Stories by: Julian Bajkowski

The NSW Office of State Revenue (OSR) is taking a tough stance against Microsoft's decision to make an enterprise edition of Windows Vista only available to companies that have signed on to its Software Assurance program. The tax collection agency has declared it would rather switch desktop operating systems than lock itself into Microsoft's licensing regime.

Australia's latest whole of government CIO, Ann Steward, has used her first public speech to make all the right political noises and warn government CIOs and IT managers they must clean up their own backyards and learn to share infrastructure with their peers without quarreling.

More leaks have emerged from the tight cocoon of self-imposed silence surrounding Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's activities in Australia, with three Cabinet ministers including Treasurer Peter Costello now confirmed to have met Ballmer for discussions in Sydney yesterday.

Enterprise Linux vendor Red Hat's Australian office has a new managing director, with Max McLaren taking over from Gus Robertson, who has been promoted to as Asia Pacific vice president for channels and alliances.

The man in charge of enforcing whole-of-government IT cohesion, Special Minister of State Senator Eric Abetz, has publicly backed calls from Federal Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis for a wider review of Australia's privacy laws.

There are many good reasons why vendors shouldn't bypass the CIO, and making them angry is one of them.

Australian IT managers fed up with purging their networks of spyware are being encouraged to front up and tell officers of the federal Department of IT, Communications and the Arts (DCITA) how bad the situation really is.

Microsoft and the entertainment industry's holy grail of controlling copyright through the motherboard has moved a step closer with Intel now embedding digital rights management within in its latest dual-core processor Pentium D and accompanying 945 chipset.

Australia's government science organization, the CSIRO has vowed it will defend its international property rights to the hilt following a major legal attack over a patent from multinational wireless networking players Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Apple and Netgear.

IT vendors pushing costly proprietary software lock-ins have been warned that feeding at the $4.2 billion IT trough of the Australian taxpayer is over and a strict and a new procurement diet for vendors will be personally enforced by the Special Minister of State, Senator Eric Abetz.

Taxpayer-funded penguin power has received a boost in NSW, with the state's Department of Commerce (DOC) anointing 11 open source software and services vendors by way of a panel agreement.