AppWrap ICT Deals and Dealings - January 2010
iStart’s monthly summary of news and deals affecting Australia's enterprise ICT market, compiled by Simon Hendery - iStart News Editor...
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Productivity & Business Performance |
Holiday? What holiday?
What did you do on your summer break? A survey of 1200 full-time and part-time Australian workers has revealed 40% check their emails whilst on holiday and 36% have phoned the office for an update. The Newspoll study, commissioned by remote access software company LogMeIn, found that more than a quarter of Aussie workers (27%) have packed a laptop specifically to check work emails whilst on holiday.
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Deals, Signings & Implementations |
DFAT awards ICT service desk contract to Fujitsu
Fujitsu has won a contract with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to manage and support the department’s ICT service desk known as the Global Support Centre. The three-year contract is worth approximately $6 million and includes desktop support of the Secure Australian Telecommunications and Information Network (SATIN) environments, ICT asset management and licensing, voice services, testing, desktop and VIP support.
CenITex, the Victorian Government’s shared services ICT department, has selected BMC Software as the core IT service management provider to provide it with a single, integrated and standardised technology services platform. As part of CenITex’s work on the Efficient Technology Services (ETS) Program, CenITex will leverage core pieces of BMC’s Business Service Management platform, including the BMC Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) suite, BMC Atrium and BMC Atrium Discovery.
Ricoh has selected Telstra and Polycom to roll out an end-to-end high definition video conferencing solution that it anticipates will increase employee and enterprise productivity by using the solution for around three hours per day across all its offices.
Townsville City Council is progressing to full deployment of the PolicyPoint compliance education platform, following the success of a four-month pilot program. The Stage 1 implementation includes making its policies and procedures training modules available to over 400 staff via the PolicyPoint platform, as part of the council’s strategy to embed a unified, high-performance culture across the organisation.
BHP Billiton has gone live on Broadridge Financial Solutions’ SWIFT Service Bureau for its international treasury operations. BHP Billiton’s global users are now processing international treasury payments on the Broadridge solution, which allows the company’s treasury management group to communicate with partner banks using its SWIFT infrastructure and the SWIFT network.
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New Products & Services |
Microsoft releases Office 2010 beta
Microsoft has released the beta version of Office 2010, the latest version of its widely-used business productivity suite, which includes new features such as the Outlook Social Connector, improved navigation and increased performance and stability. Microsoft has also made available beta versions of SharePoint 2010 and Silverlight 4.
ICT services provider Gen-i has launched what it is calling its cloud computing strategy, a portfolio of solutions for the Australasian market it says are designed to ensure clients get the best out of their existing assets and new cloud opportunities. Gen-i says the strategy supports its vision of becoming Australasia’s leading provider and integrator of ICT value added services in infrastructure over the next five years.
Open-source business intelligence tools are becoming a mainstream deployment option for all kinds of BI usage, according to Gartner. The research firm says that while functionality is not yet on a par with large commercial platforms and is still rarely seen as an enterprise-wide BI standard, open-source BI tool deployment is growing solidly. “Open source BI has seen an interesting adoption pattern over the last few years,” says Gartner research vice president Andreas Bitterer.
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Human Resources |
IT job market tipped to improve
The IT job market will continue to improve this year as it did in the second half of 2009, according to recruitment specialist Randstad. “With the steady increase we’ve seen in the past six months and the positive outlook for the first quarter of 2010, it looks like the worst may be over for IT professionals,” said Malcolm Dunford, operations director of Randstad’s IT division. “Jobs for contract workers, in particular, will gradually increase as companies look to ease the labour pressures being felt this year,” he said.
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Security |
Unisys predicts a ‘biometrics boom’ in 2010
Slashed budgets and reduced staffing numbers delayed many security initiatives in 2009, but the vulnerabilities didn’t retreat and will only intensify in 2010, Unisys security experts predict. The company says it expects government and commercial organisations will take a more proactive approach to security this year, implementing new measures to verify identity and protect confidential information. Financial institutions and defence agencies will lead the charge, with ports and other organisations quickly following, Unisys says.
Meanwhile, hacking will become a more potent threat over the new decade as criminals evolve illegally accessing computers into an industry, according Imperva. The data security firm is predicting the rise of the “industrialisation” of hacking – with clear definition of roles developing within the hacking community forming a supply chain that starkly resembles that of drug cartels. It says the “weapons of choice” hacking cartels will be automated tools such as malware distributed via botnets.
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Software Licensing |
Settlements from illegal software use top $300,000
In a bid to “demonstrate that the unlicensed use of software does not pay,” the Business Software Alliance has released the figure of its total settlements with 12 companies that were caught using illegal or unlicensed software in Australia in 2009. The total amount comes to $331,678 in settlements, an increase from $239,405 in 2008. The BSA also reports it received a record number of 95 leads about businesses using unlicensed or pirated software in 2009 – a significant rise from the 44 leads reported in 2008.
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Appointments & Departures |
Glavonjic heads merged Argus/MBS business
David Glavonjic has been appointed managing director of Argus Solutions. He was previously MD of Moore Business Systems Pty Ltd (MBS) which was recently acquired by Argus. Prior to MBS, Glavonjic held senior executive positions at AT&T, AAPT, E-Business Systems Limited and Connect Internet Solutions Pty Ltd.
Enterprise content management solution provider Open Text Corporation has appointed Owen Brandt as alliances manager for Australia and New Zealand, based in Sydney. Brandt has been with Open Text for the past eight years and has worked in a variety of technical management roles for the company, both Australia and the UK.
3Com Corporation has appointed Claire Palmer to the position of marketing manager for Australia and New Zealand. She was previously Queensland marketing and bid manager at Dimension Data.
Technology research and advisory firm Gartner has appointed Karl Sice as regional vice president, sales for Australia and New Zealand. Sice joins Gartner from Sun Microsystems where he was commercial systems director for the company’s volume business in Asia Pacific.
Video conferencing vendor Tandberg has promoted Adam Britten to the role of Asia Pacific channel director, based in Sydney. Britten has been with the company since 2006 as Australia and New Zealand channel manager, and prior to joining Tandberg was northern region channel manager at 3Com Australia.
IP communications solutions developer Interactive Intelligence has appointed Bradly Moore as senior pre-sales engineer based in Sydney. Moore joins Interactive Intelligence from call centre communications company CallTime Solutions where he was regional account manager. Interactive Intelligence has also appointed Adrian Tilley as senior training consultant for Australia and New Zealand, based in Sydney. Tilley previously worked at the company’s US headquarters as senior training consultant.
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Contact editor: simonhen@xtra.co.nz
Web: www.iStart.co.nz
