Smart Office

Menu

Computer Daily News

Aussie IT Spending To Hit $80bn In 2016: Up Just 2.8pc

by

Total IT spending in Australia will reach almost A$80 billion in 2016, just a 2.8 percent increase from 2015, according to market research firm Gartner. The minor rise is being largely driven by digital business and the “connected world”, senior veep Peter Sondergaard yesterday told Gartner’s Symposium/ITXpo on the Gold Coast.

He predicted digital revenue Down Under would grow from 14pc now to 32pc of total revenue in the next five years, but said Australian organisations are not putting chief digital officers (CDOs) in place as fast as expected.

Sondergaard predicted worldwide spending on Internet of Things hardware will exceed US$2.5 million every minute in 2016. 

In five years, 1 million new devices will come online every hour, Sondergaard said.

These relationships are not driven solely by data, but algorithms, he stressed. “Data is inherently dumb. It doesn’t actually do anything unless you know how to use it; how to act with it,” Sondergaard said. “Algorithms are where the real value lies. Algorithms define action. Dynamic algorithms are the core of new customer interactions.”

He gave examples including an Amazon “recommendation” algorithm claimed to keep customers engaged and buying; and Netflix’s dynamic algorithm – built through crowdsourcing – said to keep people watching.

“The algorithmic economy will power the next great leap in machine-to-machine evolution,” Sondergaard said.

GM Focuses On Connectivity

by

General Motors is banking on a remote access smartphone app to be used more than 260 million times this year as more customers shift to start their cars or unlock the doors before they arrive at their vehicle.The carmaker’s RemoteLink can be downloaded onto smart

devices, giving users access to features on their car. It was introduced in

2010 and is now available almost all over the world.

“In a recent survey, the importance of owning a cellphone ranked just as

important as using deodorant every day,” said a possibly sweaty  Mike

Abelson, GM VP.

Juniper plunge gets reflected

NEW YORK –  A sharp decline in Juniper Networks shares, coming after the

company after cut its Q1 outlook, is offering investors hints of what to expect

from the company’s networking rivals, according to The Street.com

The network equipment maker said weaker demand and customer-timing shifts would

drag its Q1 revenue to US$1.09 -1.1 billion – below the original

forecast of $1.15 – 1.19 billion. Profit is also expected to be lower.

That saw the stock plunge 9pc on Tuesday as low as $22.62, before closing at

$23.06. It has fallen 17.8pc so far this year.

Juniper’s warning offers hints to the near-term performance of network

equipment makers including Viavi, F5 Networks and Cisco Systems, according to

Needham & Co. analyst Alex Henderson.

Comms Alliance Says No To Broadband Monitoring Plan

by

The Communications Alliance which represents telcos including Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, has rejected calls by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to implement a national broadband speed monitoring service before a cost-benefit analysis is conducted.

According to the alliance, the scheme could create expensive new burdens for the $40 billion-a-year sector.

Its announcement follows completion of a trial by ACCC in which some 90 Melbourne-based volunteers had their fixed-line broadband connections monitored for around three months.

The volunteers installed a hardware probe on their home broadband connection which monitored their download/upload speeds, Web browsing time, latency, packet loss and video streaming quality.

ACCC said that if the scheme was fully implemented across Australia it would help inform consumers about real-world broadband performance and help identify Internet providers who failed to deliver advertised broadband speeds.

But the Comms Alliance has said the program needs to be accurately costed before being implemented. 

Said alliance chief John Stanton: “The growing diversity of access technologies within the NBN multi-technology mix, the need to divide the results by region and the fact that there are more than 400 broadband service providers in Australia may add up to a very expensive solution – the cost of which will ultimately fall on taxpayers or Internet consumers.”

Reckon Takes A Tumble On ASX

by

Shares in Reckon slid more than 10 percent on the ASX yesterday after the Australian accounting software outfit posted a 14.1 per cent drop in annual profit to $15.1 million.

The drop came despite a 4.1 percent rise in revenue for the 12 months to December 31. The result also reflects an ongoing switch – now largely complete – to a subscription model. That saw a $2.6 million drop in revenue but is now providing a much more sustainable business management said.

Reckon competes with the much larger MYOB and Xero cloud-based accounting companies.

Its shares closed at $1.80 – 24 cents or 11.76 percent. Some 103.000 shares changed hands on the day. The price is – from about $2.50 in mid-January.

CBA Gadgets Turn iPhones Into Payment Terminals

by

The Commonwealth Bank has unveiled a new touchscreen point-of-sale payment platform dubbed Pi, and portable gadgets to make use of it, including one that transforms Apple iPhones or an iPod touch into a merchant terminal.

Dubbed Leo by the CBA, the gadget is a casing attaches to the Apple devices, and which includes an EMV chip reader, a magnetic stripe for reading and swiping credit cards, and provision for processing contactless near-field communication (NFC) payments.

A second terminal, dubbed Albert, is self-contained, with a 7-inch touchscreen, also able to process NFC payments as well as standard swiped credit card transactions.

Albert, manufactured by Wincor Nixdorf, will come with a range of Android applications designed by the CBA.

These include an app capable of splitting bills – for instance between diners in a restaurant.

Both terminals are portable and can thus be taken to the customer, rather than requiring the customer to queue at a checkout. Leo is expected to be available next month, but Albert is not expected to make its bow until early next year.

Google Garnishes Java Burger

by

Google lawyers have likened Java programming code they are accused of stealing to the equivalent of a hamburger. Oracle is suing Google over the use of the code called API, which it claims was stolen and used to build the Android operating system.But in their closing argument in the case, Google’s

lawyers said they merely took the equivalent of an everyday hamburger and

dressed it up with their garnishes.

Oracle disputes the claims, saying it’s Google’s lawyers that are garnishing

the facts.

Oracle is seeking US$9 billion in damages, which would make the case one of the

most important jury verdicts in US history. A trial in 2012 has already found

that Google infringed Oracle’s copyrights on the code. This trial will

determine if Oracle is entitled to damages.

NAB Backs ‘Uber-Like’ Medi-Plan

by

National Australia Bank has taken a stake in Medipass Solutions, an Australian start-up that claims to deliver an “Uber-like” system for practitioners, patients and insurers in the $59 billion healthcare booking and payments market.Amount of the NAB investment has not been revealed but

is said to give the bank a minority, non-controlling interest in Medipass.

It’s the second major start-up investment by NAB which has previously invested

in business management outfit Data Republic.

Medipass, formerly part of tech company Localz, is said to allow customers to

search different healthcare providers, get cost estimates, make an appointment,

pay and claim. It has a smartphone app and claims to be integrated with private

health funds’ own systems.

TPG In Fibre-to-Premises Push

by

SYDNEY – With the NBN rollout virtually on hold following Saturday’s election, David Teoh’s ASX-listed TPG Internet service provider operation is looking to offer 500,000 fibre-to-the-premises links in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth.In it annual report, published yesterday, TPG said it aims to increase the number of buildings connected to its fibre backhaul network by basement links in metro areas with download speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Users will pay $69.99 a month for “unlimited” downloads, plus a $129.99 setup fee, on a 24-month contract, TPG said. (TPG has run into trouble with some previous claims of “unlimited” downloads, which did indeed have some limits, though there’s no need to doubt it latest offer).
In the year to July 31, TPG says its fibre network grew by 800km and 300 buildings.  
The company reported a 64 percent jump in net profit to $149.16 million, with 76,000 new customers signing up in the last financial year. 
Revenue was up by 9 percent at $724 million. TPG now claims 671,000 broadband and 360,000 mobile subscribers.

MS Plan For Win10 Auto Upgrades Sparks Critic Uproar

by

With just eight days to go before the official July 29 launch of Windows 10, Microsoft is receiving a battering from critics who say the software end-user licence agreement (EULA) that will accompany it includes a feature that many users will hate.

The EULA shows that, once Windows 10 is installed on a PC or other device, Microsoft will automatically check the user’s system and download any system or app updates. There is no way to prevent or stop the updates.

While that has advantages for many users, critics say Windows 10’s forced automatic updates won’t simply cover security patches – they cover anything Microsoft wants to put on users’ PCs. This can range from new software and services to changes to core features and functionality.

In Australia, David Richards notes for Channel News that Win10 is “a massive upgrade that will chew up bandwidth and force upgrades on consumers whether or not they want them.”

“The big US company which wants to become a cloud based services company, charging consumers billions every year for programs and services that sit on top of the new free Windows OS, is also going to know everything about you after you have been forced to give them details such as name and e-mail address. 

“They will get your State and location from the ISP delivering broadband to your home by pinging the IP address that the new free upgrade is being delivered to .

“Windows 10 . will also suck up bandwidth, as it is downloaded to computers: the Windows Update system that will deliver big upgrades cannot be turned off.”

But he notes: “Professional and Enterprise versions of Windows 10 will be given more control over the installation of updates.”

In the USA, Microsoft has announced that some versions of Windows 10 will be available on USB flash drives. However the USB sticks won’t be available until the end of August.

Microsoft has yet to confirm how much the USB drives will cost, though it is taking pre-orders via Amazon.

Windows 10 will be a free update for existing Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users. Users of earlier versions and new users will have to pay, and will be able to choose between a digital download, DVD or USB delivery.

But everyone will be subject to the automatic updates.

$11bn Surprise Bag: NBN Still In Dark Over Telstra Copper

by

Would you spend $11 billion on something without knowing exactly what you were buying? NBN Co did, when it announced in December 2014 a “landmark deal” with Telstra under which it would “progressively take ownership of elements of Telstra’s copper and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) networks.”

NBN Co’s new corporate plan, released yesterday, reveals that the company has little information on the quality of Telstra’s copper and HFC networks, which will be crucial to its ability to deliver fibre-to-the-node and HFC broadband services, expected to account for, respectively, about 29 and 27 percent of the total. 

The corporate plan says: “A significant step change in performance will be needed if NBN is to fulfil its objectives in the timeframe and within the peak funding envelope . By the end of FY18 the organisation will need to . integrate and maintain legacy copper and HFC network assets from Telstra and Optus, of which the organisation has limited experience and limited information (eg, quality of Telstra’s copper network).”

Elsewhere the plan says: “The quality of this [copper] network is not fully known, as there has been limited opportunity to evaluate the physical infrastructure at significant scale. However, it is known that there is significant work required to remove broadband blockers from the copper network.” 

The organisation is under fire after revealing that has raised its peak funding forecast to $56 billion and, it says, “Revenue may . be adversely impacted if copper quality leads to service degradation.”

Shadow minister for communications, Jason Clare, was quick to condemn NBN Co’s latest cost estimates, saying: “The cost of the second-rate NBN started out at $29.5 billion in April 2013; it blew out to $41 billion in December 2013; increased again to $42 billion in August 2014 -and today it was announced that it will now cost up to $56 billion.”

However Comms Minister Malcolm Turnbull claims that the Coalition inherited a failed project when it took office in 2013. He told a briefing on the corporate plan: “Construction had stalled, if not stopped in many parts of the country. This has been a formidable turnaround story. 

“Bill Morrow and his team have done a remarkable job in getting this project on track.”

NBN Co’s latest results claim it has not only met but exceeded its FY15 targets. However, the ALP disagrees.

Jason Clare claimed that NBN Co had already missed a commitment to initiate large-scale FttN rollout in mid 2014. “Full access to copper [has been] delayed until June 26 2015 [and] the large-scale rollout of FTTN has still not started,” Clare said in a press release. 

NBN Co’s new corporate plan, released yesterday, says it will have 875,000 premises served by HFC networks by the end of FY17. Clare pointed out that NBN Co’s strategic review released in December 2013 had a target of 2.6 million premises accessible by HFC at the end of FY16.