| July 23, 2010
Telstra trims down for tough times
Telstra shares received a boost during the week when news leaked out that the telco had retrenched 30 senior executives and was preparing to lay off about 300 middle managers. The moves appear to be part of an effort to streamline the company as it faces an uncertain future that will no longer include its traditional cash cow of fixed line services.
Under previous CEO Sol Trujillo, Telstra had reduced its workforce by about 12,000 to a total of around 43,000. www.telstra.com
* Mitel has negotiated a new contract with Telstra covering the provision of Mitel unified communications solutions to the telco's customers. Under the terms of the new agreement Telstra will be able to bundle Mitel products and offer them to customers via direct and indirect channel options. www.mitel.com
Nuance takes an Aussie flavour
Nuance, a US provider of speech and imaging solutions, has acquired Information Technologies Australia (iTa www.itaus.com.au/), which specialises in the provision of automated customer services. The investment will help Nuance meet customer demand for comprehensive contact centre solutions, claimed Peter Chidiac, managing director of Nuance Australia and New Zealand.
"As a result of the acquisition Nuance will increase its vertical industry reach and offer an expanded portfolio of systems integration capabilities, covering business consulting services, computer telephony integration products, and managed services. The business consulting team will help customers integrate the next generation of customer care technology."
Nick Buckle, CEO of iTa, and the company's executive team will move to Nuance. www.nuance.com
Mooter closes in on US listing
Australian digital media solutions provider Mooter Media has moved closer to a listing on the OTCQX International exchange by establishing its Level 1 American Depositary Receipt program.
Peter Jermyn, chairman of Mooter, said he planned to be in the US late this week to conclude the arrangements, complete agreements with the company's market makers and institutional investors, and work on several sponsor and media partnerships. www.mootermedia.com
Telcoinabox consolidates A/NZ ops
Telecommunications wholesaler and franchiser Telcoinabox has consolidated its Australia and NZ support operation in a new centre in Sydney. The new facility will be the base for the company's customer service, technical support, operations, billing, finance, and training, explained Damian Kay, group managing director of Telcoinabox. Business development, and product and account management functions will continue to be run from the respective country offices.
Kay added that the company intended to duplicate the new structure in its other overseas operations. www.telcoinabox.com
NTT makes waves with DiData bid
A slice of M&A activity that happened offshore but will have an impact in Australia came late last week when NTT made a cash offer for Dimension Data Holdings. The deal, which is valued at £2.1 billion (about $A3.65 billion), has been agreed to by the boards of both companies. "By leveraging the complementary strengths of both companies we are confident that we will provide end-to-end, global one-stop and high quality ICT services," claimed Satoshi Miura, president and CEO of NTT.
"NTT's network carrier capabilities and assets coupled with Dimension Data's global system integrator expertise create an incredibly powerful and unprecedented combination of capabilities and skills." added Jeremy Ord, executive chairman of Dimension Data.
Industry analysts anticipate some interesting repercussions from the deal. "This move could make other deep-pocketed telcos, such as T-Systems and Orange, sit up and act on some of their existing plans more proactively than they had originally planned," predicted Jens Butler of Ovum.
Spin capitalises on NBN trial
Spin, a NSW-based provider of premium telephone and Internet services, is making hay on its inclusion in Telstra's FTTP trial at Point Cook in Victoria. According to Spin it will offer services with theoretical maximum download speeds of 100M-bits/sec. "These are speeds we only dreamt about a couple of years ago. Now they are a reality," said Bill McArthur, marketing manager of Spin.
The company also hopes to make waves by offering phone bundles, and claiming to be the only service provider to do so. www.spin.net.au
Brisbane gears up for world gabfest
Some big names, including author Nicholas Carr, will descend on Brisbane in September for the 21st World Computer Congress, which is also expected to attract some 1500 delegates from about 66 countries. An event put on every two years by the International Federation for Information Processing, the congress combines content from commercial, industry, association, and research sectors to illustrate and discover innovative ideas. "It will showcase how technology and ICT professionals can shape our future," claimed Nick Tate, chairman of WCC. Details about the congress program, speaker line-up, and registration are at www.wcc2010.com
ManageNet builds on MobileIron
ManageNet, an Australian provider of managed hosting solutions, has used technology from US company MobileIron (www.mobileiron.com) to build what it claims is the first smartphone fleet management service offering.
"We know MobileIron's device management solution will deliver measurable results to businesses that need to secure and better manage their ever-growing fleet of smart phones," explained Denham Seneviratne, marketing manager of ManageNet. www.managenet.com.au
Jentla offers Joomla certification
Jentla, a Queensland-based company that offers solutions built on the Joomla open source platform, has launched a global software accreditation program for Joomla-based applications. "Accreditation to the Jentla Software Certification program provides developers and end-user organisations around the world with standardised product and service quality assurance," explained Damian Hickey, CEO of Jentla. www.jentla.com
Cisco backs NBN training courses
The University of NSW, with the backing of Cisco, is to teach telecommunications and systems engineers the skills required by the national broadband network and other emerging technologies. The post-graduate course in network systems architecture will enable engineers to deal with increasingly complex applications and business models, such as e‑commerce, data centres, and cloud computing, for which new systems-level architectures need to be developed, explained Professor Eliathamby Ambikairajah, head of UNSW's School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications. www.eet.unsw.edu.au/
* Vexpress has been appointed a distributor of the Contact Centre and Office products of Jabra, a GN Netcom brand. www.vexpress.com.au
* Synnex has been awarded Australian distribution rights to Clickfree's storage backup products. www.synnex.com.au
BEING GREEN
PUE ratings refined by Green Grid
The Power Usage Effectiveness metric for data centre efficiency has been refined and given substantial industry credence by a task force led by The Green Grid. The move represents a significant step in improving data centre energy efficiency, according to Dan Azevedo, a Symantec representative on the board of The Green Grid. "The guidance specific to calculating PUE for data centres that use multiple energy sources -- electric, natural gas, water, and so on -- is substantial to ensuring PUE is measured and reported equitably," Azevedo said.
The latest report on the subject provides guidance on how to calculate PUE from weighted energy types based on source energy, outlines four recommended measurement categories for PUE, and provides guidance for renewable energy sources, combined heat and power plants, and reuse of data centre energy. The report can be downloaded from www.thegreengrid.org
Google buys, onsells wind power
Google has pushed its credentials as a green energy company by agreeing to buy a large amount of electricity from a wind generator farm in Iowa even though Google will not be able to use the power in its own data centres. "We depend upon large quantities of electricity to power Google services and want to make large actions to support renewable energy," explained Urs Hoelzle, Google's senior vice president of operations, on a Google blog. "By contracting to purchase so much energy for so long, we're giving the developer of the wind farm financial certainty to build additional clean energy projects. The inability of renewable energy developers to obtain financing has been a significant inhibitor to the expansion of renewable energy."
The company will onsell the 114 megawatts of power through the regional spot market -- which it is able to do since being recognised as an energy trading company. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
Green IT thrust aids UC
A movement towards green IT is expected to prompt many companies to adopt unified communications and collaboration and will become a significant factor in the way vendors market such solutions, according to Frost & Sullivan.
"Businesses are beginning to respond to the impacts of climate change and increasing energy costs by taking action to reduce their greenhouse gas emission," noted Dorota Oviedo, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan. www.frost.com
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