IBM Australia turns 70
When IBM started in Australia in 1932, it had 10 employees, £20,000 in the bank and sold scales and time recording equipment. Now, 70 years later, it employs about 10,000 people and has annual revenues of $3.3 billion.
Stories by Kelly Mills
Boardroom cynics see IT as spending 'black hole'
From IT's perception as "liberator" in its glory days, the challenge for IT professionals now is to banish the "black hole" role and overcome boardroom cynicism.
Infrastructure spend beats e-business bucks again
E-business has been put on the backburner yet again in favour of spending on corporate IT infrastructure, according to a Forrester analyst.
Starting from scratch ...
Imagine sitting in an empty office, with only your PDA, considering the conundrum of being tasked to design, build, test and implement Australia's first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) GSM carrier service. Daunted? Well, imagine if you also had to design, build, test and implement an entire set of corporate infrastructure systems as well as hire the staff to do it - all within a six-month timeframe?
National guidelines for IT on their way
Standards Australia is developing new national guidelines for IT governance and project management because current standards are costing industry billions of dollars a year.
Outsourcing vendors lift service in government arena
Vendors vying for Federal Government outsourcing contracts are operating in an "acute" competitive space, forcing them to deliver "minimum" customer expectations.
Games people play put projects at risk
Lies, deceit and ego serve as the main crusaders and predators of IT projects.
While immature technology, 'project silos' and scope creep are often painted as the villains behind a failed IT project -- the real saboteur of many IT projects is the internal political manoeuvring.
Speech recognition breaks into financial services
An Australia-wide financial services group has joined Telstra and other large companies in revamping call centres by investing in voice recognition technology.
HP names more names as job cuts continue
While job cuts at Hewlett-Packard Australia will be complete by the end of year, with some business units already shedding staff, the company declined to confirm the number or type of jobs to go.
Portals next generation intranet: WebSphere
In the never-ending quest for better functionality and time and cost savings, portals are now being touted as the "next generation of the intranet".
Developers show strong belief in Web services
In an IBM Australian software developer's world, the future is bright for Linux and Web services, despite a general lack of interest in these areas by enterprises.
Australian telcos play waiting game with WLANs
Unlike overseas counterparts, Australian telecommunication operators are taking a wait and see approach to public access wireless LAN (WLAN) networks.
Handheld technology gets a moove on
While corporate Australia remains steadfastly devoted to their desktops and laptops, Australian farmers have shown who the real innovators are with their adoption of handheld computing.
Agencies get thumbs down in job hunting stakes
IT professionals' strong distrust of and dissatisfaction with recruitment agencies is at crisis point with an overwhelming number more than happy to bypass them, preferring a direct approach.
But there are few options.
Conflicting signals mix up corporate, vendor relationships
Corporate Australia is sending conflicting messages to information technology and telecommunication (IT&T) vendors on what they deem as important to their relationship.