Stories by Helen Han

Panthers blitzes spam

Panthers Entertainment, the outer-Sydney base of the Penrith Panthers rugby league club, has blitzed the spam menacing its users' inboxes.

Secure system boosts bottom line

GlobalPoint Systems has vastly improved its ability to provide vertical solution products to its customers and also protect its mission-critical data by deploying a secure data exchange (SDE) messaging platform.

Small biz looms large in vendor plans

Once a neglected market segment in the IT landscape SMEs (small and mid-size enterprises) have captured the attention of major IT vendors as an important revenue stream. With a global worth of $US300 billion and growing at a faster pace than Fortune 1000 companies, SMEs have emerged as the new sweet spot in the technology landscape. In response all of the big players such as IBM, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Oracle are retooling enterprise hardware and software offerings to meet SME needs. That is, delivering low-cost platforms with simple, automated features that bring ease of use and low maintenance requirements. Helen Han looks at the market

Integrator rightsizes solution mid-level ops

Integ Communications tapped into a low-cost solution to improve its financial operations while avoiding the budget burden of an expensive enterprise resource management package.

Pasminco tackles SAP upgrade

Zinc and lead producer Pasminco Limited is preparing for an upgraded IT environment ahead of SAP's plans to end support for R/3 version 4.6B at the end of 2004.

HP in $1.8m telecoms fault management agreement

Hewlett-Packard has signed a $1.8 million contract for fault management services for its telephony systems and expects to save around $360,000 in communications maintenance and support costs through the deal.

Vendors try new lock-in tricks

IT managers are unconsciously falling prey to a new form of vendor lock-in, whereby control of IT infrastructure through outsourced management of non-core IT functions is wrested away from the business under the guise of 'on-demand' computing services, a senior Gartner analyst has warned.

Tool trashes the paper chase

Minter Ellison's new case management system has eliminated the paper trail of legal cases and projects and has powered up the collaboration level between lawyers and clients.

ERP made retailer's results crystal clear

Retail is a complex business for Sydney-based glass and crystal retailer Royal Scandinavia. With 51 stores in Australia and New Zealand and 20 of those as online stores for its George Jensen and Orrefors Kosta Boda lines, the ability to manage high volume transactions daily is a stressful scenario, according to Royal Scandinavia’s financial controller Peter Chapman.

Electrical company upgrades B2B trading platform

In a bid to streamline business processes and reduce operational costs by expanding its data transaction capabilities, MM Electrical Merchandising is implementing an upgraded EDI gateway solution.

New markets, e-govt to drive 2004 IT spending

CeBIT Worldwide Events' chief Joerg Schomburg is upbeat about analysts' forecast last week that the global ICT market would grow between 4.5 and 6 per cent in 2004, supporting their view that demand for e-business, wireless infrastructure and e-government technologies would drive a "recovery" next year.

Vendors face job obliteration

A massive wave of IT redundancies will hit Australian shores in the next few years with local vendor-based jobs moving to offshore outsourcing markets on a "substantial" scale, a senior Gartner researcher has warned.

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