Stories by Shahida Sweeney

The Victorian government will create 500 new jobs under an agreement with the IT service delivery provider, SMS Management & Technology in Melbourne.

German software giant SAP is investing 150 million in a dedicated Centre for Digital Government in Canberra. This centre, to be operational by mid-2015, will be fully integrated with hosted private cloud services.

New South Wales Privacy Commissioner, Dr Elizabeth Coombs, has unveiled new guidelines that clarify steps to protect citizen data. These guidelines reinforce moves to protect personal information and comply with the state’s privacy guidelines.

There has been a spike in demand for digital skills across the banking, retail, utility and government sectors, according to IT recruitment firm Peoplebank.

Telstra is diving head-first into the digital space – with this new frontier expected to drive all lines of business, according to CEO David Thodey. The power base is shifting from corporates’ “ivory towers” to individuals that are driving the global agenda.

Nearly 12 months after security gaps were first flagged across Victorian agencies’ ICT systems, little progress has been made, the state’s Auditor-General, John Doyle, has warned.

The NSW government is boosting bandwidth access and scalability for its Silverwater data centre under a network-as-a-service agreement with Pacnet.

Australian employers have their sights firmly set on high-tech university graduates. These institutions are holding the own against the traditional sandstone universities, says a report tracking the trends for higher education.

Under moves to slash the cost of running its annual $250 million fleet leasing service, the NSW government has initiated car sharing arrangements that require officials to use commercial car hire.

The Federal Government’s $6 billion ICT spending program will see a greater uptake of cloud services. Under new guidelines, agency heads will be able to use hosted services in Australia and offshore.

With an eye on “big plans, small projects”, South Australia is fast-tracking its digital reforms agenda. The state’s CIO, Bret Morris, told CIO Australia that it is focusing mostly on mobile apps and open data.

The Department of Defence has finalised a $31 million contract to ramp its mainframe capacity over the next eight years and build a more robust technology infrastructure.

ANZ’s international expansion strategy will see an expanded use of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to support its global trade program, supported by an extended seven-and-half-year agreement with technology and business process firm CGI Group.

The Australian government’s roadmap for mobile services has received a boost with the creation of a “whole-of-government” panel of solutions providers. This panel meets an escalating demand for mobile products as agencies ramp up anywhere, anytime service delivery.

The iconic National Library of Australia is rebuilding its digital library infrastructure to manage and provide access to its digital collection that now exceeds 3 petabytes of content. This content includes more than 13 million digitised newspaper pages, Australiana items and harvested content from thousands of websites.