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industry: news

Union push for IBM beachhead

15 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Mark Skulley

IBM Australia faces the possibility of legally protected industrial action at its high-security national operations centre in Sydney as some employees push for better pay and conditions that would give unions a beachhead at the IT giant.

Growth to continue, says ASG

14 Aug 2008 | MIS.Online | Chris Jenkins

Western Australia-based IT services group ASG has forecast big growth in earnings revenue and profit for 2008-09, as it announced a 28 per cent lift in net income for 2007-08.

Telstra to save $37m on non-union deals

15 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Mark Skulley

Telstra plans to roll out non-union workplace agreements across the company over the next 12 months to make business savings of up to $37 million over the coming three years, according to leaked company documents.

iTunes movies for Australia

14 Aug 2008 | MIS.Online | Chris Jenkins

Less than two months after it put TV shows on its local iTunes download service, Apple has announced it will offer movies for sale at up to $24.99 each, as well as 48-hour movie rentals starting at $3.99 a throw.

Unions urge haste over Telstra plan

14 Aug 2008 | MIS.Online | AAP

The federal government should move quickly to get its new industrial laws in place to stop companies like Telstra using Work Choices, the ACTU says.

ASX predicts tech spending lift

14 Aug 2008 | MIS.Online | Chris Jenkins

Markets operators the Australian Securities Exchange is predicting a lift in capital spending over the next two years as it continues to make major upgrades to its business and market supervision systems.

Telstra fails to find taker for Kaz

14 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Ben Woodhead

Telstra has abandoned plans to sell the Kaz computer outsourcing business it acquired for $333 million in 2004 and will instead attempt to integrate the unit more closely with its other services operations.

Norris reassures on cuts, offshoring

14 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Julian Bajkowski and Chris Jenkins

Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief executive Ralph Norris has talked down the chances of local job cuts or sending large chunks of the institution's technology work overseas.

Milestone missed but target stays

14 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | BEN WOODHEAD

Telstra yesterday confessed it had fallen well short of its mid-year goal of moving 5 million customers over to new billing systems that it is building as part of a multibillion-dollar information technology transformation.

Kaz sale called off

13 Aug 2008 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Telstra has given up on selling Kaz and instead will make the computer services business a fixture within its enterprise division.

High-end users dial up revenue

14 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | TRACY LEE

While Telstra's actual number of mobile phone subscribers rose by just 1.3 per cent to 9.34 million during the past financial year, its ability to increase its share of higher-spending customers helped lift total revenue for the division by 12.7 per cent to $6.38 billion.

Wireless drives earnings, market share

14 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | TRACY LEE

With more Australians "Facebooking" each other and downloading clips from video sites like YouTube, broadband use has exploded, helping Telstra chalk up an increase in total internet revenue of $2.5 billion for financial year 2008, a rise of 28.2 per cent.

Broadband delay costs GDP: chief

14 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | DAVID CROWE

The federal government's slow start on building a national broadband network has cost the economy $200 million a month, Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo claimed yesterday, in a sign of his growing frustration over lengthy delays to the network timetable.

BigPond hears the music

13 Aug 2008 | MIS.Online | AAP

Telstra's BigPond is stepping up its presence in the digital music business after signing a deal with all four major Australian record companies.

Telstra profit up 13.5pc

13 Aug 2008 | MIS.Online | AAP

Telstra has posted a 13.5 per cent rise in annual profit, after its broadband and mobile revenue lifted and the telco slowed declines in its traditional fixed line earnings.

ipernica says decision close on US patent

13 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Ben Woodhead

Listed intellectual property assertion firm ipernica has said a long-awaited US Patent and Trademark Office decision affecting a lengthy dispute with the world's second-largest software company, Oracle Corporation, should come by the end of the year. ipernica, in association with Melbourne-based software developer Financial Systems Technology has pursued Oracle over the alleged infringement of a number of FST's patents since 2004. ipernica's managing director, Graham Griffiths, said that the office was now close to a decision on the validity of the patent after Oracle's decision to lodge a claim of prior art.

Doctors back privacy moves on e-health

13 Aug 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Julian Bajkowski

Proposals to introduce uniform legislation across Australia that would govern the use of electronic health and medical records have received backing from clinicians and state health-care providers, smoothing the way for a national scheme to be approved by the Council of Australian Governments in October.