The grass is always greener on the other side. And in the datacentre neighbourhood - whichever fence you peek over - there are bound to be tracts of lush playing turf that appear more attractive than your own. That's why global IT vendors often ply the fence sitting art in intractable debates like managed versus internal datacentres.
Where do you see DataCore's position in the Australian virtualisation market?
The coach and fans would be happy; the Australian server market was kicking goals in 2007 and put its biggest ever score on the board.
MICROSOFT
While it's still early days, Australian companies are quickly warming to UC. In fact, Gartner research vice-president, Geoff Johnson, believes we are just as advanced as any economy in Europe or North America. However, as no one vendor is able to provide a complete UC solution - and are not expected to do so for the next three years - there is a vital need for partnering and cooperation between suppliers over the coming years.
Making sure you give the right people the right impression can make or break a deal. For recruitment firms conducting interviews in multiple cities, travel time, costs and scheduling can be a drain; especially when business is booming and you need to be in too many places at the one time. For executives that need to get that all important face-to-face meeting time with clients, wasting valuable hours waiting in transit lounges or stuck in traffic is a maddening obstruction that can impact the bottom line through lost productivity and an injured company reputation.
Less than a decade ago, face-to-face via video was restricted to the imagination of science fiction writers and movie buffs. Trekkies and wannabe Jedi Knights salivated at the prospect. But now the ability to communicate via video links is a cornerstone in unified communications architecture.
Don't believe the hype: Unified communications has issues. Despite promising to enable greater flexibility and technological fusion in the way we communicate, UC is a hotly contested space - and concept - that does not always live up to its unifying pretensions. According to some industry observers there is even debate as to what UC is and whether a lack of interoperability will hamper progress
According to the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) there are more than 400,000 veterans spread across Australia. Many require continuous support for physical and mental issues suffered during their service of this country. And it is here that IT solutions are playing their part in easing the burden.
Innovation in healthcare services and techniques has saved millions of lives around the world and generally contributed significantly to the high living standards we now enjoy. But when it comes to ICT, the healthcare sector's innovative tendencies give way to more conservative approaches. According to a report into the Australian healthcare ICT market for 2007-2011 by IDC analyst, Phillip Allen, spending is expected to remain flat - at a CAGR of 0.1 per cent - as hardware prices fall and healthcare providers continue to be late adopters of new technology. IDC forecasts the healthcare sector will spend $2.29 billion on ICT by 2011, accounting for juts over 5 per cent of total ICT spending.
It's been a long week but Friday night is finally here, football night, and as usual the boys are waiting for you at the pub. It's a crucial game, a season-ender if they lose, but you've got a looming Monday deadline and stacks of work to get through. Not a problem you reckon, just download the necessary data to a USB stick you picked up for a few bucks on eBay and work from home tomorrow on the laptop. A quick drive home, park the car, pop the USB stick in your pocket and high tail it over to the corner spot at the local and a few amber bevies.
Local integrators and outsourcers are playing down the impact of a possible merger between HP and EDS on the IT services market.
Size matters. Everybody wants it bigger and better and if you don't have what it takes then you're just not in the game. Technique is important, of course, but when it's bigger you can do a lot more. But not too big, because then it just becomes, well, unsightly. At least that's the innuendo-laden feeling one gets from the monitors space, which is happily cuddling up to more inches.
Avnet is bolstering a successful year with partner, IBM, by expanding its solutions business to include the ISS security solutions range.
Green has never been sexier. It's the new black, and it sells.
