Stories by John Costello

Industry holds memorial for Green

The Australian IT industry returned from the Christmas break having lost one of its most colourful identities. Mike Green died suddenly in his Mosman home on 26 December. He was 52.

PeopleSoft's Creighton resigns

Murray Creighton has announced his resignation as managing director of PeopleSoft's Australian and New Zealand operations. He was also vice president of the company's South East Asian business.

Changing the numbers and predicting the future

The editor's wife finally persuaded me to tidy up my office at home. I started on a pile of old magazines and newsletters. But it's funny how you get sidetracked on these projects. Some of those old publications looked too good and interesting to dump. I began leafing through them, re-reading articles I'd forgotten about, although, in many cases, I'd written them.

Turning a leak into a fire hose is easy these days

The public relations people at two of the IT industry's biggest companies have had bad hair days recently. Both Compaq's and Microsoft's PR people responded quickly to the crisis each faced. In both cases what was clearly demonstrated was the rapidly shrinking nature of the global communications network -- the internet.

Is this the omega for Alpha or NT?

Is it the end of the road for Alpha or NT as far as Compaq is concerned?
It was understandable that the company did not want to shout the bad news from the rooftop. The local operation had no comment to make on the news that Compaq was abandoning NT on its Alpha hardware platform. For a handful of organisations it was bad news. They had adopted NT on Alpha. For the 100 people working for Compaq West near Seattle, it was even worse news. They could lose their jobs.

No more gadgets - life's too complicated

Most of us in the IT business like gadgets and I'm no exception. For years I've been looking for that perfect gadget that would combine a diary, address book, memo pad and a few other useful applications in a handy, pocket-sized thingummy.
Over the years I've tried several organisers. None of them have made it past the first test -- to survive long enough to reach the first change of batteries. They were clumsy. Synchronising the data they stored with that on the desktop PC was also clumsy.

The end of the road for Data General

EMC's bid for Data General will almost inevitably mean the end of another pioneering name in the IT industry. DG was founded in 1968 by Edson de Castro. He originally worked with Ken Olsen at DEC but fell out with the DEC founder over the architecture of that company's next machine.

Cover Story: Gary Jackson - Cisco's wild duck quacks before flying north

When he joined Cisco the local operation wasn't swimming all that well.
At Microsoft, he refused to kiss rear ends.
Giving people autonomy and building a team play a major role for Jackson.
He never mentioned golf.
Before he left Australia, John Costello caught up with him. Ian Sharp, Computerworld's staff photographer, was also there. In this edited transcript of the interview, Jackson reflects on his 25 years in the Australian IT industry and his future.

IBM names new local managing director

IBM Australia has named David Thodey as its new managing director following the announcement that Bob Savage is to retire from the job at the end of June.

[]