Privacy chief wants mandatory reporting

SHAKEN by a series of significant data breaches in the UK, Australian Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis has renewed calls for mandatory reporting of security breaches at Australian companies and government agencies.

Ms Curtis's call for mandatory reporting was made in a 786-page submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) review of Australian privacy law.

“While reporting would need to be proportional to the severity of the breach, it would provide organisations with a strong market incentive to adequately secure their databases,” Ms Curtis said.

“It would also give people an opportunity to take any necessary steps to protect their personal information.”

Ms Curtis also called for powers that would allow the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to conduct privacy performance assessments on private sector organisations in special circumstances to ensure they were in compliance with data protection regulations.

Other recommendations in the submission included maintaining a principles-based and technology neutral approach to privacy, to provide flexibility and responsiveness to change.

Ms Curtis also urged lawmakers to minimise exemptions to from the Privacy Act.

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French police move to Ubuntu

THE French Gendarmerie Nationale, or paramilitary policy force, has dumped Microsoft Windows in favour of the Linux distribution Ubuntu, making it one of the largest administrations in the world to move to open source.

Reports from the Solution Linux Conference 2008 in Paris say the gendarmerie will progressively move its 70,000 desktops using Windows XP to the Ubuntu distribution of open source Linux.

The plan marks the final phase of the gendarmerie’s move away from Microsoft, a process that started in 2005 when it switched from using the Microsoft Office productivity suite to the free OpenOffice open source offering.

The reports from Paris quote Colonel Nicolas Geraud, the deputy director of the gendarmerie’s IT unit, saying the administration will transfer 5,000 to 8,000 PCs to Ubuntu this year, then 14,000 to 15,000 a year over the next four years so that its entire fleet of desktop is Linux-based by 2013-2014.

Colonel Geraud said the change was made for three reasons: to reduce reliance on a single supplier; to give the gendarmerie control of its own operating system; and to reduce IT costs.

The gendarmerie abandoned Internet Explorer and Outlook in 2006, moving instead to Mozilla’s open source Firefox and Thunderbird browser and email client.

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ACS appoints new chief executive

THE Australian Computer Society has appointed West Australian technology professional Kim Denham as its new national chief executive, replacing the long-serving chief Dennis Furini.

Ms Denham has more than 20 years experience in the ICT industry in roles across both government and the private sector.

ACS national president Kumar Parakala said Ms Denham had been “an outstanding ICT ambassador,” particularly for women in the ICT sector.

“She has a passion for the industry, and her insight into the pressing issues affecting ICT such as careers, globalisation and professionalism is impressive,” Mr Parakala said.

“Kim is an energetic and talented ICT professional with experience working within a broad range of industry and stakeholder groups,” he said.

Ms Denham, who is the first female CEO of the society, said her focus would be on the growth of both the ACS and the broader technology industry.

“We can be extremely competitive on the world’s stage, but greater recognition and collaboration from the business community and the Government is what’s required to allow our sector to flourish,” she said.

Ms Denham has more than 20 years experience in ICT, including management roles with Ericsson Australia, West Australian Newspapers, Tourism Western Australia and CSBP Limited. She was a finalist in the 2006 Telstra Business Women’s Awards in WA and has worked on various boards, panels and steering committees, including the ACS WA Branch.

Ms Denham takes over from acting-CEO Sam Burrell, who stepped up from the role of general manager when Mr Furini left the organisation after eight years at the helm in the middle of last year. Mr Burrell remains in the role of general manager.

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ERG loads $250m lawsuit canon

PERTH-based smartcard specialist ERG is not giving up without a fight, and may now launch a $250 million damages claim against the NSW state government over the Tcard public transport ticketing debacle.

Chairman Colin Henson said the company was considering legal action over what it describes as “the NSW Government’s unlawful termination of the Tcard contract.” ERG said it had so far identified losses associated with the termination to be approximately $250 million.

The company is now squaring off against the NSW Government, which itself has threatened to sue ERG to recover $95 million of taxpayer funding.

Mr Henson said in a statement that the government had been a difficult partner to work with, and that the project was characterised by a lack of leadership and disinterest by Transport Minister John Watkins and senior bureaucrats.

He said the ERG subsidiary handling the project – Integrated Ticketing Solutions Limited (ITSL) – had presented the Government’s Public Transport Ticketing Corporation (PTTC) with a plan last November that could have seen the Tcard system rolled out over the next 18 months.

“The program was backed by an independent, reputable Sydney based Project Management consultant specifically engaged to assess the program,” Mr Henson said.

“Despite the quality of the program, apart from superficial comment and questioning, the Government and the PTTC chose to ignore it. This is typical of the lack of communication and co-operation shown by the PTTC and the Government since the contract with ITSL/ERG was signed in 2003.”

“It needs to be remembered that ERG has successfully delivered similar programs with cooperative Government departments in cities all around the world (including San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong, and other cities much larger than Sydney), and many of ERG’s current project customers have provided references supporting the company,” he said.

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EU backs downloader privacy

THE European Union’s top court has backed the privacy rights of internet users, ruling that content owners cannot demand that ISPs hand over the personal information of users suspected of illegal downloading.

The Brussels-based Court of Justice ruled that even where an IP address was suspected of illegally downloading copyrighted material, record labels and film companies could not demand that the telecommunications carriers’ hand over details of that users’ name and address.

But it said EU member states could, if they felt it necessary, introduce laws that would oblige telco’s to hand over personal information in civil cases.

The decision relates to case involving the Spanish communications giant Telefonica.

An anti-piracy group called Promusicae had applied through the Spanish courts for an order that Telefonica hand over the identities and physical address of customers whose IP address and date and time of connection were known.

According to Promusicae, those persons were using the KaZaA file exchange program and providing access in shared files of personal computers to content that belonged to its industry members.

Telefonica had argued that under Spanish law, it was only allowed to share personal data in cases involving criminal prosecution or matters of public safety or security.

The Court points out that the present reference for a preliminary ruling raises the question of the need to reconcile the requirements of the protection of different fundamental rights, namely the right to respect for private life on the one hand and the rights to protection of property and to an effective remedy on the other.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an anti-priacry group, said the recording industry would continue its enforcement campaign against internet piracy, despite the ruling. It applauded the courts ruling that member states could still compel telcos to hand over personal data.

“Copyright theft on the internet is the single biggest obstacle to the growth of the music business today, IFPI chairman and chief executive John Kennedy said in a statement.

“The European Court has confirmed the need to have effective tools to tackle piracy. The judgment means that music rights owners can still take actions to enforce their civil rights, and it has sent out a clear signal that Member States have to get the right balance between privacy and enforcement of intellectual property rights and that intellectual property rights can neither be ignored nor neglected.”

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VMware disappoints, gets hammered

STOCK market darling VMware has taken a share price beating after announcing disappointing fourth quarter results, prompting investors to flee in the face of competition from Microsoft and others.

The stock lost more than 30 per cent of its value, wiping US$11 billion ($12.3 billion) off shareholder value.

VMware, a virtualisation specialist, listed last year in the biggest IPO since Google went public in 2004. VMware stock immediately soared.

The company has been a pioneer in the virtualisation market, growing revenues to more than US$1.3 billion in the past decade and helping corporate datacenters to drastically reduce power costs and hardware overheads in the process.

But reports in the US say investors have been spooked by less than stellar fourth quarter results amid fears that industry giants like Microsoft, Oracle and Citrix Systems have now turned an eye to virtualisation and will continue to squeeze VMware performance.

VMware reported fourth quarter revenue of US$412 million, an increase of 80 per cent over the year-ago quarter, but slightly below company forecasts.

What appears to have spooked the market is its forecasts. The company says it expects revenue to grow 50 per cent in 2008, somewhat lower than the consensus analyst view of growth between 55 per cent and 57 per cent.

VMware president and chief executive Diane Greene downplayed the more serious entry of others into virtualisation market, saying the company had a market lead and deeper channel relationships that any competitor.

“VMware executed at a remarkable pace in 2007 as customer interest and partner attention increased several fold,” Ms Greene said. “As others begin to enter the market, VMware and our partners are continuing to broaden and deepen our highly reliable end-to-end virtualisation solutions.

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SonyEricsson ramps download service

MOBILE phone giant SonyEricsson has signed distribution deals with ten major record labels, boosting the number of tracks available through its mobile download service to more than five million.

The company announced at the MIDEM conference in Cannes its strategic plans for the PlayNow arena operated by the company.

The partnerships with 10 of the largest international and regional record labels included Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, EMI, The Orchard, IODA, The PocketGroup, Hungama, X5 Music, Bonnier Amigo and VidZone.

Sony Ericsson is currently negotiating further deals with a host of regional labels to further broaden the variety of music available and bring more localised content direct to the consumer.

The PlayNow service was launched in February 2004 as the easiest way to pre-listen and then purchase polyphonic ringtones directly to your phone. Since launch, the scope of the service has expanded to include MP3 ringtones, games, full music tracks, themes and wallpapers.

The service has proved a hit with consumers and is now available in 32 countries around the world, with annual free and premium having reached more than 200 million.

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Intel boosts Green Power stocks

CHIP-MAKER Intel has moved to boost its Green credentials by becoming the largest corporate buyer of Green power in the United States.

The US Environmental Protection Agency latest Green Power Partners Top 25 list puts Intel in the number one position.

Intel also announced yesterday that it would purchase more than 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours a year of renewable energy certificates as part of a broad plan to reduce its impact on the environment.

The company said it hoped the record-setting purchase would help stimulate the market for green power, which should lead to additional generating capacity and ultimately, lower costs.

Renewable energy certificates, or RECs, are the “currency” of the renewable energy market and are widely recognised as a having credible and tangible environmental benefits.

Intel's REC purchase includes a portfolio of wind, solar, small hydro-electric and biomass sources.

“We have a long history of commitment to the environment and energy efficiency is an important consideration in everything we do, from building transistors to designing microprocessors and running our factories,” said Intel president and chief executive Paul Otellini.

Mr Otellini, who is also a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, a global group of leaders working to achieve an effective global climate treaty at next year's UN Environmental Summit in Copenhagen, said the renewable purchase was just one part of a multi-faceted approach to protect the environment.

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Firefox grabs more IE marketshare

MOZILLA’S open source browser Firefox has taken another big chunk of marketshare from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, according to the latest report from French research group XiTiMonitor.

The report says Firefox’ share of the Europe market climbed 5 per cent in the 12 months to December, giving it 28 per cent of the overall browser market.

In Oceania, which includes Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, Firefox performance is even stronger, claiming 31.1 per cent of the browser market – up from 29.7 per cent in November.

By region, internet users in Oceania are more likely to use Firefox than any other region. The 31.1 per cent Firefox market share in Oceania compared to the Mozilla browser’s 21 per cent in North America, 20.2 per cent in South America and 16.5 per cent in Asia.

For a single country market, Finland leads the world in Firefox users, with more than 45 per cent of the market.

Firefox’ growth in market share has come at the expense of Internet Explorer – which is still the commanding market leader at 66.9 per cent.

More interesting is the successful upgrade conversion rate of Firefox compared to Internet Explorer. Less than half of Internet Explorer site visits are performed with the latest version of the browser, while 93 per cent of all Firefox visits are done with Firefox 2, the latest version.

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Newspapers’ online readership surge

JUST as the closure of The Bulletin magazine ended a 120-year publishing run, some good news has finally arrived for traditional media.

Newspaper web sites – as opposed to online newspapers – in the United States are enjoying a readership surge, suggesting that traditional media is handling the transition from paper to web.

A new report from Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America found the average monthly audience figures for newspaper web sites grew by more than 3.6 million in 2007 to 62.8 million.

The numbers represented an increase of more than six per cent over the previous year. They are not staggeringly large numbers, but an improvement publishers have seized as good news regardless.

“Newspapers continue to successfully transform themselves into multimedia companies, offering unparalleled content that reaches an audience growing in both size and sophistication,” said NAA president and CEO John F. Sturm.

“Newspapers’ expanding print and digital portfolio offers value to advertisers by providing a targeted, comprehensive menu of choices for today’s discriminating consumer. As our industry’s transition accelerates, it is clear consumers recognize newspapers as their trusted source of information in an increasingly digital environment.”

For the year’s fourth quarter, 39 per cent of all active web users visited newspaper web sites, with visits averaging 44 minutes a month. Users generated more than three billion page impressions on average, a 7.3 per cent increase over the same period a year ago.

Meanwhile, News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has told the World Economic Forum in Davos that plans to make the Wall Street Journal online free would not include all of the newspaper’s content.

Mr Murdoch said that while information that users can get “more or less as a commodity on different sites about finance” would be free on the WSJ site.

But the more specialist information, and the more specialist insights from the Journal about business and finance would remain a part of a subscription service.

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Delayed NSW Tcard finally collapses

NEARLY ten years after embarking on a plan to build an integrated ticketing system for all public transport, the NSW Government has scrapped its controversial Tcard project after countless delays and cost overruns.

Transport Minister John Watkins said government was cancelling its contract with Integrated Transit Solutions Ltd, the wholly-owned subsidiary of smartcard firm ERG that had been building the system.

After missing a series of project milestones, the cancellation of the ITSL contract had been largely expected, with Mr Watkins having warned to company late last year.

The collapse of the $370 million project puts the Government plans to give travelers a single ticket to cover all public transport back on the drawing board. Mr Watkins has already hinted Government will tender again, seeking new suppliers for the project.

Reports in Sydney say Government has already taken a $10 million bond posted by ITSL when it was awarded the contract in 2003, and that the government would also pursue the company through the courts to recover tax-payer funds that had been sunk into the project.

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EU clears IBM-Cognos merger

European competition regulators have given the green light to IBM’s US$5 billion (A$5.7 billion) acquisition of Canada-based business intelligence software developer Cognos.

The European Commission yesterday ruled the acquisition would not significantly impede effective competition.

The Commission examined the effects that the proposed merger would have on the business analytics sector and its various sub-divisions.

“In each instance, the Commission found that the horizontal overlap between the parties' activities would not give rise to competition concerns, since the parties' combined market share would be moderate,” the Commission said in a statement.

“The combined IBM/Cognos entity would continue to face several strong competitors and customers would find sufficient alternative suppliers of such software products,” it said.

The Commission's investigation found no significant risk that the merged entity would be able to close off competitors from the market.

IBM's and Cognos' positions in their respective segments of enterprise application software (EAS) would not provide sufficient incentives to prevent standalone business analytics software vendors from integrating with their EAS platforms.

The acquisition is expected to be completed during the current quarter. Cognos employs 4,000 people globally and generated revenue last year of just under US$1 billion.

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Cyber criminals move beyond Windows

ORGANISED criminals involved in cyber attacks aimed at stealing IDs and money are moving beyond Windows, and are for the first time knocking loudly at the doors of Macintosh and Linus-based systems, experts warn.

Tech security and control firm Sophos has published in its Security Threat Report 2008 found Apple was a significant target of criminal hackers in 2007, and that the threat would expand in 2008.

While Malware for Macs has been seen before, the Sophos reports that malicious code seemed for the first time to have been written by financially-motivated hackers who saw an opportunity.

“No-one should underestimate the significance of financially-motivated malware arriving for Apple Macs at the end of 2007,” Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley said.

“Although Macs have a long way to go in the popularity stakes before they overtake PCs, particularly in the workplace, their increased attractiveness to consumers has proven irresistible to some criminal cybergangs.,” Mr Cluley said.

The Sophos' Threat Report also reveals that the wider use of new mobile technologies and wi-fi enabled devices, like the iPhone and iPod Touch, may be opening up new vectors of attack for hackers.

Flaws have been found in the mobile email program and Safari browser installed on such devices. But while uptake remains limited cyber-criminals are unlikely to exploit these avenues on a major scale in the near future. However, as personal wi-fi devices grow in popularity, the risks will no doubt increase.

Sophos experts also said that the low cost ultra-mobile PCs, such as the popular Linux-based ASUS EEE laptop, will gain the attention of the cyber underworld as sales continue to grow.

“The ultra-mobile ASUS EEE laptop, like many others, comes pre-installed with Unix, making it automatically immune to the vast majority of spyware and malware attacks,” Mr Cluley said.

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Hollywood hails Vic pirate bust

HOLLYWOOD movie production houses have hailed a Victorian Police operation that netted the largest ever haul of pirated DVD’s ever found in Australia.

The Victorian Police operation, conducted in conjunction with the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), the local anti-piracy lobby, seized more than 250,000 copied DVDs and 100 DVD-R burners.

The operation shut down the largest known piracy operation in Australia.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the industry lobby represent Hollywood studios, applauded the action.

“The Australian authorities have done it again … their aggressive enforcement efforts send a clear message that piracy will not be tolerated,” said the MPAA’s Asia-Pacific senior vice-president Mike Ellis. “We congratulate them on another successful raid and look forward to working with them on the next one.”

Last November, AFACT joined the MPAA’s Operation Blackout, an aggressive anti-piracy enforcement initiative scheduled to run until the end of January in 13 countries Asia-Pacific countries including Australia.

Operation Blackout is focused on the prevention of illegal camcording of newly released titles in cinemas, internet piracy, and the continued production, distribution and sale of pirated DVDs.

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Whitman steps down from eBay

MEG Whitman, one of the original commercial warriors of the online world and a genuine industry legend, is to step down as president and chief executive of auction house eBay at the end of March.

She will be replaced by John Donahoe, currently president of eBay Marketplaces, which accounts for more than 70 per cent of the company’s global revenues.

When Ms Whitman joined eBay in March 1998, the company was a US-only online auction house with just 30 employees and 500,000 registered users – and revenue of $4.7 million. Today, the company has hundreds of millions of users worldwide, more than 15,000 employees and nearly US$7.7 billion in revenue.

“With humor, smarts and unflappable determination, Meg took a small, barely known online auction site and helped it become an integral part of our lives,” eBay founder and chairman Pierre Omidyar said.

In addition, eBay announced that Rajiv Dutta, currently the President of PayPal, has been named Executive Vice President of eBay and will also replace Mr Donahoe as President of eBay Marketplaces. Mr Dutta has also been elected to the eBay board.

Dutta is a 10-year eBay veteran who has previously served as the company’s chief financial officer, and president of Skype, eBay’s communications business. Since July 2006, Mr Dutta has successfully led PayPal to achieve more than US$65 billion in payment volume and three consecutive quarters of accelerating revenue growth.

Scott Thompson, PayPal’s current chief technology officer, will replace Mr Dutta as president of PayPal.

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Carr reviews R&D support programs

LESS than three months into the job, the Rudd Government has moved to review its research and development support programs, opening the door to an increase in the R&D tax concession rate.

Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr yesterday announced a broad review of the Australian ‘national innovation system’, to be headed by consultant and CSIRO board member Terry Cutler.

Senator Carr said the review would look at ways to streamline government assistance, possibly reducing the number of different federal R&D support initiatives and eliminating duplication with State government programs.

Senator Carr is a long-time advocate of the Commonwealth’s 125 per cent R&D tax concession as a means of driving innovation and improved productivity in Australia, and the review presents the first opportunity to introduce such a change.

“This review represents a watershed opportunity for the development of ideas that will ensure Australia reaches its full potential as a dynamic, internationally competitive and prosperous nation,” Senator Carr said.

“In particular, we need to find ways to increase innovation performance across the economy, to ensure that business has better access to new ideas and new technologies and to bridge the divide between industry and research,” he said.

Senator Carr said that central to the review would be to examine the bewildering array of government innovation and industry assistance programs.

“At last count there were 169 programs in Australia, across all levels of government, aimed at supporting innovation,” Senator Carr said.

“The review will allow the Rudd Government to work with the States and Territories to streamline these programs, reducing fragmentation and improving effectiveness.

The committee conducting the reviews includes BHP Billiton technology vice-president Dr Megan Clark; Macquarie Bank and Telstra director Catherine Livingston; and Commonwealth Chief Scientist Dr Jim Peacock.

Senator Carr also announced a review of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program as part of a broader review of the national innovation system. The review will identify areas to further promote and encourage investment and collaboration between research and industry.

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Yahoo to cut hundreds of jobs

JUST months after returning to run the company he co-founded Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang is getting ready to fire hundreds of employees as the internet pioneer seeks to find a way out of a deep financial malaise.

Reports in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and major wire services all point to the lay-offs being announced next week. It is expected to be the biggest round of redundancies at Yahoo since 2001 following the dotcom bust.

The Associated Press quotes analysts in the US saying the company will slice about 5 per cent of staff from its 14,000-strong workforce – or 700 employees.

The analysts say Mr Yang is under intense pressure to cut costs at Yahoo in order to boost profits and improve the company’s flagging share price. He is also expected to restructure the firm, improving the competitiveness of its online advertising services, and to improve traffic flows to its main portal.

While Yahoo has not been losing money during its current struggles, it has not performed to the satisfaction of Wall Street with its share price being punished as a result.

Investors have been especially unhappy with the its performance relative to Google, the now dominant online search and advertising company.

The Yahoo layoffs are expected to be announced next Tuesday.

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Google attacks EU over DoubleClick

GOOGLE has gone on the front foot in a bid to have its proposed US$3.1 billion takeover of internet advertising firm DoubleClick approved by the European Union, attacking the EU over its handling of the acquisition.

Reports from Europe say the company is deeply unhappy that members of the European Parliament are trying to have privacy issues around the handling of personal information considered by EU competition regulators.

Google maintains privacy and information handling issues are not the purview of competition regulators, and are an entirely separate issue.

The US regulator, the Federal Trade Commission, approved the deal in December after more than six months of consideration.

At that time, Google chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt said the FTC ruling sent a clear message that the proposed takeover posed no risk to competition.

The company is clearly miffed that some European parliamentarians, together with privacy advocates, are pushing privacy and information handling issues into the competition deliberations.

Reports from Europe say the privacy advocate contend that the volumes of data collected by Google routinely as part of its business gave the company a competitive advantage, and that privacy and competition could not be separated as issues.

After a European Parliament hearing to consider the impact of the internet on personal privacy issues heard from a series of privacy advocates, Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer went on the attack, according to wire reports.

“People (are) trying to take a privacy case and shoehorn it into a competition law review ... I can understand that people continue to peddle this theory in Europe after having lost in the United States,” Mr Fleischer said.

In its decision, the FTC said in a written opinion that privacy concerns played no role in its merger review.

At the time, Google’s Mr Schmidt acknowledged the FTC opinion, but added that Google was committed to user privacy.

“For us, privacy does not begin or end with our purchase of DoubleClick,” Mr Schmidt said. “We have been protecting our users' privacy since our inception, and will continue to innovate in how we safeguard their information and maintain their trust.”

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Microsoft outlines virtualisation plans

MICROSOFT has outlined plans to accelerate development of its virtualisation technology offerings, acquiring privately-held Calista Technologies and expanding its partnership with Citrix Systems.

The company announced the completion of its Calista acquisition at its Virtualisation Deployment Summit in San Jose yesterday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

San Jose-based Calista was founded in 2006 and has been pioneering next-generation desktop virtualization. Its product aims to provide richness and responsiveness of locally-executing desktops while preserving the security, management and cost benefits of a centralised computing model.

The company claims to be the only desktop platform that provides a user interface and cost per desktop to support broad adoption. The core of Calista’s technology is a patent-pending Virtual GPU (graphics processing unit) technology that improves user experience, but more importantly increased the number of users per server – dramatically lowering per user costs.

Microsoft Server and Tools Business senior vice-president Bob Muglia said few customers were using virutalisation technology – less than 5 per cent – because it was too costly and too complex.

“We believe Microsoft’s comprehensive approach – from desktop to datacentre – is unique to the industry by delivering solutions that address virtualisation at the hardware, application and management levels,” Mr Muglia said.

“Our approach is not only one of the most comprehensive … (but) also one of the most economical. This combination brings a big strategic advantage and cost savings to customers,” he said.

Microsoft and Citrix announced an expanded alliance to deliver a set of virtualisation solutions to address the desktop and server virtualisation needs, working together to deliver and market joint solutions with Windows Server 2008.

The companies plan to co-market new client computing offerings with the next generation of Citrix Presentation Server and the Citrix XenDesktop products, both based on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Optimised Desktop solutions, and managed by Microsoft System Centre.

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Opel pays $65m for Wimax spectrum

JOINT-venture regional broadband provider OPEL has shelled out US$65 million to acquire Austar’s 2.3GHz and 3.5GHz spectrum to set up its national WiMAX voice and internet service.

OPEL is the joint-venture company between Optus and Elders which won $958 million in Federal funding last year to assist the construction on a broadband network covering rural and regional Australia.

Access to the Austar licensed spectrum will allow the OPEL Venturers to build a state-of-the-art WiMAX network which will keep pace with the developments in international standards.

The OPEL network will ensure that regional Australians have access to a broad range of world's best broadband access technologies including WiMAX and ADSL2+.

The OPEL venture has been incredibly quiet since it was awarded the Federal funding last year. Even the $65 million acquisition of critical spectrum from Austar went unannounced (it was left to Austar to trumpet the sale.)

The awarding of the funding has been fraught with controversy and is now the subject of a Federal Court case between Telstra and Government.

The funding had consisted of $600 million Broadband Connect Infrastructure Program funding which the joint venture bid for. But it also included an additional $358 million in additional funding to extend the regional network that Telstra has cried foul over – saying it wasn’t given a chance to bid for the extended network.

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IBM, SAP to join forces

LONG-time technology collaborators IBM and SAP will launch their first joint software product in the fourth quarter, a platform that integrates IBM’s Lotus Notes with SAP Business Suite.

Code-named Atlantic, the software would result in a new style of applications that presents information and data in the context of users familiar with the Lotus Notes desktop.

“IBM Lotus and SAP have thousands of mutual customers who have been asking for the functionality that Atlantic software will provide,” said IBM Lotus Software general manager Michael Rhodin.

“The majority of IBM's top 100 customers also use SAP solutions. We're creating a richer collaboration environment,” he said.

SAP's efforts to better integrate its software with platforms like Lotus Notes is part of a strategy to make SAP products more user-friendly and accessible to more of the employees at companies where it is deployed, increasing its user base.

“This agreement is great example of how SAP enables our customers to empower their users by providing easy access to SAP business processes and data through productivity tools and user interfaces of their choice,” said SAP chief technology officer, Vishal Sikka.

Currently planned for inclusion in the first release of project Atlantic is support for SAP workflows, reporting and analytics, and the use of roles from within the Lotus Notes client.

In addition, tools are planned to be included to extend and adapt these roles and capabilities, and to leverage collaborative and offline capabilities inherent in Lotus Notes and Domino products.

The initial release is planned to ship in the fourth quarter of 2008 and will be sold by both companies.

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Israel cranks electric car with Renault

THE Israeli Government has signaled the clean car market is its next technology target market, signing an incentive-laden deal with the Renault-Nissan Alliance to build electric cars.

Israel has extended tax incentives to cover zero emission vehicles, and has provided incentives to Project Better Place, which is building a world-first national Electric Recharge Grid Infrastructure to support the cars.

The solution framework comes in response to the Israeli State’s challenge to the auto industry and its supply chain to migrate the country’s transportation infrastructure to renewable sources of energy.

The Renault vehicles are not hybrids – the will run entirely on electricity for all finctions and would provide a similar driving performance to a standard 1.6 litre gas engine.

The alliance with Project Better Place has put forward a business model in which for the first time in the electric vehicle business the ownership of the car is separated from the ownership of the battery.

Consumers will buy and own the car and subscribe to the energy, including the use of a battery on a kilometers-driven basis.

California-based Project Better Place plans to deploy a massive network of battery charging spots. Driving range will no longer be an obstacle, because customers will be able to plug their cars into charging units in any of the 500,000 charging spots in Israel. An on-board computer system will indicate to the driver the remaining power supply and the nearest charging spot.

The Better Place Project is the brain child of former SAP number two Shia Agassi.

The Renault Nissan Alliance said Israel was the perfect market to start a worldwide effort toward electric cars, with 90 per cent of car owners driving less than 70 kilometres per day – and all major urban centres being less than 150kms apart.

Along with Project Better Place, Israel would become the first illustration of the Alliance’s commitment to mass-market zero-emission vehicles all over the world.

The Renault Nissan Alliance is a combination of the French and Japanese car makers. Renault owns 44 per cent of Nissan, while Nissan owns 15 per cent of Renault.

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Number of internet users in China

THE number of internet users in China has jumped to more than 210 million, and the nation will surpass the US this year as the largest single online community.

The Chinese registration organisation, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported that the number of net users grew 53 per cent in the past year from 137 million.

The official Xinhua News Agency said this means China is just 5 million users behind the United States.

China still has a lot of room to grow, Xinhua said the country has an internet penetration rate of just 16 per cent – about the level Australian penetration was at a decade ago. In the US, about 75 per cent of Adults are online.

The rate of computer ownership in China also remains low. The main access point for the internet in China remains Cybercafes, whereas in the US 93 per cent of users have access to the net through home computers.

The CNNIC has also reported the numbers of blogs in China had grown to nearly 73 million at the end of November, with the number of bloggers measured at 47 million.

The organisation said blogging was a fast growing phenomenon. A year ago there were just 17.5 million bloggers – meaning 30 million new bloggers had joined the blogosphere in just 12 months.

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Yahoo saddles up OpenID 2.0

INTERNET giant Yahoo! has announced its support for the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework for all of its 248 million active registered users worldwide.

The OpenID service means that a Yahoo can use their Yahoo ID to register with any other site using OpenID 2.0, eliminating the need to create many separate IDs and log-ins for different web sites.

The initial OpenID service will be available for public beta on January 30. Web sites that accept OpenID 2.0 will be able to add a simple “Sign-in with Your Yahoo! ID” button to their login pages that will make it even easier for their users.

“A Yahoo ID is one of the most recognisable and useful accounts to have on the internet and with our support of OpenID, it will become even more powerful,” said Yahoo executive vice-president for platforms and infrastructure Ash Patel.

“Supporting OpenID gives our users the freedom to leverage their Yahoo! ID both on and off the Yahoo! network, reducing the number of usernames and passwords they need to remember and offering a single, trusted partner for managing their online identity,” Mr Patel said.

OpenID is an open, decentralised, free framework for user-centric digital identity, which eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites. OpenID is still in the adoption phase, but is becoming more popular as large organisations like AOL, Microsoft, Sun, Novell and others begin to accept and provide OpenIDs.

Today it is estimated that there are over 120 million OpenID-enabled URLs with nine thousand sites supporting OpenID logins.

“Today’s announcement by Yahoo supporting OpenID is the realisation of three years of hard work from this extremely passionate community of developers,” said Scott Kveton, chairman of the OpenID board of directors. “I have never met a more committed set of people focused on doing “the right thing” all the time.”

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Conroy postpones CDMA closure

TELSTRA will keep its CDMA mobile phone network operational for at least three months longer than its planned January 28 closure after the Rudd Government said it was unhappy with its replacement network.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said it was not yet possible to “declare equivalence” between the CDMA coverage and the Next G network that replaces it – a condition of allowing Telstra to shut down the ageing CDMA system.

“I have notified Telstra today that at this point in time I am not in a position to declare equivalence between the Next G network and the CDMA networks,” Senator Conroy said.

“Telstra will provide me with advice within two weeks on how they will address the issues that have been identified, and report to me on the rectification to enable me to reconsider this matter.

“Telstra have advised me that this can be done by 28 April. This seems reasonable.”

Senator Conroy said that a report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) had found that while the coverage footprint of the Next G network was the equivalent of the CDMA system, some Next G handsets did not provide equivalent coverage.

“I appreciate that Telstra has been very active in working with customers affected by this situation, including exchanging handsets in genuine cases where this is required to give them equivalent coverage,” Senator Conroy said.

“I have made it clear to Telstra that it should continue to do everything possible to ensure that customers are using the correct Next G equipment. This should include replacing handsets at no financial penalty in genuine cases.”

Telstra Country Wide Group Managing Director Geoff Booth accepted the decision to postpone the CDMA closure and welcomed Senator Conroy ruling that the Next G Network provided equivalent network coverage footprint to the outgoing CDMA network.

“We have been on a path to resolve customer issues by 28 January and we were confident we would meet our deadline,” Mr Booth said.

“The Minister has made a different assessment but we are very pleased that he has given us a clear goal for closure, a process to get there, and a clear message to CDMA customers that they need to move quickly.”

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Microsoft finds Excel security hole

SOME older versions of the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel spreadsheet can be exploited by hackers to take control of people’s computers, Microsoft has warned in an official security bulletin.

The company said it had only very recently become aware of the issue and said at this stage the risk to users was “limited” because the malicious code was not in wide circulation.

“At this time, we are aware only of targeted attacks that attempt to use this vulnerability,” the company said in a scheduled Security Advisory said.

The company has not decided whether to issue a patch for the vulnerability.

“Microsoft is investigating the public reports and customer impact. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft has continued to fill its most senior executive ranks with new blood from outside of the company announcing the appointment of a senior Disney executive as Microsoft chief information officer.

Tony Scott, who was a senior vice-president and CIO at Disney, will take charge of the Microsoft 4,000-person global information technology organisation that manages critical technology systems supporting the company’s worldwide sales, marketing and services efforts, as well as enterprise systems and applications for all corporate processes.

Mr Scott will officially assume the new role at Microsoft in February and report to Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner.

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Google throws money at world’s problems

GOOGLE corporate culture dictates that with adequate resources, human intellectual capacity is capable of overcoming seemingly impossible challenges.

The company this week expanded its philanthropic efforts by tipping more than US$29 million (A$33 million) in a series of core projects targeted at global problems like climate change, poverty, and energy renewables.

Through its philanthropic arm Google.org, the company announced five initiatives that use ICT to improve lives.

The resources come from a commitment by Google's founders to devote approximately 1 per cent of the company's equity plus 1 per cent of annual profits to philanthropy, as well as employee time. The result is that Google.org currently has assets valued at about US$2 billion.

The first initiative involves technology to help predict and prevent crises. This includes community-level software that helps leaders understand coming problems, like food or energy shortages.

The second program involves ICT as a foundation for improvement of public services – from education to utilities. The third project involves efforts to lower transaction costs for SMEs, something that will give small companies better access to larger financial markets.

The final programs involve the cross-Google initiative that has set a goal to develop one gigawatt of renewable energy that is cheaper than coal within years, not decades. The last is funding for a plug-in vehicle initiative.

“These five initiatives are our attempt to address some of the hard problems we as a world need to face in the coming decade,” said Google.org executive director Larry Brilliant.

“We have chosen them both because we think solving them will make a better, fairer, safer world for our children and grandchildren – and the children and grandchildren of people all over the world – but also because we feel that these core initiatives fit well with Google's core strengths, especially its innovative technologies and its talented engineers and other Googlers, who are really our most valuable assets,” Dr Brilliant said.

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NextG not up to scratch: Farmers

MORE than 70 per cent of farmers in New South Wales say the soon-to-be-closed CDMA mobile phone network is more reliable than the Next G services that replaces.

The NSW Farmers’ Association says a survey of its members found 71 per cent had concerns about the Next G service.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will next week decide whether to allow Telstra to switch off the CDMA network, which is used extensively in rural and regional Australia.

The CDMA network is scheduled to be turned off on January 28 – but only if government is satisfied that the Next G mobile coverage is the “equivalent or better” than the service it replaces.

Association president Jock Laurie said farmers still had concerns with aspects of the Next G network, including call drop outs, handset performance, car-kit reliance, poor and unreliable reception and Message Bank problems.

“The Association has passed on the survey results to the National Farmers’ Federation, who are in discussions with the Federal Government regarding farmers’ feedback on Next G,” Mr Laurie said.

“People in rural communities rely on their mobile phones as a safety mechanism to be able to call for help in the event of an emergency – so the network must be reliable,” Mr Laurie said.

“A common problem reported by Members was calls going straight to Message Bank despite the handset indicating there was a signal,” Mr Laurie said.

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Telstra puts legal squeeze on Conroy

IF the Rudd Government thought Telstra was going to take some of the heat out of its legal battle over the Coalition’s awarding of Commonwealth money to a competitor, it must be disappointed.

Telstra has confirmed it will continue legal action to force the disclosure of documents used by the Howard Government to justify the awarding of $958 million to the Optus/Elders (Opel) joint-venture to build broadband infrastructure in regional Australia.

The company has simply switched the focus of court action from former Communications Minister Helen Coonan – with whom the company had a poisonous relationship – to the new Minister, Stephen Conroy.

Telstra said yesterday it would write to Senator Conroy and ask him to cut short the court action by voluntarily releasing the documents that would explain how the decision to award the business to Opel was made.

The company said it would proceed with plans to appeal to the Federal Court a lower court decision that denied it access to the documents.

“Telstra first took this legal action based on the principle that governments should act transparently and be accountable when they spend taxpayers' money,” Telstra group managing director for public policy and communications Phil Burgess said in a statement.

“We also believe that Telstra shareholders, who are also taxpayers, deserve to know how a commercial rival was given such a large taxpayer-subsidised benefit despite the existence of a competitive market in mobiles.”

The move comes exactly seven months since he announcement by the then Government that it would fund the OPEL wireless broadband network for regional Australia.

“Seven months later OPEL has no management, no carrier license, no confirmed spectrum and no settled technology platform. It is, in every sense, a phantom network offering phantom services to phantom customers,” Dr Burgess said.

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Melb Uni cranks up ‘Super-Broadband’

THE University of Melbourne has participated in the construction of ground-breaking “super-broadband” research tool that is up to 250 times faster than today’s internet systems.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Victorian Premier John Brumby were among those who watched the first showing of the next generation ultra-resolution visualisation being carried over a super-broadband link between Melbourne Uni and the University of California San Diego (UCSD).

The demonstration was an initiative of the high-profile Australian American Leadership Dialogue (AALD).

The platform is set to revolutionise the way Australia interacts with the rest of the world, allowing real-time, interactive collaboration across the globe, and combining high-definition video and audio with the sharing of ultra-resolution visualisations.

In the last two months, the University of Melbourne has constructed a massive 96 million pixel ‘OptIPortal’ visualisation wall – known affectionately as the ‘OzIPortal’ – constructed from 24 x 30 inch LCD screens. (By comparison, a standard PC can show about 1-2 million pixels.)

Unique in Australia, the OptIPortal facility brings together two individual concepts – ultra-resolution visualisation walls and high definition video collaboration technologies creating a powerful new tool enabling collaborative research across great distances in real time with participants visually exploring massive data sets.

Bringing the OptIPortal and gigabit-per-second super-broadband networking together is the cutting-edge expertise of two of the world’s leading telecommunications research units – the University of Melbourne School of Engineering’s Centre for Ultra Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN) and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which is a partnership between UCSD/University of California Irvine.

“This technology is a powerful communication tool which will push new boundaries for higher education and research in Australia,” said Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis.

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Google targets Unis for AdWords

SEVEN Australian universities have signed up for a Google-sponsored online marketing program that uses AdWords to give students hand-on experience of e-marketing.

Student groups in the Google Online Marketing Challenge are given US$200 (A$220) to spend on Google AdWords advertising, and then work with a local business to devise effective online marketing campaigns.

The students outline a strategy, run the campaign, assess their results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing. They will have three weeks to mastermind the strategy and pit their marketing minds against thousands of students worldwide who are also taking part in the global program.

About 600 students from the seven Australian Universities are involved in the program.

“Online advertising is now an essential business requirement, yet, businesses tell us there are not enough people in the workforce with online advertising experience,” Google marketing manager Deepak Ramanathan said.

“Universities are ideal places for students to learn the practical skills needed in the workforce, so following demand from professors and students across the world we joined forces to develop this Online Marketing Challenge,” he said.

Participating universities from Australia include the University of New South Wales, Australian National University, Griffith, the University of Western Australia, the University of Western Sydney, Victoria University, and Edith Cowan Uni.

During the three-week period, the different student groups will have to submit two competition reports, one before they begin the Challenge and one after the campaign has ended. Entries will be judged by an international panel of professors and winners will be chosen based on the success of the campaigns and quality of the reports.

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Oracle acquires BEA, finally

ORACLE has taken another step in march toward domination of the business software market, acquiring BEA Systems after a lengthy struggle for US$8.5 billion (A$9.67 billion).

The deal brings to an end month of acrimony between the companies, after BEA had rebuffed earlier bids from Oracle. It also brings to more than US$35 billion the amount that Oracle has spent on acquisitions over the past three years.

The California-based Oracle has acquired in recent years PeopleSoft and Siebel among dozens of other smaller business software companies.

Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison said the addition of BEA products and technology would enhance and extend Oracle's Fusion middleware software suite.

“Oracle Fusion middleware has an open ‘hot-pluggable’ architecture that allows customers the option of coupling BEA's WebLogic Java Server to virtually all the components of the Fusion software suite,” Mr Ellison said.

“That's just one example of how customers can choose among Oracle and BEA middleware products, knowing that those products will gracefully interoperate and be supported for years to come,” he said.

Mr Ellison said its combination with BEA gave the company a leadership position “at every level of the software stack.”

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