Brisbane Airport extends IT services deal with Data#3
Australian IT solutions firm Data#3 has announced the signing of a new deal that will see it continue to provide infrastructure support for Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) for a further two years.
Gen-i Australia may completely shut down
You couldn’t exactly say that the Australian division of IT services company Gen-i was in rude health, with the company revealing in mid-March that it would sack most of its staff and stop competing for most local contracts, as it shifted focus to only serving Trans-Tasman contracts as per the instructions of its parent Telecom New Zealand. However, according to CRN, things may be even more dire
Deakin Uni first in Australia to get Cisco’s new SDN gear
I'm attending Cisco Live in Melbourne this week, and I have to say that while there is a lot of marketing hype out there about software-defined networking and the kinds of complex network/app/processing integration that Cisco is hyping up, there is also a lot of real-world activity building out there with respect to this new paradigm.
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.
SA Police invests in facial recognition technology
South Australia Police (SAPOL) has invested $780,000 in facial recognition software to be provided by NEC Australia.
The RBA state-sponsored hack attack (or phishing for a story)
You’ll have seen the fallout this week regarding a so-called “spearphishing” attack on the Reserve Bank of Australia in 2011. As with most media reports on cyber-attacks, this one appears to have been overhyped. So what really happened?
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.
Qld police officer charged with hacking over database access
A Queensland police officer has been charged with hacking, according to the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC).
Cloud central to Oxfam IT overhaul
The Australian division of relief and development organisation Oxfam has revealed plans to conduct a substantial fundamental IT infrastructure refresh project which will see a number of traditional in-house IT services replaced with new cloud computing technologies.
Westpac loses McKinnon deputy Sarv Girn
The fallout from the reshuffle at Westpac continued today, with the Financial Review breaking the news that senior IT executive Sarv Girn would quit the bank in search of a chief information officer role elsewhere.
Unisys wins IT outsourcing deal with Merck KGaA
Global IT firm Unisys has announced that it has won a new five-year contract to provide Merck KGaA with end-user IT services for its 48,000 employees in 90 countries worldwide, including Australia.
Qantas CIO jets off to Airbus
Qantas Airways' Chief Information Officer, Luc Hennekens, is leaving the company to take on the same role at Airbus, effective 1 October.
Red Cross last upgraded its IT in 2002
The Australian Red Cross last upgraded its IT infrastructure ten years ago, it has been reported in the wake of news that the organisation will receive a $10 million grant from Microsoft to modernise its infrastructure.
Qantas dumps BlackBerrys for iPhones
National carrier Qantas has reportedly confirmed plans to ditch some 1,300 corporate BlackBerrys and replace them with iPhones, as the ongoing corporate shift away from Research in Motion's BlackBerry ecosystem gains pace.
WA Govt puts one foot in the cloud
We're gradually seeing government departments and agencies around Australia deploy bits and pieces from the huge kit-bag collectively known as cloud computing. It's been a slow journey, but it's getting there. News of new steps in the Western Australian Government comes this week from iTNews, which reports on several small cloud-based projects which have recently taken place.
WorldSmart boosts data analysis with Microsoft SQL 2016
Retail technology specialist WorldSmart has deployed Microsoft SQL 2016 to greatly speed up its data analytics and digital marketing solutions.
Coalition kicks off promised PCEHR review
As promised during the Federal Election, the new Coalition Government has kicked off a formal review into Labor's extremely troubled Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record initiative, with Health Minister Peter Dutton claiming the previous administration had wasted "over a billion dollars" on the project.
ADFA hack a national security failure: expert
According to media reports, a single hacker from the Anonymous group, calling himself Darwinare, released online the names, birthdays and passwords of 20,000 staff and students from a university database at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
Qld Health payroll fix may cost $440m
The Australian newspaper has reported that the cost of fixing Queensland Health's botched payroll systems implementation may rise eventually to $440 million.
HP opens giant NSW datacentre (photos)
Global technology giant HP yesterday opened its colossal $119 million new datacentre in Western Sydney, revealing that it had dubbed the new facility "Aurora".
Microsoft to offer Win10 as a service for businesses
Microsoft has announced that it will soon be offering Windows 10 as a service for enterprises through its Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) channel.
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.
Monash University invests $4.1m in supercomputer project
Monash University has announced it has invested $4.1m in a high-performance computing facility with plans to build a new supercomputer.
Cloud-first: SaaS “the ultimate buy”, says Coles
We’ve been hearing rather a lot about the philosophy of buying corporate IT platforms on a “cloud-first” basis recently. The US Government more or less kicked off the trend several years ago, and over the past 12 months the Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian Governments have followed. Only last week the new Coalition Government’s Commission of Audit recommended a cloud-first approach for the Federal Government. So we’re not surprised to hear that the private sector has gotten on the bandwagon as well.
Jobs go as Brisbane outsources to HCL
It’s been coming for a while, but Brisbane City Council has finally bitten the bullet and inked a wide-ranging IT outsourcing contract with Indian firm HCL. According to the Brisbane Times, some 55 jobs are set to go and staff are not happy.
IT disaster waiting to happen: Qld Health to replace 22-year-old admin system
Queensland Health's beleaguered IT operation has turned its focus to a sizable IT replacement project slated to cost the state up to $438 million and see a 22-year-old patient administration program replaced, as the fallout from its billion-dollar botched payroll system upgrade continues to be felt in the state's public sector.
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.
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.
‘Kaching’: New CBA mobile, social, NFC payments app
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has revealed plans to launch a new combination smartphone application and associated hardware accessory that allow customers to make quick payments from their mobile phone to anyone with an email address, phone number of Facebook friendship, as well as to merchants via near field communications (NFC).
HP issues waffle statement on job cuts claim
Help us decipher HP's waffle.
Adobe’s biennial tradition: 50% Aussie price hikes
Global software giant Adobe has continued a long-running tradition of extensively marking up its prices for the Australian market, revealing yesterday that locals would pay up to $1,400 more for the exact same software when they buy the new version 6 of its Creative Suite platform compared to residents of the United States.
Reversal: Australian Govt picks ODF doc standard
In a move which appears to reverse its previous approach based on Microsoft's file formats, the Australian Government's central IT decision-making agency appears to have decided that it will standardise its office documents on the Open Document Format going forward.
ASIO blueprints hacked, claims Four Corners
To the extent that you still trust Four Corners' reporting on the IT security scene, the program last night made a somewhat audacious claim: That international interests had successfully stolen the blueprints for the new Canberra headquarters of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
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.
Govt cloud use to require Ministers’ approval
A policy which stipulates that only one individual in the whole Federal Government can approve the use of IT assets in a certain manner is, by definition, asinine and irrational.
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.
Tassie education dept upgrades Symantec security
The Tasmanian Department of Education has zeroed in on the latest version of Symantec’s Endpoint Protection systems to secure the 40,000 personal computers and 700 servers being used by the department’s staff, schools, colleges, libraries and online access centres.
Trojan takes down entire WA Parliament IT, phone system
Bad news for the Western Australian Parliament, which, it appears, didn't have the most hardened IT security systems on earth. The ABC is reporting today that a "trojan virus" has knocked the Parliament's IT and telephone systems offline.
ABC wants Apple, Android, Windows tablets
I would not be surprised at all if major Australian corporations were eyeing off Windows 8 and its bevy of hardware partners at this point, and wondering if the platform will allow them a much greater degree of control, flexibility and manageability over the tablets that they use than Apple's iPad will.
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.
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.
Telstra cloud console goes offline for two days
Telstra has confirmed that the management console for its corporate cloud platform went offline for some of its customers for two days last week, in the second demonstration in less than a year that the company's cloud computing environment may not yet be as stable as the company would like customers to believe.
Innovation in Govt must be a tool: Not the end goal
Innovation and transformations do not, by themselves, improve government. They are simply techniques and can be implemented both well and badly, depending on the people, culture and environment they are employed within.
ANZ trials IBM’s Watson in customer service
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group has revealed it will be one of the first companies globally to trial using IBM's Watson expert data retrieval platform to attempt to enhance the quality of data available to the bank's customer service team, in a move that could eventually lead to Watson taking questions from customers themselves.
Avoiding future ICT disasters: Qld outlines next steps
The Queensland Government today stated that it would accept all four major recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Queensland Health payroll disaster, with the state's LNP administration already taking action to stop other projects going off the rails in a similarly catastrophic manner.
How much more do servers cost in Australia?
How much more do the hardware servers used by small businesses and large organisations cost in Australia? Quite a lot more than in the US, according to a report by small business technology media outlet BIT, in yet another case of the Australian technology tax striking fear into Australian wallets.
Turnbull outlines Govt ICT vision
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has published an extensive article arguing that the Federal Government needed to do a better job of connecting with Australians via digital channels and that public sector IT projects needn't cost the huge amounts that some have in the past.
Great article series on Australian DevOps/agile
If you've spent any time working in the global technology industry over the past five years, it would have been pretty hard to miss the growing importance of the 'DevOps' movement -- in short, the increasingly powerful attempt to break down the traditional disconnect between 'development' and 'operations' activity within IT shops, particularly associated with agile development techniques. So what's happening in Australia in this area? iTNews has this morning published several excellent feature articles on this topic, and we recommend you spend this morning reading them instead of actually doing work.
$530m telco deal: ANZ Bank re-signs Optus
Those of you with long memories will recall that one of Optus’s most significant corporate telecommunications deals in Australia was signed back in May 2009 with Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. Well, it looks as though ANZ must be at least a little happy with Optus, as yesterday morning the bank issued a joint media release with the telco noting it had resigned the deal for another five years, in a contract worth $530 million.
iPad minis replace Windows Mobile at Arnott’s
From iTNews earlier this month comes a rather interesting story about how food giant Campbell Arnott’s has deployed a fleet of several hundred iPad mini tablets to replace legacy Windows Mobile devices being used by its field staff.
‘Cloud’ is now mainstream in Australia’s banking sector
It's finally happened. After years of expressing concern about the privacy risks, regulatory challenges and technical inadequacies of the new clutch of technologies broadly known as “cloud computing”, Australia's financial services sector has embraced the new paradigm wholesale. It's about time.
ANU buys hemisphere’s biggest supercomputer
The Australian National University has bought a supercomputer capable of 1.2 Petaflops of processing power from Japanese giant Fujitsu, in a deal which is expected to create the largest supercomputer of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
Microsoft’s Dynamics Online wins ASD certification
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, a customer relationship management software package, has passed Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) certification to host unclassified but sensitive government data.
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.
Novell to boost “best product” SuSe in Australia
If you're after a good belly laugh, I recommend you check out CIO Magazine's interview here with the Australian sales director for Novell's SuSe Linux distribution.
Vic Govt kicks off CenITex outsourcing
Just several months after the plans leaked to the media, the Victorian Government has gone to market for IT outsourcing partners to replace large chunks of the service delivery functionality currently provided by its extremely troubled IT shared serices agency CenITex.
SAP Australia wins ‘biggest cloud deal ever’
German software giant SAP has won a substantial deal with the NSW Government’s Trade & Investment agency which it yesterday described as its biggest deployment of its Business ByDesign software as a service suite globally, and its first cloud platform win in the local public sector.
At least two web browsers for every Australian desktop: It should be mandatory
In mid-2008, a government staffer at an employee town hall meeting being held by the US State Department got up to ask Secretary of State Hilary Clinton what appeared to be a rather unusual question for the venue. "Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox?" asked public affairs officer Jim Finkle.
QBE shifts 100 IT roles to India
Insurance giant QBE continues restructuring operations in its IT department by offshoring 100 roles, according to the Finance Sector Union.
Qld Transport loses CIO at critical juncture
Queensland's Department of Transport and Main Roads this month revealed it had recently lost its most senior IT executive; a move that comes as the department gears up for an extremely wide-ranging refresh of its fundamental IT infrastructure designed to bring it up to date with modern desktop and application environments.
Archer quits as whole of government CIO
Seasoned public servant Glenn Archer has resigned from his role as whole of government chief information officer and from the Federal Government, just a year after taking it up as part of the split of the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO).
DHS finally goes to market to replace 30-year-old payments IT system
30 years after it was first developed, the Department of Human Services has finally gone to market to replace its ageing welfare payments system, in a move that will formally kick off the Federal Government’s latest massive IT transformation initiative.
330k users: Google Apps hits Catholic schools
Search giant Google has revealed its Google Apps software as a service platform has been deployed to some 330,000 students, teachers and administrative staff at Catholic schools across Australia, in one of the largest local known rollouts of the platform so far.
NSW Govt trials Gmail, MS cloud email
The New South Wales State Government has revealed that it will trial both Google- and Microsoft-based cloud email platforms, as its interest in the new cloud computing paradigm continues to develop.
Australia prefers Govt contact via the Internet
Special Minister of State Gary Gray said in a statement yesterday that the Internet constitutes the preferred method of access to government services, backing his statements with the release of a new report in the area.
IT firm Geek helps Adelaide accountants beat CryptoLocker attack
Australian IT services firm Geek said it has helped an Adelaide accounting firm recover from a CryptoLocker malware attack in "just 15 minutes" using a US security product called Datto.
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.
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.
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.
ATO suffers minor IT security breach
We’re constantly hearing more and more about how “cyber” security is the next big bad, but concrete examples of how Australian Government infrastructure has been broken into are still thin on the ground. One incident to pop up last week has been what appears to be a relatively minor breach of an Australian Taxation Office portal through the logins of a number of tax agents.
Board-level dialogue key to NAB Oracle overhaul
One of Oracle’s most senior executives has labeled board-level engagement between the giant US vendor and local customer National Australia Bank as having been key to the bank’s unusual Oracle-based core banking IT upgrade project, which has seen the vendor develop its software with the direct input of NAB.
Delimiter appeals PCEHR review censorship
Technology media outlet Delimiter has appealed a Federal Department of Healths move to block the public release of a report reviewing the troubled Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records (PCEHR) project, as news emerges that the Federal Government appears to have made a decision on how to proceed with the project.
Disastrous patch cripples CommBank
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is currently reeling with internal chaos and some service delivery problems, following what appears to be a disastrous mis-application of an operating system patch to thousands of desktop PCs and hundreds of servers last week.
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.
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.
Royal Melbourne Hospital still has not fixed its Windows XP virus problem
As it turns out, two weeks on, the hospital still has not quite got control of the IT infection
CBA deploys iOS, Android ATM access
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has taken a significant step in the gradual shift to allowing Australians to conduct all of their banking transactions via their mobile phones, announcing this morning that it would allow customers to withdraw money from ATM machines without their cards and only using iPhone and Android apps.
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.
12 months on, Victoria Police still has no CIO
12 months on from the departure of its then-chief information officer Michael Vanderheide to lead Victorian IT shared services agency CenITex, Victoria Police still has not appointed a permanent CIO to lead its extremely troubled IT operations.
TechOne saves 20-30 percent in Gmail switch
Australian software vendor Technology One deploys Google's Gmail email platform.
CommBank CIO rich enough to buy own island
Just how rich is Commonwealth Bank chief information officer Michael Harte? Rich enough to buy his own mediterranean island, according to Ninemsn, which today detailed the executive's attempt to buy the island of Budelli off the coast of Italy.
Anna Bligh promises 5,000 iPads for schools
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has promised that her Labor State Government will commit $5.7 million to deliver some 5,000 iPads to year 7 students across the state in a high-profile educational trial of the Apple tablets, should Labor retain power in the upcoming state election.
CIO McKinnon steps back from Westpac top role
A new organisation structure at Westpac means Bob McKinnon, who directed the rebuilding of technology capability as its IT chief, is stepping back from a major role in the bank.
Web Directions hosts May mini-confs
Local conference outfit Web Directions, best known for its popular October conference of the same name, will host two smaller conferences for web professionals in May, this year: Web Directions Code, set for May 23rd and 24th in Melbourne, and State of Play on May 28th in Sydney.
Five months after deleting it, AGL reinstates CIO role
Utility AGL Energy this week revealed it had hired a new permanent chief information officer, pinching a senior Commonwealth Bank IT executive to fill the role it had deleted from its executive roster only five months ago.
LNP Qld Government kicks off IT cuts
The new LNP Queensland State Government has kicked off a substantial drive to reduce the amount it spends on technology-related goods and services, even ahead of a landmark audit of the state’s public sector technology use, expected to be handed down in December this year.
Qld Police buys 1,250 more iPads, iPhones
The Queensland Police Service has committed to buying another 1,250 Apple iPads and iPhones to better deliver information to front-line police officers, following a successful trial of the devices from mid-2013 and the recent announcement that live CCTV footage would be piped to officers using the technology.
Mainframe out; Westpac adopts Exadata, Exalogic
Top-tier bank Westpac has revealed that it will shift some processing resources off existing mainframe infrastructure and onto Oracle’s Exadata and Exalogic platforms, as it attempts to gain higher levels of efficiency in the platforms that underpin its project to achieve a single view of customer information.
Finally, a local Windows 8 tablet trial
News arrived last week courtesy of iTNews that the Tasmanian Police force is about to kick off a trial of Windows 8 tablets.
“A disgrace”: Palmer slams Tassie IT jobs cull
Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer has strongly criticised a decision to shift the roles of some 56 Tasmanian IT workers employed by the Department of Human Services onto the mainland, describing the decision by the Federal Government as "a disgrace and a betrayal" by the Coalition.
Atmail loses Raine & Horne as Office 365 slides in
Just two years after it announced a switch to the independent Atmail email platform, real estate giant Raine & Horne has revealed a migration to a new platform, with Microsoft's Office 365 and Exchange platforms getting the nod over for more than 3,000 staff.
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!
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.
Mac Uni CIO on Apple, Android tablets and IT life
Local Apple forum MacTalk has just published an extensive podcast interview with Macquarie University chief information officer Marc Bailey, which we commend to your attention.
Head of Technology at ASX resigns
The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) revealed this week that Jeff Olsson, Group Executive Technology has announced his resignation. Olsson plans to leave the company in July 2012.
Spark Ventures deploys BMC Remedyforce
Digital services firm Spark Ventures has moved to BMC’s cloud-based Remedyforce solution to better manage the back-end infrastructure that supports its consumer and business digital services.
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.
NSW education board seeks Chief Digital Officer to drive innovation
The New South Wales Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards (BOSTES) is seeking a Chief Digital Officer to drive innovation across schools in the state.
Vic Govt claims early wins from ICT strategy
The Victorian Government has published a list of accomplishments which it claims to have achieved off the back of its previous whole of government ICT strategy, as it releases a new vision for the 2014 and 2015 years.
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.
Most Qld Govt cloud data is going straight offshore
Queensland's Auditor-General has revealed that the State Government's 'cloud-first' policy has resulted in three quarters of the government data placed into cloud computing platforms going offshore, despite the availability of Australia-based cloud computing solutions.
Qld Health payroll gets another $384 million
Those of you who thought that the Queensland Health payroll debacle had gone away, think again. The LNP State Government landed its annual budget this week, and included in it is a massive dollop of change for the ailing project, which continues to bedevil the department and the State Government at large, as well as the politicians and partners involved.
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.
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 IT contractors face layoff massacre
Over at the blog of Queensland-based ICT analyst house Longhaus, the firm’s managing director Peter Carr has published some ruminations about the tough future facing many of the state’s ICT contractors as the new LNP State Government puts technology squarely in the layoff firing line.
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.
ATO still struggling with WinXP upgrade
Remember how in October 2011 the Australian Taxation Office revealed that it would finally ditch Microsoft’s legacy Windows XP operating system and adopt Windows 7? Yeah, not so much.
Brisbane Airport outsources IT to Data#3
Queensland-headquartered IT services group Data#3 yesterday announced it had won a contract with Brisbane Airport Corporation, as the group continues a drive to transform its technology services delivery model.
National IT outage “minimal”, claims CommBank
Yesterday at a financial results briefing session, the Commonwealth Bank opened up for the first time regarding the nationwide outage which took down around 9,000 of its desktop PCs, hundreds of servers and even its CommSee customer management system.
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.
DTO signs MOU with UK’s Government Digital Service
The Federal Government's Digital Transformation Office (DTO) has announced that it has signed an agreement with the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS) that is aimed to help both organisations progress their digital efforts.
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.
Medibank CIO quits after five months for Suncorp
Banking and insurance giant Suncorp today revealed it had appointed Sarah Harland as its new chief information officer, just five months after the executive took up a similar position at health insurer Medibank Private.
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.
Enterprise will hold back on Windows 8
I recently came across a fantastic series of posts which pretty much sums up what I think about Microsoft's incoming new operating system Windows 8.
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.
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.
Rental chain deploys Office 365 to 90 stores
Home appliance rental franchise chain Mr Rental has deployed Microsoft's software as a service-based Office 365 productivity platform to more than 90 stores across Australia and New Zealand, Microsoft announced this morning.
Jetstar deal the Asian wind beneath Telstra’s wings
Telstra is talking up the international prospects for its Network Applications and Services (NAS) arm after securing a significant contract to manage IT management and procurement on behalf of expanding regional budget airline Jetstar.
Amazon’s virtual desktop hits Australia
Cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services today announced that its WorkSpaces virtual desktop platform was available to be delivered from its Sydney datacentre, in a move which may accelerate the adoption of virtual desktop infrastructure in Australia in general.
ASG sues Victorian Govt over cancelled ERP contract
Australian IT services provider ASG is suing the State of Victoria with the aim of recovering its costs arising from a terminated contract.
ATO in huge Windows 7 rollout
The Australian Taxation Office joined the throng of Australian organisations confirming plans to finally ditch Microsoft's legacy Windows XP operating system and adopt Windows 7, in a move that will also see the agency's employees finally freed from decade-old web browser Internet Explorer 6.
Hacked? NSW Education in major outage
The NSW Department of Education and Communities has confirmed it has suffered a major event in its IT operation this week that knocked key staff services such as email offline, with an an unverified source claiming it had been hacked and suffered the deletion of thousands of accounts.
Acer wins $70m PC contract with Victorian education department
Acer, which believes it is the largest supplier of computers to the Australian K-12 education market, has won a further $70 million contract from the Victorian Department of Education and Training, continuing its track record of engagement with the Victorian public sector.
David Boyle appointed NAB CIO
The National Australia Bank has poached Ernst & Young Partner and long-time Accenture executive David Boyle to be its new chief information officer, following the departure of incumbent Denis McGee earlier this year.
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.
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 talks Aussie datacentre
Apparently virtualisation giant VMware isn't content with having its software used by virtually every major organisation in Australia, and wants to push things a little further by launching its own public cloud offerings globally. And an Australian datacentre appears to be on the cards.
GovCMS adoption ‘doubled expectations’ in first year
The government's web content management system GovCMS has reportedly seen more than twice the number of agencies and institutions adopting the service than initially estimated.
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.
Victoria Police lacks ability to deliver IT projects
In a broad-based investigation of the Victorian police force, the State Services Authority (SSA) has found that the organisation has no ability to deliver major IT projects.
Worst CIO job in Australia?
Spare a thought for Eija Seittenranta, who was appointed Department of Parliamentary Services chief information officer in January this year. Not only did Seittenranta find the department’s IT operations to be an absolute shambles when she arrived, but the poor IT executive has to contend with feisty parliamentarians such as Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, who took Seittenranta to task in this extraordinary Senate Estimates hearing (we recommend you watch the video) about the fact that the US National Security Agency may have a back door into the Microsoft software used at Parliament House.
Surface Pro for Australia in “coming months”
Just one month ago Redmond launched the supposedly flagship device in the US and in Canada, but made no mention of launches in other first-world, early technology adopter countries such as Australia. Just one month later, overnight last night in the US, the company said Australia and a number of other countries would receive the Surface Pro "in the coming months", but without giving a firm date.
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.
Hacks focus CIOs on IT security
After the spate of high-profile hacking incidents in 2011, Australian CIOs and IT and security managers are taking no chances this year. According to new research by local analyst firm Telsyte, Australian enterprises will increase their security spending and change their information security strategies in 2012.
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.
NSW Govt adds to Qld and Victoria’s appalling record on IT disaster recovery planning
The NSW Government’s Auditor-General has severely criticised eight of the state’s agencies for failing to have basic elements relating to disaster recovery planning, in comments that come after the Queensland and Victorian Governments have recently suffered similar criticism.
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.
Cash Converters deploys Windows 10
In a move aimed to "streamline its information ecosystem", Cash Converters has rolled out Windows 10 to 350 stores around the world, including Australia.
E*Trade flooded with DDoS before Christmas
ANZ Bank's stockbroking service E*Trade was hit by a distributed denial of service attack in the lead-up to the 2011 Christmas season. After initial denials that the site had been attacked, the company sent its customers a letter informing them about the attack yesterday.
Medibank IT glitch delays tax statements
Australia's largest health insurance provider Medibank has announced that it is experiencing a technical issue which is "likely" to prevent it from providing annual tax statements to "a majority of customers" before its 15 July deadline.
Now Toll dumps Google Apps rollout, reconsiders SAP plan
Toll has reportedly stopped the rollout of a Google Apps deployment to its staff and is developing a new plan for its proposed SAP-based finance transformation.
McDonald’s swaps out IBM support for Unisys
The Australian division of fast food chain McDonald's today confirmed long-running industry rumours that it had given incumbent IT outsourcer IBM the boot, instead picking rival firm Unisys to support its IT infrastructure in a new five-year deal worth about $30 million.
Telstra bets on Windows 10 solution to boost retail engagement
Telstra is rolling out Microsoft Windows 10 on Surface devices at its retail outlets in a move aimed to blur the line between in-store and online sales.
How NAB’s private cloud keeps it carbon-neutral
The National Australia Bank has published a detailed white paper revealing how it used a combination of engineering and information technology tools and processes such as infrastructure on demand to achieve carbon neutrality and push beyond this benchmark into even greater heights of environmental efficiency.
Kill software patents, says Pirate Party
In a call for an overhaul of the Innovation Patent System, Pirate Party Australia has made a submission to the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP), challenging the inclusion of software in the current patent system.
Lessons from HealthSMART: The era of big health IT projects in Victoria is over
The Victorian Government has published a landmark review into the use of technology in the state’s health ecosystem, finding that its landmark HealthSMART program launched in 2004 had had its benefits, but that the state should devolve most decisions about IT back to individual health units such as hospitals.
Basic Govt IT needs a fundamental rethink
Government systems could be redesigned from the ground-up to make it easy to reorganise, merge and demerge departments, so that a person's email system can be rapidly and easily moved from one agency to another, or the HR information of two departments can be consolidated in a merger at low cost.
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.
“SYSTEMIC BUSINESS RISK”: 90% of Qld Govt’s ICT needs to be replaced Total cost:...
Ninety percent of the Queensland Government's ICT systems are outdated and will require replacement within five years at a total cost of $7.4 billion, the state's first comprehensive ICT audit released today revealed, as Queensland continues to grapple with the catastrophic outcome of years of "chronic underfunding" into its dilapidated ICT infrastructure.
The datacentres that ate NSW
Cloud computing: Surely it is time for some fresh thinking in NSW government procurement – as taxpayers, don’t we deserve it?
IBM adds 150 new jobs in Ballarat
Well it appears that analyst firm capioIT’s rating of the Victorian region of Ballarat as the best non-metropolitan location in Australia for IT services delivery may be accurate. Or, at least IBM thinks so. In coalition with the Victorian Government, Big Blue last week announced it was expanding its Ballarat operations by some 150 jobs.
Australia Post accelerates digital push with Data61 partnership
Australia Post has announced a new partnership with the country's largest data innovation group Data61 that is aimed to drive continued transformation into a digital services company.
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.
SAP generates 120 new Melbourne jobs
Looks like German software giant SAP isn’t doing too poorly in Australia. According to a media release issued by Victorian Technology Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips last week, the vendor is all set to create 120 new jobs in Victoria.
‘It’s not our fault’: IBM blames Govt for payroll disaster
Diversified technology products and services giant IBM has rejected a number of the findings included in the Commission of Audit's inquiry into Queensland Health's botched payroll systems upgrade, blaming the majority of responsibility for the catastrophic consequences of the botched initiatives on the State Government.
IBM Australia to cut 1,000 staff, reports ABC
I’d like to see a little more transparency from IBM with respect to this issue. Of course IBM is entitled to shift around staff and re-balance its headcount. But when we’re talking about redundancies as high as 1,000 workers, large companies such as IBM have a responsibility to their customers, to their staff and to their shareholders to let a little more information out of the kimono. 1,000 staff is not 100. And it would be ethical of IBM to let us know a little more about what’s going on here.
Vic IT bungles Labor’s fault, says Liberal Minister
Victorian Minister for Technology Gordon Rich-Phillips has lambasted the past Labor Government’s “incompetence, mismanagement and waste” in its handling of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects in the state.
Cloud burst: Oracle reveals second Australian datacentre
Oracle co-president Mark Hurd has used a visit to Australia over the past week to officially launch the company’s second local datacentre, which the US enterprise IT giant will use to expand the variety of cloud computing and hosted services it provides locally to Australian customers.
IBM unveils Watson centre in Melbourne as AI adoption takes off in Australia
Global technology giant IBM last week officially opened a new client experience centre in Melbourne where it will show off its Watson artificial intelligence platform, which is increasingly being adopted by major Australian organisations such as Deakin University, ANZ Bank, Customs and Woodside.
EMC, Avaya get new Aussie chiefs
Enterprise IT vendors EMC and Avaya have revealed they have new leaders of their Australian divisions, following the promotion and departure of their local incumbent managing directors.
Has Fortescue dumped BlackBerry for Nokia?
Australian iron ore group Fortescue metals has declined to comment on an unverified rumour that the company has recently deployed over 600 new staff smartphones, allegedly swapping out its existing BlackBerry fleet in the latest corporate switch to Microsoft's rival Windows Phone 7 ecosystem.
NSW Govt opens datacentres to SaaS vendors
The New South Wales State Government has invited technology vendors to register their interest in providing cloud computing-based services from its two new datacentres being constructed to consolidate the IT infrastructure needs of its departments and agencies state-wide.
Jetstar pushes into IT outsourcing, BYOD
There's been a flurry of IT-related news issued by low-cost Qantas brand Jetstar this morning.
Jetstar appoints CIO with little IT experience
National airline Jetstar this week announced it had appointed an executive with less than three years' worth of experience in a technology role as its new chief information officer, in an unorthodox move for a major Australian corporation.
Uniloc fixed software piracy in 1993
Remember Uniloc? That little Aussie battler software company which took on Microsoft on patents and walked away with half a billion dollars? The company’s founder Ric Richardson this week posted a YouTube clip about the company back in 1993. Let’s just say it was a simpler age.
Western Australia announces major cloud push
The Western Australian state government has announced a cloud computing initiative that is aimed to boost services while cutting back on overall spending.
Western Sydney Uni deploys 5,000 Microsoft Surface tablets
Western Sydney University is to deploy 5,000 Microsoft Surface 3 devices in order to boost flexible learning within its courses.
Woolworths dumps BlackBerrys for iPhones
This morning The Australian newspaper reported (we recommend you click here for the full article) that BlackBerry is completely out and iPhone in at the retailer.
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.
Ministers’ cloud approval lasted just a year
Remember how twelve months ago, the Federal Government released a new cloud computing security and privacy directive which required departments and agencies to explicitly acquire the approval of the Attorney-General and the relevant portfolio minister before government data containing private information could be stored in offshore facilities? Remember how the policy was strongly criticised by Microsoft, Government CIOs and Delimiter? Well, it looks like the policy is about to be reversed.
Why is Transport for NSW signing a 10-year, 1bn deal with IBM?
IBM might have been banned from signing new contracts with the Queensland Government over the Queensland Health payroll systems disaster, but that apparently hasn’t stopped other Australian jurisdictions from dealing with the vendor. The Financial Review reports this morning that Transport for NSW (which was formed from the merger of the NSW RTA, maritime, transport construction authority and Country Rail groups) is poised to jump into bed with Big Blue in a big way.
The ABC didn’t sack Bitcoin miner
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation didn't fire an un-named IT worker who attempted to use the broadcaster's vast server infrastructure to make himself a fortune through the Bitcoin virtual currency system, it has emerged, with the employee merely being disciplined and having their access to certain IT systems restricted.
Offshore cloud an adoption barrier, finds KPMG
A research study partially funded by major offshore cloud computing vendors Salesforce.com, Microsoft, and Google has found that one of the major barriers stopping Australian organisations from migrating to cloud computing platforms is the lack of cloud infrastructure based in Australia, with legislation such as the US Patriot Act cited as key concerns with offshore hosting.
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.
Fujitsu’s history in Australia: A decent eBook
Some of you may be aware that Japanese technology giant Fujitsu recently celebrated the 40-year anniversary of its launch in the Australian market. As part of the festivities, the company hired credible local technology journalist Graeme Philipson to put together an eBook chronicling that period.
Leap year outages: Nostalgia for Y2K?
Call us nostalgic, but today's news that the Health Industry Claims and Payments Service (HICAPS) system owned by the National Australia bank was taken down by faulty programming associated with today's leap year date takes us back to the good old days of Year 2000 bugs.
British Airways workers to rally against Tata outsourcing of IT jobs
British Airways workers are to protest against the outsourcing of IT jobs to foreign workers employed by Tata Consultancy Services at a rally organised by general workers' union, the GMB.
An insider’s view of NAB’s IT transformation
Last week, for the first time in several years, National Australia Bank conducted a relatively open and transparent briefing on what's really going on behind the closed doors of its IT operation, with technology czar Gavin Slater addressing a lunch held by the Trans-Tasman Business Circle, with a startlingly open view into its operations.
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.
“Nepotism”: Audit blasts CenITex culture
Victoria’s Ombudsman today published a damning report into procurement practices and the engagement of contractors at the state’s IT shared services agency CenITex, finding examples of “nepotism and favouritism” in the company, as well as more serious improper conduct and poor procedures for handling CenITex’s large contractor workforce.
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.
The plot thickens in CBA/ServiceMesh IT bribery scandal
There have been a series of new revelations in the Commonwealth Bank's IT bribery scandal over the past several days.
$752m: NSW Education Dept’s SAP-based LMBR system doubles in cost
Those of us who've been around the traps for a while know that it's extremely common for major IT projects to go over budget. 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent ... these are all normal amounts for a project's costs to blow out by, and of course delays to projects' delivery schedule are also common. However, what would you think of a project which doubled in cost over its lifetime?
No core IT overhaul in Westpac’s future
Westpac has stepped away from its core banking IT upgrade plans for now, according to the Financial Review.
Qld payroll lawsuit ‘rewriting history’, says IBM
Technology giant IBM has accused the Queensland State Government of trying to "rewrite history" through filing a new lawsuit against IBM over the botched Queensland Health payroll systems upgrade, despite the fact that the two parties had already come to a legal agreement on the issue.
Rackspace hires high-profile cloud CIO Perkins
Hosting and cloud computing giant Rackspace this morning revealed it had hired one of Australia's most cloud-savvy chief information officers, former Altium IT executive Alan Perkins, in a key role to spearhead the adoption and development of the company's solutions in Australia.
Government Departments lost in digital transformation
Less than 30 percent of Australian public sector officials are confident in their organisations’ ability to respond to digital trends, according to a Deloitte global survey published last week.
Hospital attack shows the risk of still running Windows XP
A virus attack on the computer system of one of Melbourne’s largest hospital networks is cause for concern because it affected machines running Microsoft’s Windows XP, an operating system no longer supported by the software giant.
Using SurveyMonkey? Be careful … if you’re an Australian Govt organisation
I've had an interesting and robust conversation online in the last day regarding how Australian councils and governments are using overseas services like SurveyMonkey to collect information from citizens and residents.
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.
Perpetual dumps CIO after Fujitsu outsourcing
It appears that the outsourcing arrangement between Perpetual and Fujitsu has gone well — so well, it appears, that Perpetual no longer believes it needs its chief information officer, Jenny Levy.
Survey shows legacy tech blocking digital transformation
A new study from networking solutions provider Brocade has suggested that legacy technology is holding businesses back from the full advantages of digital transformation.
ASG picks up WA IT services work
Nice work if you can get it. Perth-headquartered IT services outfit has revealed several major new tranches of IT services work over the past several weeks that is putting it in good stead with the Western Australian State Government.
“Billions”: Hockey greenlights Centrelink core replacement
Treasurer Joe Hockey has strongly hinted that the upcoming Federal Budget will include "billions" of dollars worth of funding for a core systems replacement at the Centrelink division of the Department of Human Services (DHS), in a move that represents one of the Federal Government's most long-awaited and largest IT project approvals.
Dept of Defence extends Unisys IT support contract
The Department of Defence has announced it will extend its contract with Unisys that sees the US-based firm's local subsidiary provide IT support services at locations across Australia.
Yet another disastrous Vic Govt IT project
I often think that things couldn’t possibly get any worse for State Government IT operations in Australia, considering that major audit reports in both Victoria and Queensland have found over the past year that the states are broadly incapable of delivering IT services and major IT projects to their departments and agencies. But every time I think that, things do get worse. Today’s new nightmare is a bungled student management system in Victoria’s TAFE colleges.
VMware tightens grip on NSW councils
Virtualisation giant VMware this week revealed it had signed a wide-ranging contract renewal involving some forty three local councils across New South Wales, in a move which the vendor said was expected to result in savings of up to $3 million for the council group as a whole and the further deployment of its technology.
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.
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.
UNSW publishes detailed cloud/data sovereignty toolkit
The University of New South Wales's widely respected Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre has published what I would consider to be a very useful whitepaper investigating data sovereignty issues related to cloud computing in the Australian context.
Lessons for Australia? UK outlaws IT contracts larger than £100m
The UK Government has taken a startling new stance on major IT contracts, outlawing new deals larger than £100 million (AU$190m) and declaring that it's time the country moved past traditional arrangements with "legacy technology giants", in a move which appears to mirror similar State Government initiatives in Australia.
Mapping out the NBN Co IT paradigm
When it comes to selecting IT platforms and partners to support its business mission, the Federal Government-owned National Broadband Network Company faces a somewhat unique set of problems and opportunities.
Brisbane City Council loses CIO Brant
Brisbane City Council chief information officer Nicholas Brant is to leave the organisation, right as Brisbane, the largest council organisation in Australia is in the middle of several major technology initiatives, including offshoring a substantial number of IT roles, shifting some work into the cloud and spending $353 million on a comprehensive, SAP-based businesses administration system.
Unisys wins DIAC again in open tender
Those of you with long memories will recall that the Federal Department of Immigration and Citizenship has contracted IT services giant Unisys to provide desktop support services to the department since 2007. Unisys this morning announced that it had won an open tender to retain the work through to at last mid-2018, at a value of $104.1 million.
Uni of Sydney deploys ThinkPad Tablet 2 studios
The University of Sydney has successfully completed a trial of Windows 8-based Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 devices in dedicated student spaces on several of its campuses and is seeking to deploy the devices more widely to assist in generating better learning outcomes.
News Ltd builds classifieds site on Google cloud
It's not often you see Google's App Engine mentioned in Australia in the context of cloud computing. However, at least one decently-sized implementation has surfaced, courtesy of Google Australia's blog this week.
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.
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.
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.
NSW Govt refreshes ICT Advisory Panel
NSW Minister for Finance and Services Andrew Constance this week announced the State Government was taking nominations for the refreshed version of its ICT Advisory Panel, as well as the Industry Advisory Group of its Procurement Board.
Amazon Appstore challenging Google Play as Australian launch looms
Australian Android users will soon have an alternative source for sourcing paid and free mobile apps, but will they embrace it? Yes, if the first analysis of Amazon Appstore sales figures – which suggests the site is rapidly increasing its appeal to US consumers as a source of paid apps – is any indication.
2,000 Qld IT staff to be outsourced, says union
Some 2,000 Queensland Government IT staff are set to be outsourced in the wake of the state's disastrous ICT Audit, according to one of the Government's main unions.
TechOne’s software goes into 486 Catholic schools
Queensland-headquartered software company TechnologyOne has inked a landmark $15 million deal with the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV) which will see it deliver enterprise software to 486 schools across the state.
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.
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.
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.
Specsavers outsources key IT services to Accenture
Global optical chain Specsavers has partnered with professional services company Accenture to help manage its IT services as it focuses on increasing the digital side of its business.
Local Govt groups abandon Yammer trials
According to a yarn by The Register this week, at least two Australian trials of corporate social networking tool Yammer in Australia have been recently abandoned.
Microsoft’s giant Aussie Office 365 migration has started
Software and services giant Microsoft last week revealed it had started migrating the data of its Australian customers onto datacentres based locally, in a move that will affect customers in Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.
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.
Qld eHealth agency reportedly stands down CIO after just one month
In mid-December 2015, the Department promoted the fact that it had appointed a new chief executive and chief information officer of eHealth Queensland -- the agency within the Department which is responsible for resolving the state's ongoing eHealth mess. Less than one month later, the executive has reportedly been stood down as part of an internal investigation.
IAG creates next-gen IT leadership structure as the IT dept starts to break down
Insurer IAG has created a sophisticated new IT leadership structure reflecting the fact that digital disruption is sweeping through its business and it needs to have multiple divisions focused on different aspects of technology -- from operations to testing out new and innovative ideas.
Payroll disaster: Queensland sues IBM
The Queensland Government has been threatening to sue technology giant IBM over the Queensland Health payroll systems debacle for years, and who could blame it? Well, the only problem is that the former Labor Government actually already settled with IBM over the issue due several years ago to the need to get the system up and running. Despite this, the LNP administration in Queensland confirmed overnight that it had taken IBM to court.
NT Govt buys a new IBM mainframe
Due to the incredible rise of the x86 chipset over the past several decades, it's easy to forget that at the beating heart of many organisations, those ancient dreadnoughts which the IT industry knows as the common or garden mainframes are still found, continuing to promulgate their ever-lasting mission of stability, cost efficiency and power.
Qantas can’t afford to replace 26-year-old IT system
So, it turns out the Queensland and New South Wales Governments are not the only major Australian organisations running short of much-needed cash when it comes to critical IT upgrades. According to the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, national carrier Qantas also can’t afford to keep its IT up to spec.
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.
“On time and on budget”: NSW claims early victory in cloud ERP rollout
The NSW State Government has claimed initial success in its high-profile deployment of a cloud-based ERP consolidation project at the NSW agency of Trade and Investment, claiming that so far the project has been delivered "on time and on budget", but with a large chunk of the work still to go.
CenITex turfs almost all contractors
Those of you with a long-term interest in Victorian Government IT shared services provider CenITex will remember that the agency was several years ago known far and wide for the high rates it was paying its extensive contractor workforce. No more: Most of those contractors are now gone.
Now David Jones gets hacked
news David Jones today notified customers that it had become the latest casualty in a hacking spree which appears to be targeting Australian retailers.
The...
Aussie non-profits adopt Office 365 en-masse
Non-profit Australian organisations such as charities are adopting Microsoft's Office 365 Software as a Service platform in large numbers, according to non-profit technology enablement group Infoxchange, which has recently helped 20 such organisations shift into Microsoft's cloud.
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.
Comcare goes cloud for DR
Cloud computing projects in the Federal Government are a little thin on the water these days, despite the fact that the previous Labor administration tried to push for further adoption in the public sector, and despite the fact that cloud is all the rage in state governments at the moment. That's why we're particularly interested in this little gem posted by Australian Government chief technology officer John Sheridan on his blog today.
DFAT lifts lid on huge IT infrastructure upgrade
The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has kicked off a huge outsourcing initiative which is slated to see several hundred million dollars ploughed into a substantial upgrade of the department's far-flung global fundamental IT infrastructure, including both telecommunications and desktop platforms.
Breaking Victoria’s IT fail cycle: What not to do
When almost every major IT project has broken its budget and its timeframe, and many have completely failed, after soaking up hundreds of millions of dollars of public money that could have been spent on health, education, cutting down crime or public transport, what happens now? Where does the Victorian State Governments and its technology workforce turn to?
Legacy health software lands SA Govt in court
In which the South Australian Government comes up with complex legal arguments as to why it should be able to continue to use a 1980's software package.
Windows 8 sales disappointing in Australia
It won't come as a surprise to many, given its drastically altered user interface and mixed reviews, but the news is already bad for Microsoft's new flagship operating system Windows 8 in Australia.
SA e-Health system could cause fatalities
It used to be pretty rare that Australia would see an IT system implemented or maintained so poorly that it had the potential to cause fatalities or serious injury. But not any more. This year we’ve seen three such cases in Victoria alone, linked separately to failing IT systems at Victoria Police (which actually did result in several deaths), a Victorian hospital and, most worryingly, with relation to children’s safety under the care of the Department of Human Services. Well, last week South Australia got its own potentially fatal IT system.
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.
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.
Vic Govt abjectly fails IT security tests
An audit of the Victorian Government's IT security defences and ability to respond to major cyber-attacks has found it woefully unprepared, with its IT systems suffering over 100 "serious breaches" and the state unprepared for any serious online attack.
Fire + Rescue NSW deploys 400 Chromeboxes
Emergency service Fire and Rescue NSW has revealed it has dumped a number of traditional desktop PCs and plans to ditch more, as part of a widespread deployment of Google’s Chromebox cloud-based desktop platform which has so far seen some 400 of the gadgets deployed to fire stations throughout the state.
“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.
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.
Healthcare Australia dumps in-house Exchange for cloud
The shift to cloud computing/software as a service models in Australian enterprise IT circles is endless, it appears. Yesterday it was retailer Dick Smith switching to Google Apps, and today it’s medical recruiter Healthcare Australia switching off an in-house version of Microsoft Exchange and onto Office 365.
Digital Transformation Office announces ambitious work program
The Federal Government’s Digital Transformation Office has announced its work program over the initial period of its operation, listing a number of thorny problems that have been plaguing Australians for some time in terms of their interaction with the Federal Government.
Telstra, Accenture, to deliver SAP cloud
German software giant SAP has signed a landmark deal with the nation's largest telco Telstra and IT services giant Accenture that will see the pair deliver hosted SAP solutions to Australian customers from Telstra's on-shore datacentre infrastructure.
Qld sets royal commission into Health payroll
It's time. One of Australia's greatest ever IT disasters is now going to have the *ahem* privilege of having a royal commission conducted into how precisely it went wrong.
Govt creates new digital agency to fix e-health issues
The government is seeking a CEO to head the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) – a newly created body set up to revamp the underachieving My Health Record initiative.
Interesting thoughts on IT outsourcing in the cloud era
It's now been several years since cloud computing became mainstream in Australia. Small businesses are using it. Major corporations such as Australia's largest banks and insurers are using it. And even the public sector has started using it.
With this breadth of adoption has also come a deepening of our understanding of how large organisations should use cloud computing.
Govt admits staff lost IT equipment valued at over $100k
Government employees have cost the taxpayer may thousands of dollars-worth in lost or stolen IT equipment, it has been revealed.
myGov has potential but is far from finished
MyGov – or something like it – is part of a 21st century government. It is the way of the future. But it needs careful development, testing, and selling.
AGL hiring new CTO after IT management chaos
Energy utility AGL has revealed plans to hire several executives to fill new chief technology officer and head of IT service delivery roles, in a new wave of hires taking place after several years of turmoil in its IT leadership.
“Extreme”: Privacy Foundation slams SA fingerprint plan
news The Australian Privacy Foundation has written to the South Australian Premier and Leader of the Opposition expressing strong concern about what it said...
Salesforce a winner as NSW’s ChildStory project announces vendors
The NSW Department of Family & Community Services' ChildStory project has announced the winning vendors for a $100-million IT platform that is aimed to boost child safety in the state.
Suncorp picks Oracle to replace core
Tier two banking and insurance giant Suncorp has picked Oracle's next-generation banking platform to replace its aging Hogan core banking system, as the momentum around core banking replacement projects accelerates in Australia.
iiNet enters SMB cloud computing market
National broadband provider iiNet announced this week that its newest business product Business Cloud would enable small and medium businesses (SMBs) to develop privately hosted IT infrastructure. Business Cloud aims to spare customers the bother and expense of setting up and maintaining their own IT installations.
Australia’s universities hacked on a regular basis
Not all of the hype around IT security can be believed at the moment — several times when your writer has investigated so-called ‘hacking’ attacks in recent months, we’ve found only low-level script-kiddie-type of behaviour at the bottom of the situation. However, there definitely are some serious break-ins around, as chronicled in this somewhat disturbing article published in late April by citizen journalism site The Citizen.
“Obstruction, avoidance and evasion”: IT giants stonewall price inquiry
Members of Parliament from both major sides of politics have very publicly blasted global technology giants such as Apple, Adobe and Microsoft and even representative group the Australian Information Industry Association, for what they described as “deep reluctance and resistance” to give evidence before a parliamentary committee investigating local IT price hikes.
Windows XP virus takes down Royal Melbourne Hospital
You would think, you would really think, that pretty much every organisation Australia-wide would have gotten the picture by now that Windows XP is an outdated platform and needs to be replaced. But sadly this is not the case. From Victoria comes the news that the Royal Melbourne Hospital has had its operations knocked offline by a Windows XP virus.
Govt fails Gershon contractor targets
Remember how then-Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner commissioned British efficiency expert Sir Peter Gershon back in 2008 to undertake a review of the Federal Government’s use of ICT? Remember how one of the conclusions of Gershon’s review was that departments and agencies were asked to drastically reduce their use of external contractors? Well, according to iTNews, the Government has broadly failed to meet those targets.
Two years on, SA Dept wants new social network
South Australia's Department of Premier and Cabinet has started examining new enterprise social networking solutions, just two years after implementing a solution which it has branded as delivering it significant benefits.
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.
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.
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.
The Australian Cloud: How are Australians using it?
This week and next week, Delimiter will take a closer took at cloud computing use in Australia with a series of two feature articles. The first -- this one -- will take a closer look at what classes of cloud computing services are proving most attractive to large Australian enterprises, and how they are being used. And the second piece, to be published next week, will examine whether cloud computing as a phenomenon is delivering on its promises of cutting costs and delivering more flexibility and scalability to Australian organisations.
BANNED: Qld Govt outlaws new IBM contracts
The Queensland Government has explicitly banned its departments and agencies from entering into any new contracts with diversified IT products and services company IBM until the company demonstrates that it has improved its governance and contracting practices, in an extraordinary move taking place in the wake of the Queensland Health payroll disaster which IBM held a key role in.
Pia Waugh takes control of data.gov.au
Long-time IT industry openness advocate Pia Waugh takes control of Government 2.0 initiatives in the Federal Government.
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.
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: 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.
Microsoft beats SF.com to another CRM deal
Microsoft announced this week that its Dynamics CRM solution had beaten rival platform Salesforce.com to another Australian deal for CRM delivered through a web browser, with the company picking up work at local conferencing services provider Redback Conferencing.
The end is nigh for Windows XP: Are you ready?
Almost 13 years after its release in October 2001 to a world still in shock after the 9/11 terror attacks, the sun is finally setting on Microsoft’s Windows XP. The operating system has been the software in many home and work PCs but for die-hard users who continue to use XP, danger that way lies.
Troubles mount at EnergyAustralia as CIO leaves
If you're fond of a good enterprise IT disaster story (hell, Australia seems to have more of them than it can handle these days), you'd be well advised to check out a (paywalled) story published by The AustralianIT this morning about electricity retailer EnergyAustralia.
More mainframe workloads moved to Oracle
Over the past several years we’ve begun to see a bit of a trend in Australia of major organisations shifting server workloads away from traditional mainframes and onto Oracle platforms, especially its integrated Exadata and Exalogic systems. The key driver of continued mainframe use has always been the legacy platform’s efficiency, stability and (to a certain extent) flexibility (such as in its virtualisation ability), but it’s also had numerous disadvantages, which we need not go into here. As time has gone on, it appears the performance levels inherent in Oracle’s systems are starting to lure CIOs away from the mainframe environment where appropriate. We saw this in Westpac in January 2013, and now, according to iTNews, we’re starting to see it also at another major financial institution — ASIC.
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".
UNSW deploys Cisco 802.11ac Wi-Fi
It’s a slow process, but gradually the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard is making its way into consumer and corporate locations to gradually upgrade 802.11a/b/n installations. 802.11ac wireless routers are being sold in stores and mobile devices are gradually getting support. One of the first major organisations in Australia to deploy the technology en-masse will be the University of NSW.
When mainstream media covers cloud startups
Hilarious video above of a segment broadcast recently on Channel 10 news about Australian cloud computing startup OrionVM.
Finally, Amazon launches Sydney datacentre
After six months of rumours and the launch of several ancillary services down under, US cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services has finally announced the availability of locally-hosted cloud computing services from an Australian datacentre; with prices comparable to those seen overseas.
Massive ERP overhaul for NSW Transport
To my mind, this is the perfect project to be set up for failure. It has all the 'danger' flags: A major consolidation of business systems, a huge budget, projected savings and so on. We've seen precisely this kind of project go haywire in multiple states over the past half-decade.
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.
Coca-Cola Amatil takes SAP project to Asia
For those wondering where Coca Cola Amatil is at with its comprehensive SAP-based internal enterprise IT applications overhaul project, wonder no more.
Fujitsu wins $140m IT services deal with Gold Coast
Global IT services provider Fujitsu has won the contract to manage Gold Coast’s ICT infrastructure and applications services.
Australian Govt re-kindles office file format war
The Federal Government's peak IT strategy group has issued a cautious updated appraisal of currently available office productivity suite file formats, in what appears to be an attempt to more fully explain its thinking about the merits of open standards such as OpenDocument versus more proprietary file formats promulgated by vendors like Microsoft.
CenITex failure kills govt email for “up to a week”
The problems just keep coming for Victorian IT shared services agency CenITex. Today's damning report into the beleagured organisation comes from The Age, which reports the organisation left thousands of government staffers without email and other IT systems for up to a week.
HP CEO Whitman lands in Australia
HP has confirmed its global chief executive Meg Whitman has landed in Australia for a brief visit, in a move that comes as fallout from a bungle at key HP customer the Commonwealth Bank of Australia continues to make itself felt.
The undiscovered country: When a Microsoft fan goes Apple
Microsoft Office 365 MVP Loryan Strant reveals he's taking a walk on the wild side with Mac OS X and iOS.
Corruption raises its ugly head in Australia’s technology sector
The newspaper alleged, and Leighton has substantially verified, the fact that staff from Visionstream were suspected of aiding Silcar staff in stealing Visionstream tender files relating to a $240 million contract to deploy Optus’s 4G network, which the two contractors were competing to bid. I’ll have a separate article on that situation shortly.
What you may not realise is that this not an isolated incident.
Australia to get IBM public cloud in Q4
Global IT giant IBM today confirmed plans to deploy its enterprise-class public cloud computing infrastructure in Australia, in a move which will give large organisations and government departments with data sovereignty concerns another option for utilising public cloud facilities based in Australia, as opposed to offshore.
ICAC finds Sydney University IT manager corrupt
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has found that University of Sydney information technology (IT) manager Atilla "Todd" Demiralay engaged in corrupt conduct by using Succuro Recruitment, a business that employed his wife and later operated through a company in which he and his wife had a financial interest, to recruit contractors and staff for the university, without disclosing his financial interest in the business.
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.
Makita Australia tried to “break” Windows 10 and failed, so deployed it instead
The IT department at the Australian office of Japanese power tool maker Makita tried to “break” Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 operating system and failed to do so, so ended up deciding to deploy the software throughout its operations to staff, the company revealed last week.
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.
Norfolk Group picks Hyper-V over VMware
A major Australian engineering services company has revealed it recently picked Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualisation solution over VMWare's dominant solution as part of a consolidation of its server and datacentre infrastructure.
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.
US Govt proposes US$3.1bn fund to upgrade “legacy” IT systems
The US Government has proposed the creation of a US$3.1 billion (A$4.8 billion) modernisation fund to improve cybersecurity and save money by replacing or modernising "antiquated" IT systems with more secure, efficient and up-to-date technology.
Policy innovation: Govt replaces cloud computing panel with … new panel
What’s not precisely clear at this point is how this new panel will differ from the old one, or how the new ‘cloud-first’ policy will differ from the old one.
SaaS apps now mainstream in Australia
It was only a few years ago that the term "Software as a Service" was almost anathema in Australia's IT industry, with almost all organisations preferring to deploy applications on an in-house basis. But according to respected analyst house Telsyte, in certain categories the deployment model is now "mainstream".
Datacom completes mammoth Health ICT takeover
New Zealand-headquartered IT services group Datacom this week announced it has successfully taken over the ICT infrastructure of the Federal Department of Health, in a long-awaited move which has seen the department remove large tranches of work from the hands of long-term outsourcer IBM.
Clothing with Bluetooth safety alerts idea wins mining hackathon
After over two days of non-stop brainstorming, a team composed of university students and scientists has won the 2015 Unearthed Melbourne Hackathon.