Demonstrations planned this week by Australian scientists as part of a National Day Of Action in protest at the Federal Government's outsourcing plans drew a sharp response from John Fahey, Minister of Finance and Administrative Services. The actions against what Fahey called the "IT infrastructure initiative" were both "unnecessary and unproductive", he said.
The demonstrations were organised by the CSIRO Staff Association and were supported by staff at other science agencies within the Group 9 IT Outsourcing cluster, some of whom planned action of their own.
Fahey claimed that the government had acknowledged that the science agencies had unique IT requirements which sometimes must be handled inhouse and had therefore asked the Office of Asset Sales and Outsourcing (OASITO) to undertake a study "to ensure the scope of outsourcing is practical for the science agencies". OASITO has almost completed that study and the CSIRO will be given a month to respond to its findings.
While Dr Ron Sandland, deputy chief executive of the CSIRO, has agreed with the minister's general comments and push towards outsourcing, he also seemed to express some sympathy to the scientists. In a statement released this week he noted that CSIRO staff "are passionate about their science" and that means "they care strongly about having the infrastructure necessary to perform world class research".
Fahey, however, was dismissive of the scientists' fears that they would lose control of systems needed for specialised IT and research work. "The initiative will allow our world class scientists to concentrate on their particular fields of endeavour instead of being distracted by having to undertake basic IT infrastructure tasks," he claimed.
Cisco boosts Telstra's IP for Olympics
Cisco has won a contract to increase the capacity of Telstra's US Internet Protocol network ahead of an expected increase in demand accompanying the Olympic games in Sydney this month. A spokesman said Telstra plans to double its Internet capacity between Australia and the US to 1.4G-bits/sec before the games, during which the primary Olympics.com Web site is expected to receive up to three billion hits.
In the US Telstra is constructing a high-speed Internet backbone using Cisco 12000 Internet routers and other systems. It has also established new points of presence in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Palo Alto and Washington DC.
John Hibbard, managing director of Telstra Global Wholesale said increased trans-Pacific capacity would augment the existing exchange in Palo Alto and allow the carrier to improve delivery of Internet traffic throughout North America.
Comm Bank puts telcos on notice
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has spelt out the details of what it claims is a radical $A500 million telecommunications services contract with Telecom New Zealand (TCNZ), which was announced in July (The Insider Edition section of the Rust Report, July 21). The services will be supplied by subsidiary TCNZ Australia, which will call on additional services from AAPT (destined soon to become a full subsidiary of TCNZ), Com Tech and EDS.
Under the terms of the deal TCNZ will streamline the bank's existing telecommunications infrastructure into a single Internet Protocol network supporting a full range of integrated data, voice and video services.
"This contract supports the group's wide initiative to completely refresh our telecommunications infrastructure," explained Russell Scrimshaw, head of the bank's technology, operations and property business unit. "TCNZA will replace our existing call centre platforms, data and voice networks and telephone exchanges with the latest technology as well as provide us with the ability to increase functionality across the group."
Scrimshaw added that the bank had negotiated a "unique pricing arrangement" under which it will pay only for services used. He claimed the contract has the potential to change radically the telecommunication industry in Australia. "Previously a no-risk industry with service provision on a cost-plus basis, the industry now has a new benchmark with new parameters for business to demand carriers deliver competitive telecommunications services mapped to business requirements," he said.
CBA has taken a five per cent stake in TCNZA with an option to lift its stake to 35 per cent over five years.
Local input to global travel technology
Technology developed by Sydney solutions provider CPS Systems in conjunction with SITA, the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and the Australian Customs Service has gone live at Australian airports. A spokesman said the technology - Advance Passenger Processing - allows the department to analyse passenger and flight information at Australian airports via SITA's global network before a flight's arrival. It enables border agencies to make advance passenger checks using alert list databases and to schedule staff rosters to deal with varying visitor arrival patterns.
AAP works in conjunction with the existing Electronic Travel Authority System (ETAS), which was also co-developed by CPS Systems, SITA and the department. ETAS is now used by more than 70 airlines and is accessible by more than 300,000 travel agents worldwide, the spokesman said.
EMC backs newspaper systems
EMC and its Australian VAR Digital Storage have won a contract to supply a complete storage system to Advertiser Newspapers (ANL) in Adelaide. The system will be used to house the publisher's library of digital images, which were previously held on an old (non-EMC) system that did not support fibre.
"As a 24x7 business we had to increase our investment in the storage infrastructure to protect the newspaper from any unscheduled downtime," explained Roeland Goossens, the network manager for ANL. "We store advertising and graphics files that go directly to print, so if our system went down the costs would be enormous. Essentially that would mean that we would not be able to get the newspaper to production, so it's critical that we have a reliable infrastructure to avoid any unscheduled downtime."
EMC will implement a Clariion FC4500 system with switched Fibre Channel connectivity to the EMC Enterprise Storage Network. EMC's AccessLogix and NaviSphere Manager software will also be installed.
Microsoft loses one
After winning a number of favourable decisions in previous class-action law suits heard in US state courts, Microsoft this week lost its bid to have a similar case thrown out of a Californian court. The case stemmed from the US Department of Justice's antitrust case against Microsoft and users' claims that they were forced to pay too much for Windows and other Microsoft products because of the company's anticompetitive behaviour. Judges had previously ruled there was no case because the users had not bought the products directly from Microsoft.
This time, however, the judge ruled that detailed findings by US District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson "of various forms of anticompetitive conduct by Microsoft" should be taken into account.
Observers noted that California is one of the few US states that will recognise indirect purchaser actions. Microsoft has not yet indicated how it will react to the latest ruling.
The US press is having trouble discovering when the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear Microsoft's appeal of Judge Jackson's antitrust finding or whether to pass it on to the Court of Appeals first. Some publications have claimed the court will make a decision by September 8, but others have quoted Justice Department officials stating it is not known when the court will act.
Short news takes
Recently-listed Sydney software developer Objectif Telecommunications has been awarded a Research and Development Start Grant by the Industry Research and Development Board. The grant will support the establishment of an R&D project worth a total of $A4.5 million covering Next Generation Operational Support Service capabilities. The results of the project will enable telecommunications companies to offer customers a range of services on a real time basis and facilitate their rapid activation, a spokesman said.
ERG has been involved in the expansion of an automated fare collection system at Circular Quay in Sydney. A system installed on one wharf two years ago has now been extended to cover all ferry services using the quay. A spokesman said that in peak periods the new barriers enable almost three times as many commuters to pass through as the old turnstiles.
Intel has been caught out by problems with its 1.13HGz Pentium III chips, which can hang under certain circumstances. The company has stopped production of the processors, which it began shipping to some manufacturers on July 31, and will not resume production until the problem is identified and corrected.
A US man has been arrested for sending out a hoax press release that was responsible for cutting the share price of Emulex and knocking about $US2.5 billion off its market capitalisation. It has been reported that the perpetrator, who made almost $US250,000 profit from his hoax, worked at Internet Wire, the publicity company that transmitted the fake release.
Creators of documents in Microsoft Word can use the application's ability to include Web hyperlinks in documents to discover remotely who is reading the document, according to the US Privacy Foundation. "We are not aware of Web bugs being used in this way," a spokesman said, "but the possibility is troubling given the trend of using the Internet and monitoring software to track individual behaviour."