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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Apple steers iTunes to movie rentals

APPLE hopes the spectacular success of its iTunes music business can be replicated in the online movie rental market, using MacWorld to announce distribution agreements with all of the major Hollywood studios.

Users in the US will be able to rent movies from US$2.99 (A$3.40) and watch them on Macs or PCs, Apple TV or even iPod and iPhone devices.

The service features rentals from 20th Century Fox, Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios, Sony Pictures, MGM, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema.

The iTunes Movie Rentals service requires a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase. iTunes Movie Rentals are available in the US only and are US$2.99 for library titles and US$3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are priced just one dollar more with library titles at US$3.99 and new releases at US$4.99.

Apple says it will offer more than 1,000 titles by the end of February.

The announcement has long been anticipated, but it still had an impact on the share price of rental competitors. Share in US rental giant Blockbuster plunged 17 per cent after Apple chief executive Steve Jobs outlined the plan in a speech to Macworld.

“iTunes Movie Rentals instantly brings great movies from all the major studios directly to your iPod, iPhone, TV or computer – without having to drive to the video store or wait for DVDs to arrive in the mail,” Mr Jobs said.

iTunes’ legendary ease of use, et cetera et cetera.

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CD slump, EMI chops 2,000 jobs

THE UK-based music label EMI has announced a massive restructuring, with plans to sack 1,500 to 2,000 staff as the company tries to come to grips with the digital economy.

EMI Group chairman Guy Hands said the changes were a fundamental reshaping of the company’s Recorded Music division to reflect the changing nature of the industry.

The company is struggling in an industry where global sales of recorded music have fallen 20 per cent since 2000.

And though the company says it will put in place a plan to open new revenue streams like enhanced digital services. It also wants to improve its relationship with artists, based on transparency and trust.

But Mr Hands has been accused by one of its biggest selling artists, Robbie Williams – who has sold more than 70 million albums – of behaving like a “plantation owner”. Williams says he is “on strike” over the way he says the company treats artists.

The restructuring involves a lot of consolidation and old-fashioned cost-cutting. It would let the group “capture significant efficiencies.” The company will fire between 1,500 and 2,000 staff.

“We have spent a long time looking intensely at EMI and the problems faced by its Recorded Music division which, like the rest of the music industry, has been struggling to respond to the challenges posed by a digital environment, Mr Hands said.

We believe we have devised a new revolutionary structure for the group etc etc blah blah, he said.

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Pipe confirms new submarine fibre

BRISBANE-based telco Pipe Networks has confirmed it will proceed with a $200 million investment in a new fibre-optic submarine cable link between Sydney and the Pacific communications hub of Guam.

Called PP-1, the cable will include a spur connecting Madang in Papua New Guinea. The cable represents a significant boost to Australia’s international broadband capacity, as the main trunk of PPC-1 will be a 2-pair fibre cable capable of delivering 1.92 Terabits of data per second.

Pipe Networks managing director Bevan Slattery told the 2008 Pacific Telecommunications Council conference in Hawaii that the project was a significant expansion of the company’s core business as an independent network infrastructure builder, owner and operator.

Foundation customers who can be identified at this time include VSNL, Telikom PNG, iiNet, Internode and Primus. Other domestic and international customer contracts and counterparties cannot be disclosed due to confidentiality restrictions.

“Foundation customers of PPC-1 are the real champions of competition. These customers are leading the drive for change. They wanted a change from the same old overpriced bandwidth product available for the past 8 years,” Mr Slattery said.

“All Australians will benefit from their vision and belief that the days of paying too much money for too little bandwidth had to end,” he said.

iiNet CEO Michael Malone said the bottleneck in internet access in this country has been in the international links, not in the access network.

“This project signals the first entirely new cable delivered to Australia in eight years and will deliver more capacity for bandwidth-starved Australians,” Mr Malone said.

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EU opens new Microsoft probe

ANTITRUST regulators in the US have Microsoft in their sights again, opening two new investigations over alleged infringements of competition rules.

One complaint relates to interoperability issues, with a European standards committee saying Microsoft does not adequately disclose interoperability information on a wide range of products ranging from its Office suite to its .NET framework.

In a statement, the European Commission said that in its Microsoft judgment of September last year, the Court of First Instance had confirmed principle that must be respected by dominant companies as regards interoperability disclosures.

The complaint by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems says Microsoft is alleged to have illegally refused to disclose interoperability information.

The Commission's investigation will focus on Office, .NET and other product areas, and will include an investigation of whether Microsoft's new file format Office Open XML, as implemented in Office, is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products.

The second area where proceedings have been opened is in tying of separate software products following a complaint by the open source browser, Opera. Microsoft is alleged to have engaged in illegal tying of its Internet Explorer product to its dominant Windows operating system.

The complaint alleges that there is ongoing competitive harm from Microsoft's practices, in particular in view of new proprietary technologies that Microsoft has allegedly introduced in its browser that would reduce compatibility with open internet standards, and therefore hinder competition.

Microsoft said it would cooperate fully with the investigation. “We are committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and our obligations as established by the European Court of First Instance in its September 2007 ruling,” the company said in a statement.

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Sustainability key to ICT future: AIIA

INDUSTRY sustainability issues related to ICT skills must become a central focus in 2008 if Australia is to keep a healthy technology sector, according to the peak industry lobby, Australian Information Industry Association.

AIIA chief executive Sheryle Moon said that while environmental sustainability was the focus of media attention – and an important touchstone for the industry – technology needed to look at a broader concept of sustainability.

There were clear threats to the sustainability of the ICT industry, most of which were driven by three factors: falling ICT student enrolments, an increasingly competitive labor market, and the imminent retirement of the baby boomer generation, Ms Moon said.

While the reduction of ‘power in and carbon out’ is the focus of world media, the ICT industry needs to think more laterally about sustainability to remain economically viable and intellectually relevant, she said.

“Traditional ideas about sustainability are becoming too limiting as ICT enters a business era that is being slowly depleted by an industry brain-drain,” Ms Moon said.

“Retaining skills must become an integral part of the way that we think about environmental design in ICT, alongside all the things that we usually think of when we consider sustainable industry practice.”

“Foremost as an industry, ICT will need to address the health of our workplaces to attract and retain the skills that are needed in the future.”

Job stress and poor management practices have become all too common in modern business. These issues are strong drivers of absenteeism and significant factors in high staff turnover, she said. The ICT industry cannot afford this.

“Designing healthier workplaces will mean a return to the age-old management principles of establishing trust, communicating a clear vision, and setting goals and objectives that align with both corporate and individual values,” Ms Moon said.

“We cannot afford to sit idly by while problems that we have long been aware of eat into our most valuable resource, the skilled workforce. 2008 must become the year of the sustainable workplace,” Ms Moon concluded.

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NY investigates Intel sales practice

NEW York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has launched an instigation of chip-maker Intel amid concerns the company had violated anti-trust laws by coercing customers to exclude its rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Cuomo served Intel with a wide-ranging subpoena seeking documents and information on the company and its relationship with some customers.

“Our investigation is focused on determining whether Intel has improperly used monopoly power to exclude competitors or stifle innovation,” Mr Cuomo said. “We will also look at whether Intel abused its power to remove competitive threats or harm competition in violation of New York and federal antitrust laws.”

Similar antitrust allegations have been examined by authorities in Europe and Asia and resulted in formal actions, including a cease and desist order, against Intel.

The subpoena served on Intel seeks documents and information concerning Intel’s pricing practices and possible attempt to exclude competitors through its market domination. Specifically it seeks to find whether Intel penalised customers for making purchases from a competitor, or if it made improper payments to customers to keep them from buying a competitors product.

AMD’s executive vice-president for legal affairs Tom McCoy welcomed the investigation.

“New York State’s decision, based on its findings to date, to open a formal investigation of Intel’s anticompetitive business practices is good news for computer buyers in NY and throughout the United States,” Mr McCoy said.

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Carr moves on Research Council

ONE of the nation’s best known ICT industry research executives Professor Arun Sharma has been appointed to the Australian Research Council’s new advisory body as government moves to give researchers greater independence.

Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr said the appointment of the ARC advisory council was the first stage of Federal Labor’s election promise to restore independence to the Australian Research Council.

Prof Sharma is deputy Vice-Chancellor for research and commercialisation at the Queensland University of Technology and has played a leadership role in ICT research and development in Australia.

Prof Sharma was involved in the founding of National ICT Australia (NICTA) and was the inaugural director at the NICTA Sydney research laboratory. Prior to that, he had been head of the prestigious School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of NSW>

He was also involved in the founding of the Cooperative Research Centre for Smart Internet Technology and has been on the ICT Sector Advisory Committee of the CSIRO.

Senator said the appointment of the advisory committee would improve the independence of research in Australia. The committee is so far comprised of six appointees from a variety of disciplines from ICT, pharmaceuticals, physics and the humanities.

“Research is not a political plaything to be toyed with at the whim of the Government,” Senator Carr said.

“Research is a matter of vital national importance, the outcomes of which have a significant impact on Australia’s ongoing prosperity and standing in the world,” he said.

“It is our responsibility to seek and respect the views of those individuals most able to provide valuable insight into the issues faced by researchers and shape an environment that will deliver the best possible results for all Australians.”

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Microsoft’s Raikes to retire

Microsoft Business Division chief Jeff Raikes, a member of the company’s three-man Senior Leadership Team, is to retire from Microsoft after a nine month transition that began this week.

Along with Microsoft chairman and chief technology officer Bill Gates and chief executive Steve Ballmer, Mr Raikes was responsible for developing and guiding Microsoft’s cire business strategy.

The company said it had hired Juniper Networks former chief operating officer Stephen Elop to take over at Microsoft Business Division president, starting at the end of January.

Mr Elop will assume responsibility for the Information Worker, Microsoft Business Solutions and Unified Communications businesses – all previously run by Raikes.

The Server and Tools business will continue to be run by senior vice-president Bob Muglia, but instead of reporting through Raikes will report directly to Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft said Raikes would continue to serve for the next nine months on the Senior Leadership Team to ensure a smooth transition of responsibility.

The appointment of Mr Elop does not represent some kind of generational change. He is 44 compared to Mr Raikes’ 49. But the appointment is a huge step for Microsoft, and represents a fresh set of eyes – and ideas – and the most senior level of management.

While at Juniper Networks, a leading provider of high-performance network infrastructure and a valued Microsoft partner, Mr Elop was responsible for all the company’s product groups, corporate development, global sales and service, and marketing and manufacturing organisations.

Before Juniper, Mr Elop, served as president of worldwide field operations at Adobe Systems, where he was responsible for Adobe’s global sales organisation and all customer-facing functions. He joined Adobe following the 2005 acquisition of Macromedia, where he was president and chief executive.

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OLPC spin-off seeks US$75 laptop

THE former chief technology officer of the One Laptop Per Child project has set up a spin-off company that aims to produce a laptop for just US$75 (A$84).

Mary Lou Jepsen was the founding CTO of the OLPC project. She has set up a company called Pixel Qi, which is pursuing the $75 laptop, while also aiming to bring sunlight readable, low-cost and low-power screens into mainstream laptops, cellphones and digital cameras.

Pixel Qi is currently pursuing the $75 laptop, while also aiming to bring sunlight readable, low-cost and low-power screens into mainstream laptops, cellphones and digital cameras.

Spinning out from OLPC enables the development of a new machine beyond the XO (the OLPC framework), while leveraging a larger commercial market for new technologies, beyond just OLPC. Pixel Qi believes prices for next-generation hardware can be brought down by allowing multiple uses of the key technology advances.

Pixel Qi said it plans to sell OLPC its products at cost, while also selling the sub-systems and devices at a profit for commercial use.

“I believe that looking at computers in a new, holistic, systemic way, with a clean-sheet approach to computer design - rather than incrementally increasing the horsepower of the CPU - is critical to bringing computing and Internet access to more than the 1 billion affluent who now are its beneficiaries,” Ms Jepsen said on her web site.

“The key is a new generation of low-cost, low power, durable, networked computers, leveraging open-design principles,” she said.

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New Laser blows away plasma, LCD

ARGUMENTS about whether gigantic LCD television screens deliver better picture quality than gigantic plasma TV screens may soon be consigned to the history of irrelevance.

Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America has debuted a new laser television category at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, unveiling a large-format LaserTV that delivers as much as twice the color of current high-definition televisions.

The LaserTV category represents a big milestone in Mitsubishi's bid to lead the large-format, high-definition television space.

The company has a rich history in the market, having introduced large-format and high-definition television innovations in the big screen category from its 1978 introduction of the world's first 50-inch rear projection TV, to the first 35-inch color TV, and more recently the first 1080p DLP HDTV.

Mitsubishi said it had harnessed its leadership in precision laser technology to produce laser-powered television, delivering a colour range not seen in home entertainment before.

Current generation HDTVs display less than 40 per cent of the color spectrum that the eye can see. Laser technology produces twice that range, the company said. Laser beams are ale to provide the widest range of rich, complex colors, along with the most clarity and depth of field.

“Mitsubishi has delivered significant technology innovations in the large-format television arena, and the debut of LaserTV further strengthens our position and track record for HDTV leadership,” Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America marketing vice-president Frank DeMartin said at the unveiling.

“LaserTV technology creates a portal to an intensely real and vivid world – beyond ordinary flat TV. It's a true dimension experience,” Mr Martin said.

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Kapor to leave open source group

THE US-based Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) has announced a major funding restructure and revealed that its founder and primary financial contributor Mitchell Kapor plans to leave the organisation.

Mr Kapor, who was the founder of PC software pioneer Lotus Development, will step down from the OSAF board later this year. The organisation will also cut its paid staff numbers from its present 27 to just ten full-time employees.

OSAF chief executive Katie Capps Parlente – who will take Mr Kapor’s seat on the board – said the organisation was at a crossroads following the release of its Chandler group collaboration software.

“The next phase of the project is about growing the user base, building the community, and diversifying our funding sources,” Ms Capps Parlente said on a blog.

“OSAF has been primarily funded by one person up to this point, Mitch Kapor. Our goal going forward is to modify our organisation and our funding model to grow into a publicly supported community project, not propelled by one individual,” she said.

“I will be leading the next phase of the project, and Mitch will be winding down his role on the project. Mitch will provide transitional financial assistance to support the organisation through 2008.”

Chandler is an open source, standards-based calendar and task manager built around small group collaboration and a core set of information management workflows modeled on Inbox usage patterns.

Users manage and share calendars, tasks, messages, and notes with the Chandler Desktop application and with the Chandler Hub web application.

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Farmers call to action on CDMA

THE National Farmers Federation has made an urgent call to its members for feedback on coverage in the bush of Telstra’s new 3G network – and stands ready to fight the CDMA closure if coverage proves patchy.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will make a decision by January 21 on whether to allow Telstra to close its CDMA network – which is used predominantly in rural and regional areas.

Telstra wants to shut the network down on January 28. But Telstra’s licensing conditions state that the company must continue to operate the CDMA network until its 3G coverage is “equivalent or better” that CDMA.

Senator Conroy this week received a report on Telstra 3G network coverage from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). He says he still wants to hear feedback from users before making the decision.

The issue is shaping to be the first big test of Senator Conroy since the election. On the one hand, Telstra is applying pressure to be allowed to switch off CDMA because it will save the company millions.

On the other, the NFF – and people in regional areas generally – are wary of the switch, and are already annoyed that the consultation process has been hampered by a lack of 3G network hardware.

As late as last month, the NFF was lobbying Government to force Telstra to keep the CDMA network operational. It is a conducting a new survey of its membership to see things had improved.

“Realistically, farmers haven’t had much time to get, and test, the new hardware to know whether 3G is up to scratch – especially with the Christmas period and other priorities... i.e. for those farmers able to get a crop during the current drought, they’ve been busy harvesting,” the NFF said in a statement.

“We are now re-surveying farmers – through our member organisations – to assess not only 3G coverage, but the service, given the new hardware is now available.”

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IBM re-uses scrap silicon for solar panels

COMPUTING giant IBM has unveiled a new semiconductor reclamation process pioneered at one of its US silicon fabrication facilities that lets the company re-use waste silicon wafers to manufacture solar panels.

The company says it has created a “specialised pattern removal technique” to erase the etchings on a silicon wafer in such a way that the wafer can be used to then manufacture silicon-based solar panels.

The semiconductor wafers are thin discs silicon material used to imprint patterns that ultimately become semiconductor chips for computers, mobile phones, video games and other consumer electronics.

The new process has already been awarded the 2007 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award from The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR).

Previously, waste silicon wafers would be crushed and disposed of as landfill material.

IBM said it intends to provide details of the new process to the broader semiconductor manufacturing industry. The process is currently in use the Burlington Vermont facility and in the process of being implemented at IBM's East Fishkill semiconductor fabrication plant in New York.

“One of the challenges facing the solar industry is a severe shortage of silicon, which threatens to stall its rapid growth,” said Charles Bai, chief financial officer of ReneSola, one of China's fastest growing solar energy companies.

“This is why we have turned to reclaimed silicon materials sourced primarily from the semiconductor industry to supply the raw material our company needs to manufacture solar panels,” Mr Bai said.

IBM says that Semiconductor Industry Association research put the number of silicon wafers started every day worldwide at 250,000. Of these, about 3.3 per cent are scrapped – meaning that over a year about three million wafers are simply discarded.

Because the wafers contain intellectual property, most of these cannot be sent to outside vendors to reclaim, and are instead crushed and send to landfills, or melted down and resold.

"IBM’s commitment to environmental conservation spans its business, from the re-purposing of materials used in semiconductor manufacturing to enabling customers to manage, measure, and run the most power efficient datacenters on the planet,” IBM Semiconductor Solutions general manager Mike Cadigan said.

“The engineering ingenuity that IBM has demonstrated in pioneering the wafer-to-solar panel program has generated countless other conservation initiatives in our manufacturing operations,” Mr Cadigan said.

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