qld Govt depts home to botnets
Anew audit report coming out of Queensland has sharply criticised a number of major Queensland Government departments (including the IT Minister’s own Department of Science, Information Technology Innovation and the Arts, the Department of Transport and Main roads and the Treasury, as well as the Brisbane City Council) for having zero plans to deal with IT security issues. Surprise!
NRMA, Coles reveal sizable Oracle deployments
US technology giant Oracle has revealed that two major Australian organisations, Coles and the NRMA, have chosen Oracle as the basis for new IT projects, using technology ranging from Oracle’s customer relationship management platform to its Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Linux.
There is a cold war going on between Govt CMS platforms
The new kids on the block may do well to remember that the DTO has only been around for a very short period of time, and could easily be deleted again by a hostile Federal Cabinet during tough budget times. The folks who set up GovCMS paved the way for an agency like the DTO to do great things.
Queensland TAFE suffers security breach, student data accessed
The Queensland Government says is working with security experts to assess a security breach of the TAFE Queensland and Department of Education and Training websites in which students' details have been exposed.
Microsoft launches update for Dynamics CRM, hints at IoT future
Microsoft has announced the release of the Dynamics CRM Spring 2016 update, along with a preview date for its new product, Connected Field Service, which will offer the option to monitor Internet of Things devices.
Tom Quinn appointed News Corp Australia CTO
Publishing giant News Corp Australia has appointed internal candidate Tom Quinn as its new chief technology officer, following the retirement of long-serving chief information officer John Pittard this month.
Huge Chrome OS success for Fire + Rescue NSW
Those among you with longish memories will recall the slight hullaballoo which emergency services agency Fire and Rescue NSW caused in November 2012 when it revealed it had dumped plans to deploy new traditional PCs throughout its operations in New South Wales, opting instead for a widespread deployment of 400 units of Google's Chromebox cloud-based desktop platform. Well, according to to the group's IT director Richard Host, the rollout has been a huge success.
DDoS takes down Census website
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has said the 2016 online Census form was subject to four distributed denial of dervice (DDoS) attacks on 9 August that were of "varying nature and severity".
Screwing the pooch: How IBM’s Qld Health disaster will change IT project governance
The remarkable thing about the Commission of Inquiry report is that it stays lays out IBM's culpability in a way which previous audits conducted by the Queensland Auditor-General and consulting firm KPMG did not.
ANZ Bank inks $450m deal with IBM
ANZ Bank this morning revealed it had signed a $450 million deal with global technology firm IBM that would allow the bank to access all of IBM’s technology and feature an ‘Innovation Lab’ to more rapidly bring new products and services to market.
Adelaide Uni joins virtual desktop throng
The University of Adelaide this morning revealed it had joined the throng of Australian tertiary institutions making applications and platforms available to their students through desktop virtualisation, in a wide-ranging project which will see some 20,000 licences of Citrix's XenDesktop platform.
Guzman y Gomez likes the taste of NetSuite
Fast-growing Mexican restaurant fast food chain Guzman y Gomez revealed this week that it has upgraded its previous MYOB-based accounting system to a comprehensive business platform from software as a service vendor NetSuite, to help support the chain's ongoing expansion plans.
NSW Health reveals huge Oracle platform rollout
The shared services division of NSW Health this week revealed it had deployed a massive implementation of Oracle’s hardware and software systems in an effort to support its human resources and payroll functions, with the agency using Oracle products from its E-Business suite to hardware systems such as the vendor’s Exalogic and Exadata systems.
A decade later, third time lucky, NSW LifeLink IT project finishes
The NSW Government has revealed that it is finally close to completing its extremely troubled LifeLink IT project to replace the key administration platform used by the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, some 11 years after the project was first begun.
Optus to transition Adelaide Festival Centre to Office 365 and Azure
Optus is to transition the existing IT infrastructure platform of the Adelaide Festival Centre to a hybrid cloud platform leveraging Microsoft Azure and Office 365.
A round-up of 2012 in government IT
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.
Qld Health CIO reportedly poached by IBM
Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Queensland Health CIO Colin McCririck has reportedly resigned for a job with IBM in the US.
Telstra migrates email offshore to Windows Live
Australia’s largest telco Telstra has promised its BigPond customers a faster and enhanced email service named BigPond with Windows Live, without the need to change email addresses. The caveat? Their data will now also be stored offshore with Microsoft.
Farce: Minister has PCEHR report … but Dept can’t find a copy
The Department of Health has rejected a Freedom of Information request for a report reviewing the Federal Government’s troubled Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records project, claiming that it does not have a copy of the document, despite the fact that Health Minister Peter Dutton announced in December that he had received it.
Whole of Govt CIO Archer joins Gartner
Technology research and advisory firm Gartner has appointed former whole of Federal Government chief information officer Glenn Archer to the role of research vice president in its public sector research group, several months after the executive resigned from his post in early February.
Fujitsu/SAP project goes off the rails in NT
An IT project go off the rails in Australia? One involving a government department? Off the rails in terms of its project implementation timeframe and its budget? And most of the problem stemmed from its poor project management and governance structures? Who would have thought that this could possibly happen in a million years?