News

Some 23 federal government contracts will be up for grabs when they expire by mid-2009, with eight suppliers mopping up about $500 million when the outsourcing deals were created in 2005.

Microsoft's quest to have Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) as a global technology standard seems to have recovered from a setback it suffered a week ago, as both sides of the Open XML-ODF debate shore up arguments as the final vote to approve Open XML nears.

Special Minister of State, Gary Nairn, has boldly declared that Australia is in the middle of an ICT boom with technology a major contributor to the country's economic prosperity.

New Web applications such as wikis, blogs and podcasts that foster increased collaboration and communication have enjoyed a great proliferation in recent months. They have brought with them, however, a number of new security challenges with which corporate network managers now have to contend.

Joining the growing trend of federal government departments appointing supplier panels, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) intends to create a register of pre-approved organizations that can deliver and support ICT services and solutions.

Australia's Child Support Agency (CSA) is rolling out analytical software across 14 sites to be used by 3300 agents to improve dispute resolution and operational efficiency.

The biometric data of each person entering Australia could be permanently stored in a central repository for identity verification and cross-checking between federal government departments, national and international anti-identity fraud efforts, and border control systems.

This year's federal election will be the first to engage electronic voting when blind or vision impaired people will be able to vote at 29 locations across Australia.

In a sign enterprise search technology is becoming more appealing to federal government agencies, the national geoscience research and information organization. Geosciences Australia (GA), is looking to implement an enterprise search solution for its internal data.

Microsoft, EMC and Cisco Systems on Tuesday jointly unveiled plans to build a system for sharing sensitive government data called the Secure Information Sharing Architecture (SISA) that will let various government agencies and their vendors securely share sensitive information.

Australia's Centre of Excellence in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) research, NICTA, has appointed Dr David Everitt, to head up its Canberra Research Laboratory.

Denmark's government agencies will be required to handle two competing document format standards, the Open Document Format (ODF) and Microsof's Open XML, during a one-year test period that will begin next year.

Digg.com Thursday found itself facing the wrath of its notoriously vocal users once again as complaints poured in about a new system for posting comments.

Australia needs to accelerate its rate of creative innovation to maintain current levels of economic growth and development, according to Michael Schrage, co-director of the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

While some Australian CIOs today expressed alarm at the closure of Gartner's consulting services, others said it may have something to do with the analyst firm's "expensive pricing".

Gartner's recent closure of its consulting arm in Australia and Hong Kong should serve as a warning to global players who don't get intimate with Australia's local market, analyst firms have claimed.

Gartner's decision to end its consulting operations in Australia and Hong Kong and lay off 18 people has surprised other industry players, which say the move resulted from misguided strategy.

Effective today, Gartner's consulting operations in Australia and Hong Kong will cease to be, according to a leaked email to IDG.

The draft also suggests that bloggers include an "anything goes" symbol for sites that want to warn possible commenters that they are entering a zone that contains unedited comments. The code suggests that this area of a blog advise readers to "participate at their own risk".

Tough competition appears to be driving profits down for Red Hat but the company has hung on to one marquee customer, Yahoo, despite recent reports to the contrary.