Stories by David Watson

Auckland University CIO Office director Miles Fordyce has resigned to take up the post of Group Technology Manager at NZ Post, effective from late October.

SAP announced this morning that it is to acquire New Zealand 3D specialist Right Hemisphere. SAP already had a stake in Right Hemisphere, having invested in it via its venture capital arm, <a href="http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/2578DF170C6ED575CC2572BB001FBD62">SAP Ventures</a>, in 2007.

Gen-i has won a five-year, $26 million contract to provide ICT services to the New Zealand Racing Board, extending a relationship with Gen-i that already exists.

NZ Police is advertising for a CIO, having appointed former ICT manager Murray Mitchell as acting CIO until the newly-created position is filled.

Technical consultants, team leaders and software engineers recorded the greatest increases in pay expectations in contract recruitment specialist Crackerjacks&#8217; latest Professional Contracting Rates Guide.

The University of Auckland has appointed Elizabeth Coulter as IT services director.

The position of CIO at The Warehouse has been disestablished and Owen McCall, who held the role from 2003, left the company last week.

Hewlett Packard will commence construction of a $60 million, 500 sq m datacentre at Tuakau, in the Counties-Manukau region south of Auckland, &#8220;within the next two months&#8221;, HP enterprise services country manager Gavin Greaves says.

New Zealand-based security and network monitoring equipment vendor Endace is to bring its manufacturing operation back to New Zealand, after outsourcing it to Singapore in the early 2000s.
In a statement today, Endace announced that it has partnered with Christchurch-based GPC Electronics in a contract manufacturing deal.

The Bank of New Zealand says its Liquid Encryption Number (LEN) technology for preventing credit card fraud has been a success since it was first trialled on a limited basis in 2008, with the rate of fraudulent transactions from cloned credit cards in New Zealand down by 50 per cent. It is now in place in all BNZ credit and debit cards.
The technology works by changing numbers on cards&#8217; magnetic strips every time a transaction takes place, or an account balance is requested at an ATM.

Renaissance managing director Paul Johnston has resigned following the company&#8217;s downgrading of its guidance for its full-year profit.
On Wednesday, Renaissance announced that it had revised its guidance for the full-year result from a projected $1.7-$2 million to $700,000.

Steve Martin, professional and technical director at Kelly Services, says signs of a recovery in employment in the short term are limited, but that &#8220;we&#8217;re beginning to see some emerging developments that may point to increased activity in the final quarter of this year, with stronger growth in 2010&#8221;.
The developments are particularly evident in the telecommunications sector, Martin says, where &#8220;a growing number of projects have resulted in an increase in recruitment needs for a variety of roles, from helpdesk support to business analysts&#8221;.

Graeme Osborne, the Accident Compensation Corporation's general manager of information management, will leave the corporation in September.
ACC's chief executive, Dr Jan White, today confirmed rumours of Osborne's departure, saying he resigned from his role and is &quot;completing a normal notice period which sees him finishing with ACC in mid-September&quot;.

Here's a gamble: pick a letter of the alphabet between A and G (inclusive). Now be prepared to bet a lot of money that your choice represents an enduring technology direction.
That's something of the challenge facing organizations contemplating wireless networking rollouts in the next 18 months. Do you sink your money into equipment enabled to run on the emerging 802.11a and 802.11g Wi-Fi standards, or look for new and improved services being offered over conventional cellular networks (in the expectation that those services, some of which remain expensive, will become cheaper)?