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Opposition Swells As Decision-Day Nears For TPG-iiNet Merger

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CANBERRA – Investors and telecommunications industry concerns should learn tomorrow if TPG Telecom’s $1.56 billion offer to buy ISP iiNet will get the go-ahead. Commissioners of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission met yesterday to consider the matter, and the ACCC is expected to deliver their findings tomorrow.TPG’s scheme of arrangement was overwhelmingly

accepted by iiNet shareholders three weeks ago, but the proposed deal must

clear the ACCC before going before the Federal Court for final approval.

If approved, the merged group would score an estimated 27 percent of

Australia’s fixed broadband market, making it the No.2 operator behind Telstra

on 41 percent and ahead of Optus at 14 percent.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims was giving nothing away yesterday but he did say the

majority of submissions on the deal had been against it.

Many iiNet users and rivals telcos have opposed the merger,

citing competition concerns and fears about service quality, though TPG’s David

Teoh has promised to maintain high levels of customer service.

More than 100 submissions were made in the first wave of public comments. The

ACCC then raised competition concerns and opened a second round of

consultations – most of which opposed the merger.

New Govt. Bill To End Secrecy On Big Data Breaches

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Many Australian companies are failing to report ransomware – which locks users out of their computers until they pay a fee – and instead perpetuate the practice by coughing up the cash, according to financial services firm Deloitte.

“I’m amazed at how many Australian businesses pay the money … certainly some super funds, insurers and corporates pay the money because it’s just easier to pay a few hundred dollars – and then they wonder why six weeks later they get hit again,” Deloitte’s James Nunn-Price told reporters yesterday.

Nunn-Smith said many companies only report the issue to police when the amounts involved escalate dramatically.

CERT Australia, the national computer emergency response team and a partner agency in the Canberra-based Australian Cyber Security Centre, says it responded to 11,733 cybercrime incidents in 2014-15.

However failure to report cybercrime and data breaches may soon no longer be an option for the bigger companies and agencies in Australia, with Federal Parliament due to debate a government bill in coming months that – if passed – would make notifications compulsory for companies with an annual turnover of more than $3 million.

The draft Privacy Amendment (Notification of Serious Data Breaches) Bill 2015 will also apply to any company currently subject to the Privacy Act. Small businesses at this stage are exempt.

The bill, if passed, will require notifications to be sent to all individuals whose personal information may have been exposed in a data breach.

At present, the Privacy Act 1988 requires government agencies and businesses subject to the Act to take “reasonable steps” to secure personal information they hold, but does not mandate notification following a breach.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) administers a voluntary data breach notification scheme. It received 110 such notifications in 2014.

Interested parties can examine the new draft Privacy Amendment bill and, if interested, make a submission, preferably by e-mail, by March 4. A 10-page discussion paper is available at the Attorney-General’s Department Web site.

Lenovo Mulls Classic ThinkPad

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Lenovo is floating plans for an updated version of the original IBM ThinkPad. The iconic notebook and forerunner of the modern ultrabook is now in the hands of the Chinese company after IBM sold its laptop division in 2005.

The ThinkPad is the X300, a much loved model, complete with multi-coloured ThinkPad logo and the rough “nubbin” trackpad.

Lenovo’s VP of corporate identity and design David Hill said the market for retro styling is big enough to warrant manufacture.

“Think of it like stepping into a time machine and landing in 1992, but armed with today’s technology,” he said. “Although not for everyone, I’m certain there’s a group of people who would stand in line to purchase such a special ThinkPad model.”

Online Clothing Sales Take Off

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More than half of the $2.4 billion that Australians spent buying clothing online last year went to locally based retailers to a new Roy Morgan Research report.Morgan says Australians spent an estimated total of

$2.4 billion on men’s and women’s clothing online in 2015. Of that, $1.36

billion, or 56 percent, went to Australian-based sites (whether online-only

stores or the Web-stores of traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers) and $1.05

billion, or 44 percent, went overseas.

Overall, Morgan says Australians spent $1579 million in 2015 on women’s clothes

online – $961million on women’s wear via local sources and $439 million via

overseas online retailers.

But in menswear it was a different story: Aussie shoppers spent $835 million

online for male gear, $504 million, or 60pc in overseas markets and only 40pc

locally.

Says Morgan CEO Michele Levine: “All this suggests that Australian men’s

clothing retailers need to catch up to the women’s. It may be that the pricing,

quality, range and brands available on local menswear sites are simply not up

to scratch in the new international marketplace, especially among

fashion-conscious, tech-savvy and cashed-up consumers.” Are you listening,

Lowes . ?

Google, MS Call Patent Truce

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SAN FRANCISCO – Google and Microsoft have ended their long standing stoush over patents, involving about 20 lawsuits in the US and Germany.The companies have been at odds since Microsoft claimed in 2010 that Google had incorporated its technology into Android without paying royalties. Google’s former Motorola Mobility unit meanwhile had been demanding royalties on Microsoft’s Xbox video-gaming system.

The agreement to be allies only goes so far. Google is pushing new products to compete with Microsoft, including a tablet for business customers to compete with Microsoft’s Surface Pro. Microsoft’s Bing search engine still strives to get a bigger market share from Google, the world’s largest Internet search service.

The companies pledged in a statement to work together in other ways related to intellectual property, including development of a royalty-free, video-compression technology to speed downloads, in an initiative that also involves Amazon.com and Netflix. They will also lobby for specific rules on a unified patent system throughout Europe.

Dell To Use VMware To Clinch Deal

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Dell is reportedly planning to use shares in cloud software company VMware to help pay for its acquisition of EMC in a deal that would value the combined companies at around US$55 billion

The bulk of Dell’s offer will be in cash but it also plans to pay EMC shareholders with “tracking stock” that follows the value of the 20 percent of VMware that EMC does not own.

Depending on how the finance negotiations turn out, a final deal could be announced as early as this week.

Dell’s acquisition of EMC would strengthen its presence in the corporate sector, pitching it squarely against Dell’s main rival, Hewlett-Packard.

Dell went private in 2013 in a deal worth US$25 billion, less than half EMC’s current market capitalisation.

New Microsoft Surface Tab Seen As PC Replacement

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Many CIOs are hoping Microsoft’s new Surface tablet, which was unveiled in Los Angeles this week, will be a hit with consumers. In the current BYOD era that would allow them to pretty much standardise on Windows 8 support across the board, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The consumer appeal of new mobile devices such as Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Android-based Galaxy Tab has caused an upheaval in how people work, and how IT departments are organised to support those employees, the Journal says.

The WSJ quotes Tracey Rothenberger, CIO at Ricoh Americas, as rooting for Microsoft to succeed, because he’s still managing mobile apps built on Windows technology that would be easier to port to a Windows device. “The porting costs are what’s big,” he told CIO Journal.

Rothenberger said he would also consider using Surface tablets as an alternative to laptops or desktops. “If I could take $800 away from the [cost of a] laptop and spend that on a Windows tablet that is almost as capable, now we’re really getting to the point where the tablet can replace the PC,” he said.


 

Oz IT Spending To Hit $78bn – US Dollar A Drag On World Spend

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SYDNEY – Australian IT spending is forecast to reach almost A$78.1 billion in 2015, an increase of 2.1 percent from 2014, according to estimates from market research firm Gartner.The figure is at odds with a separate and more

conservative estimate published this week by the Australian Bureau of

Statistics (CDN, yesterday).

ABS put the total spending on IT, telecoms and media – a significantly bigger field

– at $72.98 billion, about $5 billion less than Gartner claims for IT spending

alone.

Gartner says IT services is the largest spending category at $28.8 billion,

while software is the fasting growing area of spending, expected to grow 9.8

percent in 2015 to reach almost $9.4 billion.

The figures come from Gartner’s latest quarterly Worldwide IT Spending Forecast

which it describes as “a pulse-check on the health of the hardware,

software, IT services and telecom markets worldwide”.

It says Asia-Pacific IT spending will total US$743 billion in 2015, an increase

of 0.7 percent from 2014. However, in constant-currency terms, the market is

projected to grow 4.5 percent in 2015, Gartner says.

The growth in Australia’s IT spending compares with a 5.5 percent decline in

worldwide spending, which Garter estimates will total $3.5 trillion. Blame for

the decline is put on the rising US dollar value.

In constant-currency terms, however, the global market is projected to grow 2.5

percent. Gartner’s previous forecast in April, predicted global IT spending to

decline 1.3 percent in US dollars and grow 3.1 percent in constant currency.

Communications services will continue to be the largest global IT spending

segment in 2015, with spending at nearly $1.5 trillion, Gartner says.

Telstra Offers Dial-A-Doc Service

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SYDNEY – Telstra Health has launched ReadyCare, a GP telemedicine service that offers access to a doctor using a phone or video to receive advice, treatment, diagnosis and prescriptions.Telstra said the service will make accessing a doctor

easier, especially at times when people may not be able to visit their regular

GP such as after hours, on weekends or while travelling.

It can be accessed by calling 1800 READYCARE (1800 732392) or through the

ReadyCare app.

The service has already signed up a number of registered Australian doctors who

will operate the service 24 hours a day. It operates from a purpose-built

telemedicine centre in the Sydney industrial suburb of Alexandria.

Patients who ring will be connected to an assistant to determine whether their

case is suitable for telemedicine consultation, before booking them in for an

appointment. A GP will then call the patient back, hopefully at the arranged

time. Callers will pay $69 plus GST and presumably get the usual Medicare

rebate of a bit under half.

Stuff Flies As Malcolm Turnbull, Others Tangle With MyRepublic

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Comms Minister Malcolm Turnbull has fired back at Singapore-based newcomer to the Australian market MyRepublic, whose visiting CEO Malcolm Rodriguez this week criticised the NBN as a “sh**t” network.

That, he said, was due to the Abbott Government’s move to a “multi-technology mix” (MTM), rather than the all fibre-to-premise system employed in Singapore.

Turnbull gave Rodriguez full credit for entering the Aussie market and seeking to stimulate more demand for higher-end products. But he pointed out Singapore is a market utterly unlike Australia’s. “Passing each premises with superfast broadband costs a small fraction of what it costs in Australia,” he said.

And he added: “The NBN is hardly the only company in the world rolling out a multi-technology mix. In Germany, Deutsche Telekom has recently announced an expansion of its fibre-to-the-node network, to cover 80 per cent of its fixed line footprint by 2018, while there have also been mass deployments by BT Openreach in the UK, AT&T in the US, and many others.”

Our colleagues at Communications Day have been rather more scathing. Wrote founder Graeme Lynch yesterday: “The idea that MyRepublic could barge into Australia and profitably offer low-contention gigabit or even unlimited FttH-derived 100Mbps plans for under $50 or, for that matter, $80 under any style of NBN tech mix- ALP or Coalition-can only be described in one word. Bulls**t.”