AppWrap October 2008

iStart’s monthly summary of news and deals affecting Australia’s enterprise ICT market...

Competition increases in identity and access management market

Analyst firm IDC says competition in the local identity and access management (IAM) market has intensified over the last 12 months, which it says is good news for businesses looking for IAM solutions.

Oracle has established a strong presence in the market, challenging other incumbents including IBM, CA, Sun and Novell. IDC expects the competition to continue to intensify and, as a result, there should be more aggressive fighting for IAM tenders and better solutions for customers.

"Customers are increasingly looking for well integrated solutions that offer strong workflow and simplified management. Suite vendors that provide integrated, end-to-end IAM solutions will be in a good position to compete in the ANZ market," says Patrik Bihammar, Senior Analyst, Security Solutions, IDC Australia and New Zealand.

"The increasing competition in the ANZ market will put pressure on IAM vendors to continue to evolve their offerings either through research and development (R&D) or acquisitions. Ultimately, customers will be the ones benefiting from the growing competitive pressure and maturity of IAM solutions," Bihammar says.

Objective wins over NSW Attorney General

The Attorney-General's Department of New South Wales has selected electronic document and records management system specialist Objective Corporation to provide an EDRMS solution. The department has embarked on a multi-stage program to provide efficient record and electronic document management across the organisation, as well as a comprehensive process management strategy to unite staff and information.

KRC Mining Consultants has hired Sydney-based Dataweave to implement Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Universal Content Management.

Adelaide Brighton has contracted Fujitsu Australia to deliver a multi-million dollar ERP solution based on SAP software. The solution will replace Adelaide Brighton’s core business applications and a variety of packaged software that operate on the AS400 hardware platform.

Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) is to purchase Entellect Solutions’ eMinerva Enterprise student management solution in a licensing agreement worth close to $2 million. BCE will use eMinerva Enteprise to administer over 140 schools and 53,000 students.

Statewide, South Australia’s largest private sector superannuation fund, has signed up Bravura Solutions for the implementation of new software and the extension of an existing product license.

Border Express, a freight and logistics company which has 600 staff and is based in Albury, NSW, has chosen Empower-HR, a solution from Australian HR and payroll software solution specialist Empower Masterpay.

National Credit Management Limited is upgrading from their current Mercantile Systems software to Admerex’s CWX solution recovery and receivables activity.

Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal has signed with QMastor for a solution to provide coal tracking and inventory management at the Port of Hay Point in Mackay, Queensland.

Virgin Blue has selected NSC Enterprise Solutions to provide a unified communications solution encompassing IP telephony and contact centre technology from Avaya and video-conferencing from Polycom.

ComOps buys Australian Workplace Software

ASX-listed business software products and services provider ComOps has acquired Australian Workplace Software Pty (AWS), a specialist provider of workplace health and safety and risk management software solutions and related services. AWS’s customer base includes the Queensland Government, Electrolux, Sensis and DP World (formerly P&O Ports).

Logistics software specialist Advanta Software has merged with transport solutions provider TransLogix Holdings. The two companies say their merged business will be the largest third-party logistics, transport and logistics solutions provider in the Australian marketplace with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland.

Nasdaq-listed Quest Software has acquired NetPro Computing, Inc. in a cash transaction valued at approximately $78.7 million. The acquisition of NetPro, a leading provider of Microsoft infrastructure optimisation solutions, lets Quest further extend its product portfolio to deliver a comprehensive set of products to manage complex Microsoft infrastructures.

NetSuite brings ONeWorld to Australia

On-demand business management software solution provider NetSuite has launched its OneWorld ERP, CRM and e-commerce suite into the Australian market.

Fred Health, a specialist IT solution provider to the pharmacy industry, is launching a new initiative called eRx Script Exchange to develop national electronic prescribing. The new initiative, developed in partnership with New Zealand software services company Simpl and Microsoft Australia, will create a secure, encrypted gateway for pharmacies and doctors to exchange prescriptions electronically.

SAP’s Barnes to lead Unisys

Unisys has appointed David Barnes as managing director, Australia and New Zealand.  He joins Unisys from SAP where he spent the last seven years in senior leadership roles, the most recent being chief operating officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

Meanwhile Unisys has appointed Paul Allen as sales manager, Australia and New Zealand, financial services, based in Sydney. He was Symantec’s Pacific director of global consulting services and his Unisys appointment follows the promotion of Rob Dewar to manage Unisys’s application services business across the Asia Pacific region.

Mobile messaging interoperability specialist Sybase 365 has appointed Adam Brito to the new Sydney-based role of business development director for peer-to-peer messaging interoperability in Australia and New Zealand. Brito joins Sybase 365 from Westpac Corporate Banking where he was a senior associate in the Global Transactional Banking division.

Analyst and consulting company Ovum has appointed Greg Neylan as Melbourne-based principal consultant, policy and regulation, in its Asia-Pacific team. Neylan has previously held senior management positions in the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and predecessor regulatory agencies at ACA and Austel.

Video communications solutions company Tandberg has appointed Matthew Hanmer as healthcare business manager based in Sydney. Hanmer was previously a services account manager with Hewlett Packard.

IT consulting company Capiotech has appointed Thomas Palmer as the managing director. Palmer succeeds Steven Pennisi, the company’s co-founder, who becomes Capiotech CEO.

Premiere Global Services, a global provider of on-demand business process improvement solutions, has appointed Paul Crighton as vice president sales, South Asia, based in Sydney. Crighton was previously senior director, enterprise sales, at Symantec Corporation.

3CX lands in Australia

International telco software developer 3CX has opened its first office in Australia. The company says having an Australian presence will play a key role in the expansion of its partner network in the area and help support Australian-based users of its 3CX VoIP Phone System. “VoIP is seeing a staggering growth in Australia and 3CX is in an ideal position to offer the market an innovative product that meets the IP telephony needs of small and medium sized enterprises with 3CX Phone System for Windows,” said 3CX Australia director Richard Rundle.