Published on the 20/01/2010 | Written by Newsdesk
iStart’s monthly summary of news and deals affecting New Zealand’s enterprise ICT market, compiled by Simon Hendery – iStart News Editor…
Productivity & Business Performance
IDC warns the rough economic ride isn’t over
2010 will be a year of modest recovery for the IT and telecommunications sectors, but recovery will not mean a return to pre-recession conditions, says IDC New Zealand. The industry research firm has released its ‘ICT Top Ten predictions’ for the coming year, saying it believes New Zealand will begin to see deep industry transformation, driven by growth in ultra-fast broadband, a business and consumer shift to online services, new government and regulatory initiatives and an explosion in mobile devices. While 2009 proved a tough year with tightened budgets and a focus on survival, IDC says 2010 will see some of the pressure released, although market volatility will remain a concern.
Deals, Signings & Implementations
Fujitsu Wins Five Year Services Deal with Meridian
In a five year deal worth up to $50 million, Fujitsu New Zealand has partnered with Transfield Services and TelstraClear to become the prime vendor for Meridian Energy’s information and communication technology infrastructure support services. Fujitsu will provide full support services for all of Meridian’s desktops, servers, data centres, telemetry, networks, carrier services and service desk.
The New Zealand Defence Force has extended its telecommunications and IT services relationship with Gen-i, awarding it a three-year contract for the management of Microsoft and other software licensing, as well as NetApp hardware procurement with enabling software.
Merchant services provider SmartPay is supplying 106 Paper Plus stores and 58 Take Note stores (part of the Paper Plus Group) with its recently released Retail Radio and Point Of Decision marketing (POD) systems, and to upgrade Paper Plus stores’ point of sale system to SmartPay’s integrated EFTPOS solution Syncro Plus.
New Products & Services
Microsoft releases Office 2010 beta
Microsoft has released the beta version of Office 2010, the latest version of its widely-used business productivity suite, which includes new features such as the Outlook Social Connector, improved navigation, and increased performance and stability. Microsoft has also made available beta versions of SharePoint 2010 and Silverlight 4.
ICT services provider Gen-i has launched what it is calling its cloud computing strategy, a portfolio of solutions for the Australasian market it says are designed to ensure clients get the best out of their existing assets and new cloud opportunities. Gen-i says the strategy supports its vision of becoming Australasia’s leading provider and integrator of ICT value added services in infrastructure over the next five years.
Open-source business intelligence tools are becoming a mainstream deployment option for all kinds of BI usage, according to Gartner. The research firm says that while functionality is not yet on a par with large commercial platforms and is still rarely seen as an enterprise-wide BI standard, open-source BI tool deployment is growing solidly. “Open source BI has seen an interesting adoption pattern over the last few years,” according to Gartner research vice president Andreas Bitterer.
IBM building new ‘state-of-the-art’ Auckland data centre
IBM has commenced construction on what it says will be a state-of-the-art, reliability level 3+ data centre in Auckland to support clients’ mission critical applications and operations. The company says it will invest more than $80 million in the data centre over the next decade. The 5,200 square metre facility will include a 1,500 square metre data centre and is expected to become fully operational by late this year.
Human Resources
IT job market tipped to improve
The IT job market will continue to improve this year as it did in the second half of 2009, according to recruitment specialist Randstad. “With the steady increase we’ve seen in the past six months and the positive outlook for the first quarter of 2010, it looks like the worst may be over for IT professionals,” said Malcolm Dunford, operations director of Randstad’s IT division. “Jobs for contract workers, in particular, will gradually increase as companies look to ease the labour pressures being felt this year but the demand isn’t quite as high as our Australian neighbours,” he said. “In Australia we’ve seen a 25 per cent increase in IT contract roles this year but New Zealand may take a little longer to bounce back.”
Security
Unisys predicts a ‘biometrics boom’ in 2010
Slashed budgets and reduced staffing numbers delayed many security initiatives in 2009, but the vulnerabilities didn’t retreat and will only intensify in 2010, Unisys security experts predict. The company say s it expects government and commercial organisations will take a more proactive approach to security this year, implementing new measures to verify identity and protect confidential information. Financial institutions and defence agencies will lead the charge, with ports and other organisations quickly following, Unisys says.
Meanwhile, hacking will become a more potent threat over the new decade as criminals evolve illegally accessing computers into an industry, according Imperva. The data security firm is predicting the rise of the “industrialisation” of hacking – with clear definition of roles developing within the hacking community forming a supply chain that starkly resembles that of drug cartels. It says the “weapons of choice” hacking cartels will be automated tools such as malware distributed via botnets.
Appointments & Departures
Microsoft NZ’s Brett Roberts departs
Microsoft New Zealand’s national technology officer, Brett Roberts, is leaving the company after spending 12 years in various roles for the business. Roberts said while he had not confirmed his next move “it’s a fairly safe bet it will involve starting a business or two, technology, participation in the NZ start-up community, consulting, IT industry prognostication, PowerPointing and re-learning the guitar”.
Technology research and advisory firm Gartner has appointed Karl Sice as regional vice president, sales for Australia and New Zealand. Sice joins Gartner fromSun Microsystems where he was commercial systems director for the company’s volume business in Asia Pacific.
Crown Fibre Holdings, the organisation established to manage the Government’s $1.5 billion investment in ultra-fast broadband infrastructure over the next ten years, has appointed Graham Mitchell as CEO. Mitchell joins CFH after five years working with venture capital and private equity clients in the technology sector, having previously held senior roles in AAPT,Telecom and ECNZ.
IP communications solutions provider Interactive Intelligence has appointed Adrian Tilley as senior training consultant for Australia and New Zealand, based in Sydney. Tilley previously worked at Interactive Intelligence’s US headquarters as senior training consultant.
Vendor News
ECN Group partners with Innovit
Product information and master data management software solutions provider Innovit has partnered with the ECN Group which has become its agent in New Zealand to re-sell Innovit’s iICE solutions for GS1netand master data management. New Zealand’s grocery, liquor, and hardware industries have recently adopted GS1net as the platform and standard to support the synchronisation of product and price catalogues with their suppliers.
Global IT services and outsourcing company Infosys Technologies has established official premises in New Zealand, opening its first office in Wellington. The site of the company’s new New Zealand headquarters was chosen for its proximity to Infosys’ major clients such as Telecom, which has part of its IT operations based out of Wellington. Up to 100 Infosys employees will operate from New Zealand at any one time, spread across client sites and the new office.
Microsoft New Zealand has announced a new condensed submission process and expanded categories for the 2010 Microsoft New Zealand Partner Awards. The company says the changes align the timing of the New Zealand awards with the larger Microsoft Worldwide Partner Awards, and give local award winners the opportunity to compete in the later worldwide competition. More award categories will provide the opportunity to recognise a greater number of its 3,500 local partners.
