Integration and Services

Modelling software provider, Holocentric, has struck up a partnership with local integrator, COSOL.

Unisys has nabbed a five-year extension to its passenger baggage reconciliation system contract for Australian International airlines. The deal is worth more than $25 million.

Dimension Data is putting on the finishing touches to the implementation and testing of a disaster recovery project for engineering and project management group, Ausenco. The contract is worth about $2 million.

Western Australia-based, ASG Group (ASX: ASZ), has snagged $13 million applications managed services contract with Qantas in conjunction with IT consulting company, Capiotech.

Australian health authorities may have given the all clear for two local suspected cases of the [[artnid:300804|swine flu virus|new]] -- which has killed more than 80 people in Mexico and infected 20 in the United States -- but concern over the spread of the potentially fatal disease has local CIOs revisiting their business continuity plans (BCP).

It's been 12 hours since your last bite to eat. Your stomach growls angrily as you meet the host who will take care of all your needs while you prepare to sign a big contract with his company. He takes you out to dinner at a nice restaurant--please tell me you didn't just order a steak!

The tasks in Laef Olson’s working hours can be rather varied. Olson, who is the CIO at Software-as-a-Service vendor RightNow Technologies is on the one hand responsible for IT security and the organisation’s information systems, while on the other he spruiks the strategy and vision for the company's on-demand hosting platform. On many occasions Olson gets a direct audience with company CIOs. What makes it easier for Olson to get traction to the upper levels of management is his past. He has been group vice president of global technology operations of Travelport and Orbitz Worldwide. And before that CTO of cars.com. In these roles he was also a consumer of SaaS products. It is that experience that he uses to relate to customers when on the road. Olson briefly stopped over in Australia last month where CIO Magazine asked him about the maturity of SaaS.

Amid the growing popularity of software-as-a-service, IT managers are faced with a sometimes monumental task of developing big-picture strategies and policies to govern service-based applications as well as defining performance metrics and support.

Steve Murphy set-up Sydney-based integrator, Frontline Systems, in 1992. He speaks to MATTHEW SAINSBURY about making the best of the economic situation, sales strategies and his favourite food.

Mark Hennessy speaks candidly on transforming the IT organization at IBM, fostering a culture of innovation, managing IT during the financial crisis, maximizing the value of social networking tools, and taking advantage of an imminent technological game-changer.

During his keynote speech at the Society for Information Management's SIMposium 08 conference in the US, author Nicholas Carr drew an analogy between cloud computing and the transition that manufacturers made from generating their own power to relying on utilities in the early 20th century.

What are the differences and similarities between the role of a CIO within a large corporate and a state education department?

The financial fraud perpetrated by Satyam Computer Services executives could trigger near-term disruptions across the outsourcing and IT industries. Ramalinga Raju, the company's founder and chairman, resigned last week. He has admitted to inflating Satyam's cash balances and the credit amounts it was owed while understating its liabilities. This scandal has many ramifications for Satyam's customers as well as those of other outsourcing companies.

No two IT shops conduct business in the same way: CIOs report to various executives, project approval processes are all over the board, and personnel policies are vastly different. Unlike other professions, IT doesn't seem to have a common set of basic principles across companies.

During the last calendar quarter, I wrote an article for ARN (July 16, 2008) regarding recruiting staff from partners, alternative solutions and asked what retention plans need to be in place in order to maintain your employees. Now as we come to year-end and in the current economic climate, it feels like everything has changed – or has it?

Open up any newspaper, online media site or industry report and you’ll hear about the effects of the economic downturn. Last week, the Australian Financial Review published a report on the looming recession, pointing out Australia’s gross domestic product grew by just 0.1 per cent in the third quarter of the year. The report also found the market had begun losing momentum before the global stock markets went into freefall.