Local governments dive onto Windows 8.1 volume discounts

By Paul Hemsley and Julian Bajkowski Microsoft may not be shouting it from the rooftops, however its latest operating system release, Windows 8.1, looks like it will increasingly be heavily discounted for local governments in New South Wales under Volume Software Pricing arrangements more commonly used by state and federal governments. As the mega vendor […]

NSW councils combine to muscle better value from VMware

By Julian Bajkowski Councils in New South Wales appear to have chalked-up a significant win in their battle to get better value from multinational technology providers after global cloud computing and virtualization provider VMware agreed to deal with 43 local governments as a group in contract renewal negotiations. The technology vendor said that it has […]

Finance launches investigation into ERP software costs

By Julian Bajkowski The Department of Finance has put some of the world’s biggest business software companies on notice that their lucrative contracts will soon be the subject to a sweeping review as the federal government seeks to extract better value from so-called enterprise resource management (ERP) systems. Just a week after the election of […]

Kaspersky warns new ‘Red Star ATP’ targets governments

By Julian Bajkowski Leading independent online and computer security firm and research house Kaspersky Lab has cautioned that governments and public institutions are among the intended targets of a newly discovered relaunch of an Advanced Persistent Threat (ATP) dubbed NetTravelers. The emergence of the new variant is a concern for public sector agencies because it […]

Public service given mobile marching orders

By Julian Bajkowski Federal agencies and departments have been firmly put on notice by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and Special Minister of State Mark Dreyfus QC that they are expected to waste no time in delivering services to the public on mobile platforms as part of a major shake-up in public service culture. The two […]

HP warns Microsoft SharePoint proliferation in government out of control

By Julian Bajkowski Computing and services stalwart HP has made a bold pitch for new government business based on the prospect that savings as deep as 75 per cent can be carved from software and infrastructure running costs bloated by duplication and non-standardised deployments of Microsoft’s SharePoint platform. The acquisitive mega-vendor on Wednesday officially launched […]

Feds propose agency requirement to support Open Document Format

By Julian Bajkowski The once mighty proprietary influence of Microsoft over government software and operating environment standards has been dealt a further blow after the Australian Government Information Management Office revealed that it now wants the Open Document Format to be supported as a file standard in productivity application suites used by most federal agencies. […]

Amazon hopes for cloudy outlook from Canberra

By Julian Bajkowski Global cloud computing heavyweight Amazon Web Services (AWS) is mounting a concerted push into the federal government sector as agencies rapidly look for new ways to cut technology running costs while gaining the same sort of productivity and efficiency gains now being realised in the private sector. The company has revealed the […]

Full exposure for Federal procurement data

By Julian Bajkowski The federal Department of Finance has announced that it will for the first time release a giant mass of procurement data from the AusTender tender and contract tracking system as a single file to improve visibility of purchasing. Speaking at the Kickstart technology media conference on the Sunshine Coast on Sunday, newly […]

BCA bureaucratic meddling claims slammed by Gray

Special Minister of State, Gary Gray, has vehemently rejected claims by the head the Business Council of Australia, Jennifer Westacott, that inexperienced and meddlesome ministerial staffers are eroding the quality of policy development and public administration. In an angry rebuke to Ms Westacott’s speech and proposed public service improvements last week, Mr Gray has accused […]

Tax Commissioner faces grilling

By Julian Bajkowski A claimed rise in complaints to the Commonwealth Ombudsman about the Australian Taxation Office is set to take centre stage today when Taxation Commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo comes before the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) this morning. In a curtain raiser to what is anticipated to be a fiesty exchange, […]

Trust in Apple security compared to Scientology

By Julian Bajkowski One of Australia’s leading computer security researchers has hit out against the popular notion that iPads and iPhones are more secure than their competitors, comparing the unswerving faith of Apple fans to the cult of Scientology. Speaking at the Security In Government conference in Canberra, the director of Edith Cowan University’s Security […]

Microsoft gouges government on pricing

By Julian Bajkowski The federal government could soon usher in sweeping changes to the way it buys hundreds of millions of dollars of software from technology giants like Microsoft to extract much better value for money and greatly boost the flexibility and productivity of public sector computing. A landmark public submission from the Australian Government […]

AFP collaborates with Datacom for safer cyberspace

Collaborations between law enforcement and private sector bodies to promote a safer cyberspace for children have seen the Australian Federal Police in a partnership with Datacom. The IT services company and business process specialist joined ThinkUKnow Australia, a partnership between the AFP and Microsoft, which the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre originally […]

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