News

The Australian Taxation Office (AT0) yesterday briefed ICT vendors on its billion dollar outsourcing plans with an expression of interest to be issued early 2008.

Opening its new Canberra laboratory yesterday, NICTA showcased a range of projects including the creation of intelligent devices with the ability to learn.

The ACT government will re-implement its Oracle Financials system by consolidating nine separate instances into one.

Roughly 500 million of the world's mobile phones, or more than 40 percent of the global total, were or will be produced in China this year, according to the country's Ministry of Information Industry.

When the city of Madera, California, needed a new voice system, it turned to open-source technology -- not just for the IP telephony but for an entire network-infrastructure overhaul and loads of other functions. All the renovations cost less than half the estimated price of deploying a commercial voice over IP VoIP system alone. This smart, budget-wise use of open source across the network wins the city a 2007 Enterprise All-Star Award.

Following its decision to establish a panel of general IT service providers earlier this year, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) is now seeking the services of specialist providers to undertake and assist its application development activities.

The Australian National University (ANU) is conducting a world-first program to digitally map the southern sky using a specially constructed telescope called Skymapper, and in another global first will provide the data free to the world via a virtual observatory.

What's on the minds of Australia's banking and finance CIOs as 2008 approaches? Finding skilled and talented people to work for them, effective communication with the other business leaders, and, of course, going green.

Transforming archaic and siloed data and communications systems into coherent, enterprise-wide information services has always been a struggle at the Department of Defence, but a new breed of IT architects is making it happen.

The UK government's data protection minister did not know about the huge data breach at HM Revenue and Customs until he heard the chancellor's statement in the Commons on November 20, he has admitted.

The NSW government has elevated the role of the CIO , reducing the number of reporting lines to Cabinet.

As Microsoft's Office Open XML document format remains in ISO limbo, a trio of countries are pushing forward an adoption of the alternative Open Document Format (ODF) instead, according to an ODF advocacy group.

Security experts have criticized HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for creating fraud risks on several fronts when it lost 25 million child benefit records.

The South Australia Government's Chief Information Officer (CIO), Grantly Mailes, tended his resignation late last week, leaving the role after almost three years in the job.

Public sector IT spending in Asia (including Japan) has enjoyed steady growth right around the region, according to Springboard Research. Based on its market analysis, Springboard expects IT spending to be $US51.5 billion in 2007, with the market growing at a compound annual rate of 6.9 per cent from 2006 to the end of 2010.

Canadian government agencies are failing to meet security standards on industrial contracting procedures, leaving sensitive government information vulnerable.

Much has been made of the stereotypical characteristics of the generations that followed the Baby Boomer era. The same can be said of the latest generation, but Gartner Inc. warns marketers to define them by their online actions rather than their birth dates. In a report released this week, Gartner said that traditional marketing methods won't work with this new group of consumers.

The UK Foreign Office has been slammed for breaching the Data Protection Act after a probe by the Information Commissioner into a security flaw on a website used by people applying for UK visas.

The Australian Women in IT and Science Entity (AWISE) has announced its key leadership roles for 2008, in preparation for the national launch of several projects aimed at boosting the significance of women in the nation's IT industry.

In addition to the question of what corporate policy now-former Microsoft CIO Stuart Scott violated to lead to his termination by the company on Monday, many other unknowns remain.