Australia’s market for cloud computing services so far lacks a “dominant leader”, according to one local analyst. And the title could be anybody's as the market starts to pick up pace.

Zach Nelson, the flambuoyant chief executive of Software as a Service (SaaS) player, NetSuite, has claimed his company’s Australian customer base wasn’t phased by the fact that its datacentres are hosted in the US, in a visit to Sydney in which he also commented on the impact of the National Broadband Network.

Virgin Blue has blamed Accenture subsidiary, Navitaire, for a disastrous hardware failure that took down its reservations systems and resulted in lengthy queues at Australian airports as the airline was forced to check in passengers manually.

Australia might still be waiting to find out which of the major parties will form Government following Election 2010, but it appears the three independents yet to make up their mind which side they will support are still giving off signs they view Labor’s National Broadband Policy with enthusiasm.

Telstra has unlocked significantly higher speeds on its Next G mobile broadband network. But consumers will have to wait a little longer to take advantage as business and government customers first in line.

The Australian Greens has released its own cyber-safety policy to rival that of the two major parties, with the central planks being an obligation for ISPs to offer PC- or modem-based filtering technology to customers, stronger cybercrime law enforcement and better research and education in the field.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy this afternoon opened fire on Tony Abbott, labelling him a “luddite” for not having appearing to have anything to do with his party’s technology policies, on a day in which the Canberra press gallery also criticised the Opposition Leader on the issue.

Telstra's BigPond internet service provider arm has dramatically cut prices on a range of its broadband plans, including a massive chop on its 200GB Elite plan which will see monthly prices drop from $179.95 to $89.95.