Stories by Chris Jenkins

Airlines feel a downturn faster than most businesses and for Qantas, 2009 has already been a very tough year. Passenger numbers fell 2.7 per cent across the Qantas group in March compared with 2008.
The carrier announced in April that as a result of what it described as a "rapid and significant deterioration of trading conditions", it was revising down its full-year profit forecast from about A$500 million to somewhere between $100 million and $200 million.

How easily we forget. As the world tumbles headlong into the worst economic decline since the Second World War, earlier financial tumult has quickly faded from our memories.
The dotcom crash rates a mention because it provides a handy yardstick for how bad things are getting now, but other major market scares have been washed away by a growing tide of bad news from all parts of the globe.

Last year, there was plenty of conjecture about whether Barack Obama, who was then United States president-elect, would be allowed to keep his BlackBerry, a constant companion during the election campaign of 2008. Obama used the web as a powerful campaign medium and took full advantage of tools such as email.
He was clearly a fan, but there were worries in Washington about what might happen if someone intercepted presidential email that had been sent on the go. Around the world, the Obama-BlackBerry saga had corporate heads shaking - executives in shared frustration and technology professionals in appreciation of what was at stake.

Research group McKinsey & Company has published a new research skewering the popular notion that super-hyped cloud computing architecture is a money saver, reporting that moving to a third-party cloud computing service can be close to 150 per cent more expensive than running an in-house data centre.
McKinsey researchers reported that cloud computing suffered from having various definitions and was near the top of the "hype cycle" tracked by fellow research group Gartner.

Sun has accepted a revised, cut-price offer from IBM after promising to push through with an acquisition in the face of "intense regulatory scrunity", the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The newspaper first reported rumours of an approach by IBM to Sun last month. At the time, the deal was thought to be worth US$6 billion in cash, which would make it IBM's largest-ever acquisition.

Beverage group Coca-Cola Amatil is considering turning up the wick on
its $65 million business-wide information systems transformation to

The question that inevitably follows the emergence of a crisis in
banking and financial systems such as the current one is as simple as

A global restructure under way at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group has brought major changes to the way the company manages its information technology operations.
The changes have meant the appointment of new general managers within the bank's technology operations, with several more senior positions yet to be filled.

Alinta chief information officer Cathy Bibby arrived at the company just as it was finalising its first big acquisitions. For her, the scenario back in 2003 was pretty clear.
The company was undergoing its first major expansion, emerging from state ownership to become a player in the national energy market. Through a series of transactions, Alinta was to run about $4 billion worth of electricity and gas assets in Victoria and its home state of Western Australia, taking major ownership positions in United Energy and Multinet Gas.

Qantas is set to complete the introduction of Oracle financials across the group soon, a move that may finally allow the airline to see the back of its long-running eQ software project.
Qantas chief information officer Jamila Gordon confirmed that Oracle financials was now in production at both Jetstar and the Qantas group's regional airlines.

Australia and New Zealand Bank will decide whether to keep its branches running on conventional desktop PCs or switch to power-thrifty thin clients in the next few months.
"We are continuing to evaluate and pilot thin client and virtual desktop technology in a number of areas of the bank," a spokeswoman said.

After more than a year of negotiations, the Australian Defence Department has finally signed a $240 million contract with information technology services group Unisys.
Under the contract, Unisys will provide desktop support for 100,000 PCs at 460 bases around Australia. It will also provide network security and infrastructure support.

Who owns the computer? When a new employee starts, they invariably sign an IT usage policy, acknowledging that they are using a company-owned system and that it is for company purposes only.

The Qantas board has approved agreements for a new engineering and maintenance platform to replace the ill-fated, $40 million Jetsmart system.
The news comes as the carrier announced its technology and communication costs jumped $49 million in the first half of 2007-08.

The rest of the world's airlines pay licensing fees to global groups SITA and ARINC to use the ACARS standard network, which provides wireless data links between planes and ground crews.
But Jetstar last week revealed it was the first airline to have built its own system, saving money on licensing costs.