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News

• Has VMware lost its edge?

  It's always a sad day when the founders of a company leave. This sends quite a few mixed signals.

• High speed drama

  Each Grand Prix season from March to October sees more followers of the thrilling, high-pitched, bitumen-scorching car race which we all have come to know as simply F1.
  The cars that compete are nothing like the ordinary four-wheelers we use on our roads. Instead, they are squat vehicles with oversized tyres, stuffed with electronics and other high-tech features that can take up to 18 months to build, costing undisclosed millions of dollars.

• Fiat alive & kicking thanks in part to tech policy

  An IBM survey has found that CEOs feel that their companies are slow in responding to organisational challenges, including new ways to take advantage of technology.
  So what are CEOs doing about it? According to CIO: "Sixty-nine percent say they are making extensive changes to their company's business models. Many of these changes will capitalise on virtual technologies and real-time feedback."

• Showtime on fibre optics

  Growing availability of IP-based fibre-optic circuits has presented broadcasting giants such as CNBC, Bloomberg and CNN with more opportunities to beef up service resilience.
  In an industry where sending timely information to viewers is critical, CNBC recognised its need to further minimise service latency and downtime. Faced with highly demanding network requirements, the company turned to Macquarie Telecom for a scalable and robust solution.

• Beijing prepares for high-tech Olympics

  All over Beijing, Olympic countdown clocks tick off the seconds until Aug. 8, 2008, at 8:00 p.m., when the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games begin.
  But for China, the most important competition began in 2000, when Beijing was awarded the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Like firing a starter's pistol, the award began the race to build the IT infrastructure to stage and support one of the world's largest sporting events. Producing a "high-tech Olympics" was one of the Beijing Organizing Committee's (BOCOG) objectives. With a published operating budget of $2 billion, BOCOG estimates the technology portion of the budget at more than US$400 million.

• The multitask at hand

  Envious of younger colleagues able to carry on a conversation while tapping out an email and listening to their iPod?
  Don't be. Scientists now think humans cannot really multitask. Your colleague is actually switching his or her attention between you, the computer screen and the iPod. And recent brain-scanning experiments suggest this rapid switching may come at a cost.

• Tech players brace for crunch

  The technology sector is bracing for a string of earnings downgrades over the next month as rising fuel costs and a tightening of corporate belts rein in the surging growth that listed computing and communications companies have delivered over the past six years.
  Some information systems and services suppliers are already reporting a spending slowdown in key sectors such as consumer goods and transport and logistics as projects go on hold while the impact of spiralling oil prices is assessed.

• Cloud computing not just pie in the sky

  The disruptive effects of clouds on picnics and other leisure activities are well known, but if some of the biggest names in information technology are right, they'll also bring a deluge of changes to the industry over the next five years.
  Google, Salesforce.com, EMC, VMware and Amazon.com are just some of the companies that are betting businesses will soon turn to computer services delivered from what they're calling "the cloud".

• Inside the war rooms of today's networked enterprises

  Sam Riley is not a technology whiz, but he has an eye for a business opportunity. Andrew Slavin is a technology whiz, but has no interest in running his own business. It was a mismatch made in heaven, and the result was the formation of Ansarada, a company that provides virtual online data rooms.
  Virtual data rooms are based on secure technology that enables parties from anywhere in the world to exchange sensitive information online.

• Leadership's online labs

  Tomorrow’s business landscape could well be alien territory for today’s business leaders. At many companies important decision making will be distributed throughout the organisation, to enable people to respond rapidly to change. A lot of work will be done by global teams assembled for a single project and then disbanded. Collaboration within these geographically-diverse groups will, by necessity, occur mainly through digital rather than face-to-face interaction.
  What on earth will leadership look like in such a world — a world whose features have already begun to transform business?

• From ETSL to Lotteries

  Richard Tims, the new chief technology officer of NZ Lotteries, says he is looking forward to the challenge of helping run the country’s largest retail network.
  Tims, who was Computerworld CIO of the Year 2005, joins Lotteries from ETSL (Paymark). He has been working in ICT executive posts for the past 16 years, including a role at ASB Bank.

• Social networking tips from the CIA

  The two CIA officials who lead the Intellipedia -a wiki set up by the CIA for disparate intelligence agencies to collaborate on key topics-delivered a keynote at the Enterprise 2.0 conference. When it comes to social software implementation, they stressed the importance of administering access, starting small and moving information out of narrow channels like email and into broader platforms like wikis.

• How oil companies use ICT to maximise profits

  Gas tops US$4 per gallon. Crude is trading at all-time highs-above $125 a barrel. And oil and gas companies are booking fat profits. In May, Exxon Mobil reported $10.9 billion in profits for its latest quarter, just short of its record-breaking $11.7 billion the quarter before.

• Suncorp saves time and money integrating Promina

  Rapid improvements in technology efficiency had driven faster than expected savings at Suncorp following the purchase of Promina last year, chief information officer Jeff Smith said.
  Mr Smith said the company's original target of $225 million savings after three years would now be achieved in just two.

• Lean data centres try to turn down the heat

  Data centres are notoriously energy hungry, with a large pod drawing as much power as a small town.
  National Australia Bank's data centres, for example, draw around 22 per cent of the total of all the energy consumed by the bank, including its branches.