Publisher Len Rust

Achieving and sustaining success in the current environment of unprecedented marketplace innovation means CIOs being constantly alert to new and exciting trends that provide business and technological opportunities, whilst under budget constraints.

While social software adoption originated on the consumer web, it dramatically disrupted businesses by changing the cost and speed of content management, communications and relationship development. This massive adoption of social technologies by consumers is fundamentally changing how users share, discover and filter information and it has given rise to the enterprise social software market -software designed to help businesses integrate these communication modes.

In markets from financial services and retail to manufacturing and health care, companies today are rushing to embrace the promise of big data. By tracking ever more data, managers hope to understand both their businesses better and the ways in which customers interact with them.

The convergence of several market trends requires CIOs to be more versatile than they were in the past. The ‘modern’ CIO needs to be comfortable tying I.T. with the new business strategies and needs to be constantly seeking innovative ways to leverage emerging technologies and new business models for improving the bottom line.

CIOs also need to be nimble and adaptable, providing a strong case for technology investments. Today there are at least four CIO types, all with different approaches to motivations, operations and their current I.T. environments: there is the Change Agents, the Early Adopters, the Maintainers and the future Strategists.

Over the past few years, change has emerged as a profound metaphor in several areas, capturing trends in politics, the economy moves and other facets of daily life in business and governments. Change is always inevitable under these times, but effectively managing changes is a critical point when organisations require beneficial change to survive and thrive.

The growth of information, the audiences for information and the value of information define the opportunities and challenges today. Traditional I.T. and business management solutions are no longer smart enough, secure enough or even scalable enough to keep up with the demand of rapidly growing information resources and next generation operational requirements.

To fully enjoy the new developments, organisations must start thinking differently and effectively develop, deploy and manage a more dynamic infrastructure that can address today’s challenges whilst seizing the evolving opportunities of the new marketplace.

The stakes have never been higher for CIOs; the information age presents an ever increasing flow of challenges and opportunities. The changes of the past 20 years will seem mild compared with those of the next five. CIOs and the senior executives they work with will face unprecedented budget pressures making success as a CIO even more difficult than it has been in the past.

Federal Budget fails to consider innovation holistically: AIIA
According to the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), the Federal Budget did not take a holistic approach to the application of ICT for innovation and productivity, nor did it seize the opportunity to develop a globally competitive digital economy. AIIA CEO Suzanne Campbell said, “Yesterday’s Federal Budget outlined several worthy ICT industry initiatives and programmes, such as the allocation of $12.9 million to showcase the possibilities of the NBN, Broadband Kiosks and support for seniors to ‘keep connected’. However, single initiatives do not address deeper issues impacting the sector, such as ICT skills shortage and the low take up by SMEs of smart ICT. The lack of budget to support initiatives in these areas creates fundamental barriers to Australia’s digital readiness. The ICT industry contributes as much to Australia’s economy as the mining sector, and only marginally less than the manufacturing, and finance and insurance sectors. It is a substantial contributor to the Australian economy and the high standard of living that Australians enjoy. At a time when Australia’s ongoing prosperity is being called into question, all parties need to consider how they can leverage the opportunity of ICT to stimulate the development of a globally competitive digital economy.”

Key budget measures impacting SMEs
According to MYOB, the key themes for SMEs to take note of in the Federal Budget were jobs and growth, but have also identified some positive announcements and opportunities for SMEs. MYOB CEO Tim Reed said: “I’m pleased with the government’s pledge for new funding to help small businesses take advantage of the National Broadband Network. I hope some of this can be directed towards training on leveraging the internet for business.  Our research found more than half of SMEs were in favour of free government-funded training on how to use the internet to help them enhance and grow their business. In addition, SMEs with a business website were 60% more likely to experience a revenue rise in the past year.”

Key 2013 Budget measures announced that may impact SMEs include:

• $500 million investment in Industry Innovation Precincts and the government’s $1 billion “Plan for Australian Jobs”.
• $378.6 million for the Innovation Investment Fund to pump venture capital cash into high-growth businesses.
• $29.4 million in assistance for small and medium businesses vying for government services and tenders. Government grants of up to $1 million will be made available for SMEs.
• $12.9 million in new funding to help small businesses take advantage of the National Broadband Network.
• $3.2 million over 15 years for the “promotion and marketing” of Australian start-up success stories, with the aim to stimulate innovation within existing Australian businesses.

ACS helps inspire the next generation of ICT workers at “BiG Day in WA” student conference
More than 400 people attended the event the “Big Day in WA” student conference in Perth, taking the number of students, teachers and careers advisors who will be attending four similar events being held nationally by the Foundation in 2013 to more than 1,300. The events feature presentations by key industry players with a format designed by students, for students. From ideas generated by student focus groups, the topic list grew to explore the diversity of opportunities within the Australian ICT sector and cover the realities from a workplace perspective. The ACS Foundation is looking to expand the BiG Day In concept, in partnership with educational institutions and the organisations that represent the spectrum of ICT career paths: technology providers as well as the medium and large corporations with IT infrastructure that is driving their successful operations. John Debrincat, Chair of the ACS Foundation, said: “If we can create and capture high school student enthusiasm as they are making their study selections, then we have a chance to grow the much needed number of ICT graduates coming through our tertiary institutions. “With industry contribution, we can attract talent into our sector and academia who are better able to produce the work ready graduates needed by the ICT marketplace. The BiG Day In events are an excellent way for students, teachers and career advisors to become involved in the work of the ACS Foundation,” he said.

The Gartner CEO and Senior Executive Survey of more than 390 senior business leaders in organizations worldwide with annual revenue of $250 million or more was conducted between October and December 2012. Of those, 78 were from the Asia Pacific region including Japan.

“It is interesting that the Asia Pacific region, long seen anecdotally as more conservative in leveraging technology and driving innovation, has overtaken the global average of CEOs (26 percent) who describe their company cultures as being pioneering in the adoption of innovation”, said Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst Partha Iyengar.

“This means a larger number of CEOs than we would anecdotally expect are willing to take risks in the adoption of technology to get first-mover advantage. Half of them are focusing on creating a ‘digital strategy’ for their enterprises”.

Focus on Growth

Gartner’s 2013 CEO and senior executive survey paints a picture of a region that is focused and optimistic about growth prospects, even in light of uncertain economic conditions.

An overwhelming 69 percent of CEOs say that their plans for investment and growth in 2013 and 2014 are fairly clear and strong despite uncertain economic conditions. CEOs are targeting different customer requirements, new technology-driven capabilities and new geographies. Increasing investment areas in 2013 are product enhancement, IT and marketing.

There is also an expectation of an expanded role for IT in supporting this growth. CEOs foresee an 11 percent increase in the presence of the CIO role within their enterprises by the end of 2014. This is accompanied by an almost identical drop (12 percent) in the “head of IT” title within enterprises, possibly signifying that CEOs intend to elevate this role to full CxO status, with a seat at the executive table. Additionally, 31 percent of CEOs see themselves taking on a more direct role in technology-related issues, in addition to the CIO.

The Tech-Savvy CEO

According to the survey, almost 70 percent of Asia Pacific CEOs believe they have a good understanding of IT-related management issues. “This is also surprisingly high”, said Mr. Iyengar. “It bodes well for CIOs in their quest to increase the strategic impact IT has within the enterprise. However, it could also be a dangerous situation for CIOs who do not have strong business leadership credentials. Technology-savvy CEOs will be quite impatient to see their CIOs deliver IT-driven business impact, and will not hesitate to make personnel changes if they are unable to do so”.

Top Macro Concerns

An overwhelming majority of CEOs believe that climate change is a real threat. Interestingly, Asia/Pacific CEOs are more concerned than Europeans (79 percent) or North Americans (64 percent) — even though one can argue that today’s damage to the environment is primarily accelerating because of the strong economic and industrial growth in the emerging and newly emerging markets in the region.

Another significant area of concern for CEOs is that the advanced economies (Europe especially) are entering another major recession. Oil scarcity, weak IP protection and the lack of sufficient skilled resources are also especially concerning for CEOs in the region, given the strong focus on new product enhancement and geographical expansion.

Perceptions of IT

CEOs expect their CIOs to deliver higher levels of business value. However, 55 percent of CEOs see the biggest challenge faced by their CIOs as getting the basics right. “This is a scary message in that, even as they expect IT to deliver differentiated business value, they believe that IT is still struggling with the fundamentals. Only when IT has achieved stability in the foundational elements – that is, mastering the basics – will CIOs have earned a seat at the business table to focus on delivering higher levels of business value”.

An additional concern for CIOs is that CEOs believe 16 percent of IT investments are wasted. “While this is not necessarily a terrible number in the context of the increasing scale and complexity of IT initiatives, it should still be an area of focus for CIOs to address and reduce”, said Mr. Iyengar. “Considering that IT investments are typically made to improve the performance of other business areas such as sales, marketing, supply chain and so on, any wasted IT investments affect them as well”.

Marcus Blosch, research vice president at Gartner, said the top five actions to take advantage of these shifts were:

Get Out in Front of the Business

Harness the employee interest in consumer devices and applications, using it as a hook to engage with the business to brainstorm and create and offer solutions around collaboration, sourcing, distribution, marketing, support, incentivization and other areas.

Offer Advice on Technologies and Trends

Identify and prepare for key technology trends that will impact the business e.g. bring your own program and LTE. Faced with the proliferation of devices in the enterprise offer technology road maps to the business, suggesting when and how key technologies should be adopted. Use this activity to champion the use of strategic technologies like the increasing use of HTML5 to ensure that core applications function well across a range of devices without need for extensive modification.

Architect for Consumerisation

There are many things to consider here, covered in more detail in my presentation, but a few initial pointers are:

License/authenticate people not devices: become endpoint independent

• Standardize on data formats, not applications or tools
• Move data away from devices and into the cloud, protect it well.
• Stop trying to control things you don’t own

Lay the Foundations

Be clear on the business outcomes that need to be achieved and the architectural features needed to achieve it. Endpoint or device independence is going to be increasingly important to effectively achieve core business outcomes in an environment that is increasingly consumerised.

Provide Project-Specific Advice

Be a valued source of knowledge around specific projects, offering sanity checking and examples of similar projects and their successes and failure. Offer problem solving while providing expertise on risk management and recommended architectures and approaches.

Marc Englaro, CEO, InsightfulCRM

Can you please provide a brief overview of the company?

InsightfulCRM is a consulting and system integration firm specialising in CRM, social selling and customer engagement. We exist to help our clients grow and succeed through leveraging their customer relationships. We do this by developing actionable strategy and supporting this with the innovative application of technology, most typically the SugarCRM suite of products.

What sets the company apart from your competitors?

InsightfulCRM is not simply a technology firm. We’re a lead by a strong, experienced team of consultants providing business insight and advice, and backed by an implementation team who can bring these plans into reality.

We believe great customer relationships are an essential part of business, and should always be continually improving. We take a holistic approach to CRM where technology is only one-third of the equation and one that can’t be successful without first developing an integrated CRM strategy and effective business processes.

What is one of the biggest issues facing businesses today?

We are seeing high-growth businesses in Australia face the tension between effectively adopting new social media technologies while ensuring they remain focused on the principles of good sales practices and customer service. Many businesses are keen to jump on the social bandwagon without clearly defining how social media will integrate with existing processes or how it will be mapped back to broader business goals.

Who are typical prospects/customers?

InsightfulCRM works in a number of sectors, each of which has unique customer relationship management challenges. These sections are information and communication technology, professional services, higher education, financial services, industrial manufacturing, as well as government.

When talking to customers and prospects what things are top of their agendas today?

Although social media has existed for a while, and CRM technology even longer, businesses are starting to realise that customer experience and customer engagement is the most important thing. It’s not just about shouting at a client or collecting data, it’s about the interaction.

But while many businesses realise the need for a CRM technology, they aren’t quite sure how to use the technology to show ROI or how the technology can be integrated with existing processes and systems. This is particularly important as the roles of traditional sales, marketing and IT professionals increasingly blur, and businesses are pressured to find new channels to engage customers and increase sales.

What are the company’s greatest challenges right now?

Many businesses still view CRM as a database of customer information that is used to report back to the company in a very linear manner, when in fact CRM needs to be treated as a technology that underpins the behaviour of all of the business’ customer-facing teams. Also, while businesses realise they need to use social media effectively many still struggle to identify the best way to do this, particularly from a B2B perspective. The challenges are educating businesses on how to use CRM solutions effectively so that it provides useful information to employees across the business, as well as helping companies integrate social media into the business’ overarching process and culture.

And opportunities?

The increasing popularity of social media is reinvigorating the debate about being customer centric, and there is huge opportunities for businesses to redefine how they operate in order to become better engaged, transparent and nimble. Businesses are going back to basics when it comes to sales by stripping out the gimmicks, and putting the customer back at the centre of everything they do.

What are the core messages you want the marketplace to know about your company?

InsightfulCRM is an energetic and fun environment of professionals committed to helping our clients grow and succeed through better relationships. Throughout 2013, InsightfulCRM will strengthen its overall reputation as being smart and effective and will continue to help its clients utilise innovations in social media and customer engagement.

In 2013 we want to extend our engagement with customers, prospects and the wider industry by sparking and encouraging debate about what it means to be engaged with customers, and how emerging social media will affect businesses in Australia.

Ciena unveils new packet capabilities for its 6500 Packet Optical Platform
Ciena has unveiled new packet capabilities for its 6500 Packet Optical Platform. This includes new E-Suite packet modules for the 6500 that leverage SAOS and enable a highly scalable, converged packet-optical solution for operators. The new integrated packet-optical capabilities provide very efficient Ethernet aggregation and transport over an optical infrastructure. They allow operators to swiftly and cost-effectively manage the surging demand for Ethernet services connectivity – from the network access to the metro core, and allow enterprises to tailor their networks (large or small, optical, packet, or converged) to best meet their application requirements and cost-points.

Riverbed Technology announces new ADCaaS platform utilising Stingray Services Controller
Riverbed Technology has announced a new platform enabling customers to deliver application delivery controller-as-a-service (ADCaaS) with the Stingray Services Controller. This new product will automate the deployment of application delivery services for any network architecture including software defined networking (SDN). Typically, ADCs have been deployed in a network-centric model of “one application per ADC box” or where a shared ADC infrastructure must support the demands of multiple applications. With the Stingray Services Controller, Riverbed makes possible an “ADC per application” deployment model. This directly addresses the evolving application and data centre architectures, workflows, and operations models that call for a next generation ADC architecture that can remove today’s bottlenecks, delivering improved agility, high levels of automation, and quicker time-to-service. Riverbed’s ADCaaS enabling technology now gives cloud providers and enterprises deploying in the private cloud the ability to provision, scale, and deploy their ADC as needed.

Vertex Standard introduces new range of digital two way radios
Vertex Standard Inc. has introduced its new range of digital two way radios. The eVerge™ digital radios help customers evolve to better communication and do digital right the first time – getting the right radio with the right protocol and right performance – all at a better cost to connect without compromise. The new eVerge™ digital radio portfolio includes the EVX-530 series portable radios; EVX-5300/5400 series mobile radios and EVX-R70 repeater for a complete digital system. These new radios are designed to work with existing analog radios for easy conversion from analog to digital for added convenience. eVerge™ radios are ideally suited for commercial and industrial customers who currently use basic LMR for voice communications and could benefit from better audio quality, better coverage and more privacy without incurring higher equipment costs.

Eaton launches the next generation in server, storage and networking power management
Eaton has announced the Eaton 5P UPS backup power solution providing IT managers with a suite of upgraded features, higher efficiency and increased warranty. Key features include an intuitive, graphical LCD which shows key analytics while it meters energy consumption, remote outlet switching, and 98% efficiency. It also integrates seamlessly with all major virtualisation software, including VMware and Hyper-V. When operating in battery mode, the 5P UPS provides a high quality output signal for any sensitive equipment connected, such as active power factor corrected servers. At the same time, Individually controlled outlets maximise backup time, provide remote reboot and sequential start-up. Hot swappable batteries also allow easy replacement of the batteries without powering down connected loads.  Eaton’s ABM battery management technology uses an innovative three-stage charging technique that only recharges the battery when necessary, so the battery experiences less corrosion and service life is prolonged by up to 50 per cent.  The 5P UPS can be configured in a rackmount or tower form factor catering for varied deployment applications. http://powerquality.eaton.com/australia/

Eaton launches new intelligent power manager software
Eaton has announced the latest version of its Intelligent Power Manager software with NetApp Data ONTAP operating system integration. The software update allows users to monitor and manage NetApp fabric-attached storage (FAS) systems and facilitate a graceful shutdown to protect data integrity in the event of an extended power outage. The update builds on Intelligent Power Manager’s plugin for VMware vCenter Server, which is certified VMware Ready and simplifies data centre management by providing the ability to monitor and protect hypervisors directly from the vCenter dashboard. Customers can now utilise Intelligent Power Manager to manage power settings for NetApp FAS systems within the same pane of glass for a streamlined view of IT assets. Eaton’s Intelligent Power Manager is the only power management software in the industry designed to provide options for maintaining the continuity of critical server workloads in the event of utility power loss. For more information and to download the software, visit www.eaton.com/intelligentpower.

Riverbed Technology announces a new platform enabling ADCaaS
Riverbed Technology has announced a new platform enabling customers to deliver application delivery controller-as-a-service (ADCaaS) with the Stingray Services Controller. This new product will automate the deployment of application delivery services for any network architecture including software defined networking (SDN). Typically, ADCs have been deployed in a network-centric model of “one application per ADC box” or where a shared ADC infrastructure must support the demands of multiple applications. With the Stingray Services Controller, Riverbed makes possible an “ADC per application” deployment model.This directly addresses the evolving application and data centre architectures, workflows, and operations models that call for a next generation ADC architecture that can remove today’s bottlenecks, delivering improved agility, high levels of automation, and quicker time-to-service. Riverbed’s ADCaaS enabling technology now gives cloud providers and enterprises deploying in the private cloud the ability to provision, scale, and deploy their ADC as needed.

Kroll Ontrack embraces e-commerce for Ontrack Eraser 4.0 Data Wiping Software
Kroll Ontrack has announced a new subscription-based pricing model for its industry leading enterprise data eraser solution, Ontrack® Eraser 4.0. Starting at $99.95, the new model offers customers a simple and flexible way to meet the specific data erasing needs of their business by purchasing the solution directly from the Kroll Ontrack online shop. With the new subscription offering from Kroll Ontrack, companies can effectively erase data and prevent security breaches without the standard pay-per-erasure practice. Under the new model, customers can purchase Ontrack Eraser 4.0 for an unlimited number of users and data erasures for a full year.  A 12-month subscription starts at $99.95 for companies with up to 50 employees, $249.95 for up to 250 employees and $459.95 for up to 500 employees. Users can take advantage of drive wiping capabilities, including the ability to delete data from VMware machines. This ensures that companies securely delete data from their virtual environments and therefore address the complete scope of their IT environment. There is also enhanced capacity to perform over 200 concurrent device erasures to ensure the largest jobs are handled efficiently. In addition, new reports denote the hard drive make, serial number and model number, as well as the wipe algorithm applied to accomplish the job, providing users with the appropriate records for recycling centres and compliance requests.
http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com.au/data-management/secure-data-deletion/

Brocade enables the On-Demand Data Centre
Brocade, a leader in data centre networking and fabric solutions, has rolled out  its new On-Demand Data Centre strategy as well as new hardware and software enhancements for its entire data centre networking portfolio. With its new strategy,  Brocade is aiming to combine the best aspects of physical and virtual networking to increase business agility, reduce complexity and scale virtualisation to new levels within and across data centres.  New solutions are now also available for virtual networking, physical networking and orchestration and management solutions. This new approach will help Brocade customers continue to improve network efficiency, utilisation and performance, plus provide another logical step on the path toward mass customer adoption of Software-Defined Networking (SDN). www.brocade.com

Yellowfin announces distribution agreement with South Africa’s Albi Investment Group Services
Australian Business Intelligence (BI) software vendor, Yellowfin, has announced a distribution agreement with South African enterprise IT applications and services provider, Albi Investment Group Services (AIGS). The agreement will see AIGS offer Yellowfin, and its associated suite of professional services, directly throughout Sub Saharan Africa, trading under the name Yellowfin South Africa. Yellowfin South Africa has already won significant local success, signing multiple clients and reseller partners – including Liv4 and Wishlist Corporation – prior to its official launch last week. AIGS CEO, Ricky Parry – who also successfully developed the Progress Software brand in South Africa – said that the time was right to introduce Yellowfin to the African market. “As a premium international BI product, built on simplicity, flexibility and ease-of-use, Yellowfin complements our business approach while satisfying strong marketplace demand,” said Parry. “To ensure that we continue to provide the quality of service now expected from AIGS, and the quality of user experience enjoyed by Yellowfin’s existing customers, we have formed Yellowfin South Africa. Yellowfin South Africa will distribute Yellowfin, its range of professional services, and offer agile customer support locally.”

Vixtel drives innovation through Silicon Valley acquisition
Australian owned company, Vixtel has announced the acquisition of the Silicon Valley based Glass Phone developer, CloudTC Inc, a deal which will offer Australian businesses a breakthrough product that brings smart phone technology to the desktop. This is the world’s first full screen Android desk phone that gets smarter over time. Vixtel is a privately owned Australian company providing IP PBX systems throughout Australia, USA and Europe. Central to Vixtel’s offering is the Glass 1100, an Android based 9 inch touchscreen phone that delivers a user experience comparable to a smart phone but in a desk phone that is available now for all businesses within Australia. “We’re very proud to have worked with CloudTC for the last four years to develop the Glass Phone and we’re thrilled to have now acquired 100% of the company. It’s very exciting to now own the worlds most innovative desk phone and we look forward to further extending its capabilities with our local research and development team. For us, it’s about delivering a seamless communications experience; ensuring clients have access to a world-class network regardless of device or location. We don’t wait for others to create the future. WE create the future. When clients join the Vixtel community, they become part of the future and are able to quickly adapt to the market environment.” Said Vixtel CEO, Terry Crews.

MYOB and BankLink unite in the cloud
MYOB has announced that one of its subsidiaries, MYOB Finance NZ Limited, has signed an agreement to purchase the unlisted business, BankLink, from Media Transfer Services Limited. The purchase was announced to the Australian Securities Exchange last week.  MYOB and BankLink are market leaders in the provision of business management solutions to SMEs and accountants in New Zealand and Australia, and offer highly complementary solutions. This acquisition is a key strategic move that will leverage the strengths of both organisations, and position the new entity to lead the next wave of industry growth – cloud accounting. MYOB’s SME solutions empower businesses to run their own accounting system, and BankLink enables accountants to do the accounting on behalf of the business. The combined entity will have the most comprehensive set of accounting solutions in the market today. This includes MYOB’s flagship cloud accounting solution AccountRight Live, its entry level online accounting solution LiveAccounts and BankLink’s market leading accountants’ solution BankLink Practice. All solutions will be powered by BankLink bank feeds, known for being secure, reliable and accurate; essential requirements for successful cloud accounting solutions. Having the most secure and accurate bank feeds available is a distinct competitive advantage in delivering MYOB’s cloud strategy. Sales of MYOB’s cloud accounting solutions now make up one-third of all new product registrations, almost three times higher than last year. MYOB Chief Executive Officer, Tim Reed says, “Key to the success of MYOB’s online strategy is its partnership with accountants in practice. The coming together of MYOB and BankLink allows accountants to recommend the most appropriate accounting solution for each and every unique client. In addition, we can now further enhance this partnership by having more team members on the ground focused on accountants in practice and supporting their success.”

Challenger Limited continues growth focus through strategic expansion of SimCorp Dimension
SimCorp, provider of investment management solutions and services for the global financial services industry, has announced that Challenger Limited, an ASX listed investment management company and Australia’s leading annuities provider, has committed to expand its use of SimCorp Dimension. This will continue to enhance Challenger’s capabilities, particularly in offering their boutique partnership operations a truly integrated platform. A major factor in Challenger’s decision to extend its license was SimCorp’s sustained investment in research and development, as evidenced by the continuous enhancement of the company’s investment management solution. Today, Challenger is managing funds in excess of $40 billion and is one of Australia’s most efficient financial services companies with a cost to income ratio of 35 per cent. Mr Mackaway said, “Having technology that allows you to position yourself with unique market products is key to continuing growth. SimCorp as our partner has had the capabilities and capacity to support our growth to date. As we continue to grow and expand into new markets we look forward to our ongoing relationship with SimCorp in achieving our goals.”

AGDNA has developed a mobile precision farming app and data exchange platform for agricultural crop products, equipment operators and agribusinesses in Australia and around the world. This software as a service platform allows growers and other stakeholders to track and share all of their in-field machinery and precision farming activities in real-time thereby providing valuable information for decision making, compliance reporting and crop planning purposes. www.agdna.com

ASDEQLABS’ flagship application AsdeqDocs® enables secure fast access to up-to-date versions of corporate documents and data on tablet devices and smartphones. It works fully offline and integrates with existing systems – regardless of how content is stored – enforcing enterprise security with AES256 encryption, preserving company permission standards and all the while being intuitive and user-friendly to a mobile workforce. www.asdeqlabs.com

APPOINTUIT provides SaaS appointment management software for medical practices and other health care providers which seamlessly integrates with a practices existing management software, making it easy for medical service providers to offer Smartphone and web based bookings to their patients. The company’s vision is to improve access to healthcare by improving efficiencies and effectiveness of appointment management for both the practice and the patient. Patients can secure online access to their regular doctor’s appointment schedule 24/7. www.appointuit.com

BILLCAP has developed unique energy management software to help smart-metered households understand, control and optimise their electricity usage. Billcap provides its software platform to electricity retailers under a SaaS model, enabling them to offer value-added services to customers to increase customer attraction and retention. The Billcap complete model also allows energy retailers to run peak load shifting or energy efficiency competitions that can be customised to enhance customer loyalty and engagement. www.billcap.com

CV CHECK’s fully automated, secure, online personal screening and verification services deliver over 100 different types of checks across more than 100 countries and CVCheck Link® technology allows individuals to securely share their information with anyone, anywhere and anytime. Clients are made up of both large and small organisations covering a wide range of industries including government, (federal, state and local) mining, oil and gas, recruitment, banking, finance, health, age care, education, wholesalers and retail and more. www.cvcheck.biz

SMX Limited appoints former Telstra senior executive Mark Wilson
|New Zealand-owned cloud email security and hosting company SMX Limited has appointed former Telstra senior executive Mark Wilson to lead a major expansion of its Australian business. SMX’s vice president of global sales, Tiaan Blaauw, says the appointment, and the opening of offices in Sydney and Melbourne, represent a significant investment by SMX aimed at building a strong partner channel in the Australian market. “Mark Wilson is a great fit for this role,” Blaauw says. “During more than ten years at Telstra – most recently as general manager of enterprise and government sales for Victoria – Mark has developed particular expertise in managed security services delivered via the cloud model. As head of the enterprise and government market for Telstra in New Zealand he was responsible for Telstra’s DMZ Global business unit, managing a sales team selling a full range of outsourced managed security products – growing DMZ Global revenues by 300 percent over three years.”

iAccelerate StartPad incubator appoints new GM
iAccelerate StartPad, Wollongong’s first technology-focused ideas incubator and part of the iAccelerate initiative led by the University of Wollongong, has appointed a full-time General Manager to support the incubator’s growth.  This follows iAccelerate StartPad’s successful first year of operation during which it housed 11 resident companies who brought six new products to market, three of which have already recorded sales. Deon de Saldanha has been named as General Manager of iAccelerate StartPad and brings to the role experience as Commercialisation Manager with the University of Wollongong’s faculties of Engineering, Commerce and Law, and nine years as a founding partner in a business development consultancy providing due diligence, post-investment and capital raising services to SMEs. According to Elizabeth Eastland, the University of Wollongong’s Director of Innovation and Commercial Research, Deon’s expertise is ideally suited to the iAccelerate StartPad environment. “With Deon’s appointment as General Manager, our residents will benefit from the experience and passion of a fellow entrepreneur and his flair for supporting new businesses and innovation.  This appointment is a significant milestone in the continued development of iAccelerate StartPad and the creation of an innovation ecosystem in Wollongong,” Eastland said.

Ovum appoints Gerry Brown to enhance digital marketing analysis
Ovum has launched a new practice to track and research the evolving relationship between the CIO and CMO and how they must collaborate to deliver a seamless and effective digital marketing strategy. Bolstered by the appointment of Gerry Brown, one of digital marketing’s leading thinkers, the global analyst firm aims to expose the management challenges facing both IT and marketing professionals looking to extract maximum value from their investments in marketing technology. Ovum’s “Connected Customer and Marketing Technology” practice will provide insight into how the connected customer and Big Data are transforming the marketing process and what value IT can bring to the evolving marketing function. In highlighting the emerging platforms driving this change, Ovum will demonstrate how major enterprise vendors, best-of-breed vendors, digital agencies, and IT services companies will collaborate and compete to deliver marketing technology and services to B2C and B2B markets. Forthcoming research from Brown will reveal how marketing agencies are evolving to deliver digitally enabled marketing services, platforms, and collaborative workflow solutions for their clients and to compete with IT services providers. In addition, he will cover marketing automation, the growth of realtime bidding of digital inventory and programmatic advertising technologies, social and mobile marketing, voice of the customer processes and customer experience, marketing resource management, and customer data management.

Good Technology strengthens public sector support in Australia
Good Technology, provider of secure mobile computing solutions, has announced the appointment of Ross Ford as Government Account Director. Based in Canberra, Ford will focus on servicing the needs of Good’s existing Federal Government customers in addition to growing the company’s footprint within the public sector. The key appointment follows the recent announcement that Good for Enterprise™ (GFE) has become the first secure mobile collaboration solution to be certified by the Australian Government’s Defence Signals Directorate (DSD).  The DSD Cryptographic Evaluation (DCE) certification[1] will allow iOS devices secured with Good for Enterprise to communicate and store classified information up to ‘Protected’ level. Ford’s career, servicing the technology needs of the Australian public sector for almost 30 years, includes senior roles with the like of NEC, Novell, IBM and Red Hat.  Prior to joining Good, Ford was a public sector sales executive with Salesforce.com.

Greg Wilkinson Leads Investment and Joins Board of POS Startup Kounta
Australian cloud point of sale startup Kounta has kicked off its first venture round, with Greg Wilkinson, Founder of Reckon, investing and joining the board. Wilkinson founded Reckon Limited in 1987, and until 2006 was the Chief Executive Officer. Following that, he was appointed to the position of Deputy Chairman. Under his leadership, Reckon grew from a startup in a Sydney apartment to a leader in accounting software and an IPO on the ASX. Kounta has developed a powerful, flexible, and easy to use point of sale system compatible with any connected device. Merchants can run their entire store off an iPad, Android tablet, laptop or PC. It has already gained popularity among savvy Australian stores and proven its ability to help create a much better shopping experience.

Barracuda Networks appoints ANZ Country Manager
Barracuda Networks, provider of security and storage solutions, has announced the appointment of Mike Romans as Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand. Based in Sydney, Romans will be responsible for leading Barracuda Networks’ sales, channel and management operations in Australia and New Zealand. Romans has more than ten years’ experience in the IT industry and initially commenced his career at Parametric Technology Corporation where he worked for more than five years in several sales executive and engineering roles across different geographies, including the US, South Korea and Australia.  In Australia, he was Sales Executive with responsibility for business development and sales in New South Wales and the ACT for the company’s suite of computer-aided design software. Romans was also Manufacturing Channel Sales Manager for Australia and New Zealand at Autodesk where his responsibilities including managing a channel of ten value added resellers across the company’s range of product solutions.

Orion Health appoints Andrew Howard as Global e-Health Director
Orion Health has announced the appointment of Andrew Howard as Global eHealth Director.  Based in Melbourne, Howard joins Orion Health with more than 25 years’ experience in the delivery of health standards and solutions delivery. His global strategic role at Orion Health will focus on the Australian market where he will continue to have active involvement in the PCEHR and in changing the way healthcare is delivered through the innovative use of information technology in areas such as electronic medications management, electronic referrals, and hospital redesign.  He will also be responsible for providing support to Orion’s international clients in the delivery of health outcomes at a country or area wide level. Howard has been a key figure in the strategy and delivery of eHealth in Australia.  He was previously Interim Chief Executive Officer and Head of Strategy and Architecture of the Australian National eHealth Transition Authority (NEHTA) where he changed the organisation’s focus from academic standards to industry solutions and health outcomes.During this time at NEHTA, he steered the national identifiers services, point-to-point messaging, standards for key clinical documents and the subsequent approval of the national case for the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record. As the key visionary for this work, Howard then lead the PCEHR delivery as the Head of the PCEHR for NEHTA resulting in its successful launch last year.Howard was also Chief Information Officer for the State of Victoria Health and Human Services Department and has over 15 years of consulting experience with Accenture.

Publisher Len Rust

Are you the CEO of an Australian owned software or IT Services company punching above your weight? Are you battling to carve out your fair share of the local or overseas markets? We want to hear from you and to meet up when possible.

We all want our local players to compete and win in the new global economy, securing Australia’s position as a leading knowledge economy. Australian development companies who tend to specialise in industry-specific applications often means they will never gain mass recognition. There is no shortage of local software developers with good ideas. Australia has great strengths in IT A strong tradition of innovation and creativity has been often fostered by smaller companies working with larger players and also benefiting from links to university partnerships and various knowledge transfer programmes.

Australia needs to be continually investing in the kinds of innovation that transforms the capabilities of businesses and boosts the enduring productivity performance of the nation. The hallmark of such innovation-led prosperity resides in people and organisations that are dynamic, knowledgeable, outward looking and well connected both locally and globally.

Local purchase of products and services in the information technology sector by government has also a lot of untapped potential for the “Aussie Battlers” for stimulating domestic economic progress. The participation of local IT firms in public tenders is often hampered by a lack of trust and awareness in the decision process.

Investments in smarter infrastructures such as the NBN and new digital technology solutions will stimulate growth and will return exponential growth for years to come in the form of new jobs, higher employment, better business efficiency and more competitive industries. Investment is required if Australia is to remain competitive in the new sectors beyond the resources boom. Australia is going to be shifting away from the resources industry being our key driver of growth towards other sectors of the economy. The next few years will be fairly volatile as the economy rebalances.

To sustain economic activity and employment businesses have to create more value. In today’s pervasively wired global marketplace, technology will only create value insofar as it delivers concrete competitive advantages. In the modern world it is technology that enables innovation, spawns new industries and creates new sources of wealth. The challenge is to better exploit our capabilities and to improve our export position. Our problem is that while there are many international opportunities available for which Australian companies may be able to develop superior and highly competitive solutions, they often have difficulty in finding out about these opportunities with limited marketplace knowledge and resources to identify them.

Australia is also the source of a number of distinctive innovative solutions – especially in resources, health, education and financial services. Linked to this is Australia’s renowned protection of Intellectual Property with a transparent and comprehensive set of IP legislation. The local industry has also been the focus of a great deal of strategic foreign investment, thanks to local developers and the highly skilled workforce and thus enhancing their competitiveness. Now is the critical moment. The accelerating pace of change is creating huge opportunities for individuals and companies who are prepared and serious dangers for those who are not.   —Len Rust, rustoz@bigpond.com