Category: Uncategorised

Australian IT spending to hit $85b in 2017: Gartner

ITWIRE, 25 October, 2016 – Growth in the software and IT services market is driving up IT spending in Australia to a forecast total spend of almost $85 billion in 2017 on the back of organisations undertaking major digital platform transformations.

According to Gartner, the forecast figure of $85 billion (A$) represents a 2.8% increase in spending from this year.

Gartner revealed the forecasts for the Australian market at its Symposium/IT Expo on the Gold Coast on Tuesday, while reporting that global IT spending, also driven by growth in software and IT services revenue, is forecast to reach US$3.5 trillion in 2017, up 2.9%  from 2016 estimated spending of $3.4 trillion.

In the Asia Pacific region, software spending is projected to grow 6.4% in 2016, and another 10.2% in 2017 to total US$35.6 billion.

And, Gartner says APAC IT services spending is on pace to grow 2.9% in 2016 to reach US$93 billion, and increase 4.1% in 2017 to reach US$98.8 billion.

Peter Sondergaard, senior vice-president and global head of research at Gartner, told his Gold Coast audience that every organisation needs a digital platform strategy.

“The battle for ownership of digital platforms, where networks of stakeholders bring value to each other, has begun,” Sondergaard said.

“The good news is that there’s incredible opportunities for those companies that innovate, lead and ultimately succeed in the creation of new digital platforms that meet their customer’s needs better than their competitors. The bad news for those hearing about this seismic shift for the first time is, basically, you’re already a long way behind.

“Not every organisation should assume a leadership role in a business ecosystem; however, chief information officers must collaborate with their business counterparts to integrate digital platform development into their technology and business strategic planning.

“CIOs will participate in the building of a new digital platform with intelligence at the centre, That platform will enable ecosystems, connecting businesses and collapsing industries. It will change society itself, and the way people live.”

Sondergaard says this new digital platform that extends beyond traditional IT infrastructure using new technologies is not familiar to the typical IT department.

“Your new digital platform will allow you to participate in the evolving world of business, government, and consumer ecosystems because ecosystems are the next evolution for digital. It’s how you compete at scale.”

Sondergaard says the new digital platform consists of five domains – traditional IT systems, customer experience, the Internet of Things, intelligence and the ecosystem foundation.

“Each of these domains are interconnected and interdependent. All have a role, and all are required.”

With the US presidential election two weeks away, Gartner’s John-Davie Lovelock said the firm’s analysts did not believe it, or who won, would affect IT spending trends.

“We have also taken into account the US presidential race, as well as a potential rate cut by the Federal Reserve. Typically, there is a slight pause in IT spending leading into the election, and then a relief in spending, subsequently.

“However, trends have shown that IT spending in the US is not dependent on presidential leadership, so neither candidate should have a significant impact on IT spending in the near-term.”

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Dinham, P (2016), Australian IT spending to hit $85b in 2017: Gartner, ITWire, viewed 25 October 2016, <http://www.itwire.com/market/75424-australian-it-spending-to-hit-$85-billion-in-2017-gartner.html>.

NBN Co reveals ambition to become IoT player

ITNEWS, 21 October, 2016 – NBN Co has revealed it is looking beyond its government mandate to create an internet of things (IoT) business, connecting “non-premises infrastructure” like traffic lights and potentially offering wholesale compute and storage services.

Principal technology officer for FTTx Daniel Willis told the Broadband World Forum in London overnight that NBN Co was already working closely with cities and councils to find new roles for its network.

Willis acknowledged that IoT didn’t form part of NBN’s current statement of expectations, but said he believed the company’s CTO office – of which he is part – could help “inform” its shareholders on opportunities to expand NBN’s remit.

“As a government-funded national operator, the government sets our statement of expectations,” Willis said.

“In the current statement of expectations we’re asked to do 100 percent residential and also offer business connectivity, so there isn’t – I suppose – a direct drive today from the government to support an IoT-type network, but we are definitely looking at that as a potential future application that we can specialise in IoT.

“There’s no reason we can’t inform the government of Australia on what the NBN’s future direction should be around those sort of technologies.”

Willis said the NBN already likely carried some IoT traffic today, though it would be hidden from the operator’s view – for example, connected home technology sitting behind a home router, or performed by a business that NBN Co simply serviced with connectivity.

However, NBN Co wants a much more active role in the growth of IoT. Its current thinking is that it could extend beyond wholesale connectivity into IT compute and storage to underpin emerging IoT models.

“We’re working closely around the country with cities and so on, [and] also starting to look at smart city programs connecting up non-premises infrastructure, and how that’s going to work – things like traffic lights and smart control systems,” Willis said.

He noted it was “early thinking” but said there was “some interest in the NBN on having a look at the compute and storage” services that will underpin IoT applications.

“Where the smart cities and some of the leaders in [that space in] Australia are progressing well is what you do with that data you collect – the analytics can help run the city more efficiently,” Willis said.

“The telco like NBN Co traditionally provides the connectivity infrastructure [for IoT] so basic, fat, dumb pipes.

“I think there’s also a role that the telco can play in providing the platform – the infrastructure for all those analytics – so the compute power and storage power on a common platform.”

Willis said NBN Co could potentially provide a platform for innovative IoT start-ups to create and roll applications out nationally.

“NBN’s role in that is making the connectivity simple to start with and then the next step might be where can [the start-up] develop and deploy their applications so they’re easily accessible to the wider market,” Willis said.

“That’s where I think we start to have some options for perhaps a telco that can offer not just the connectivity but the application or operating system platform that an IoT developer could deploy easily onto and reach market very quickly.”

However he acknowledged that the network builder may face stiff competition from traditional platform and cloud players to break into the IT services space, though argued it wasn’t out of the question.

“As we look to an SDN/NFV world, particularly in Australia, one of our main objectives is to take away the advantages that some of the incumbents might have of having existing infrastructure and let innovative new service providers come and address the market,” Willis said.

“Part of that might be providing easily accessible storage and compute on a common platform that’s available nationally, for example, so it’s not tied to a particular carrier or a particular infrastructure.”

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Crozier, R (2016), NBN Co reveals ambition to become IoT player, iTnews, viewed 21 October 2016, <http://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-reveals-ambition-to-become-iot-player-439836>.

Adelaide wants to build CBD-wide fibre network for business

ITNEWS, 14 October, 2016 – Adelaide City Council wants to lay up to 100km of fibre optic cable through its CBD in the hope that a dedicated high-speed network for businesses will lure big organisations back to its streets.

The council has resolved to go ahead with a full business case into the viability of the build, which CIO Peter Auhl said would offer 10Gbps upload and download speeds to local business customers.

He told iTnews the city-wide network was also being designed to link up to major global data exchanges run by the likes of Equinix and Megaport, to offer businesses high-speed access to international data centre networks.

Auhl said the concept equates to “creating a city that is one big local area network”.

“At the moment Adelaide businesses are competing with domestic internet workloads for bandwidth. We have heard them complain that they are losing productivity when kids get home from school and fire up their video games,” he said.

He pointed to local film post-production company Rising Sun, which has had to call on the state government to help with data connections it needs to transfer film and data back to its Hollywood customers.

The council won’t have a firm idea of what the network will cost until the business case is complete. Lord mayor Martin Haese told ABC radio the construction could be “something which is $10 million or something which is considerably more”, but the city is looking at public-private partnerships to get the fee-for-service business model off its feet.

However, he said he was confident this kind of infrastructure will attract big business back to the state’s ailing economy, eyeing off everything from universities, to software developers, medical researchers, and banks.

“We’ve got to really look at doing things a bit differently if we’re going to attract bigger employers back to the city. Over the last 30 or 40 years we’ve lost a number of them, we need to reverse that trend and it might just be this technology which does that,” he said.

The business case will go to council for a vote in early 2017.

Auhl thinks Adelaide, with its compact CBD, is in a prime position to create “a real point of difference” as a hub for the digital economy.

“This is like the sewer [network] of the 21st Century,” he said.

The state government recently invested $4.65 million to extend the SABRENet network it co-owns with South Australian universities to a handful of selected business and technology parks, also with the intention of luring employers back to SA.

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Cowan, P (2016), Adelaide wants to build CBD-wide fibre network for business, iTnews, viewed 14 October 2016, <http://www.itnews.com.au/news/adelaide-wants-to-build-cbd-wide-fibre-network-for-business-439380>.

The ecosystem of Internet of Things / Machine-to-Machine (IoT/M2M) is poised for explosive growth in the near future

In its initial phase, all of the internet’s IP addresses were assigned to computers of one sort or another. Some of these were servers, and a growing number were clients that mostly consumed (but could sometimes modify) content on those servers.

As the internet — and in due course the worldwide web — developed, more kinds of (increasingly mobile) computing devices became connected, and web servers delivered ever richer content with which they could interact. Although this first internet/web revolution changed the world profoundly, the next disruptive development, in which the majority of internet traffic will be generated by ‘things’ rather than by human-operated computers, has the potential to change it even more.

Fortinet recognises Melbourne-based consulting firm Acurus as ‘Top 2015 Enhanced Technology Partner’ at global conference

SYDNEY, 18 January, 2016 – Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT) – a global leader in high-performance cybersecurity solutions – today announced that Melbourne-based Acurus was named its ‘Top 2105 Enhanced Technology Partner’ of the year for the Asia Pacific region. This year’s award ceremony was held last week at the company’s Global Partner Conference in Cancun, Mexico. Fortinet’s Global Partner Conference awards recognise the outstanding achievements drawn from the company’s distributors and resellers around the world. This year’s conference attendance was Fortinet’s largest, encompassing more than 1,200 partners from over 83 countries.

“Acurus has consistently shown innovation, technical expertise and superior customer service to their rapidly expanding customer base across the region,” says Jon McGettigan, Fortinet’s Senior Director Australia, NZ & South Pacific Islands. “They have excelled at solving enterprises’ security challenges by installing and configuring a wide variety of Fortinet’s high performance solutions in a cost-effective manner. It is their commitment to quality and performance that stood out amongst a very competitive pool of nominees.”

“The Acurus – Fortinet partnership has delivered first-rate retail technology solutions for our customers,” says Jason Matser, Managing Director of Acurus, who received the award in person in Mexico. “The Fortinet platform has exceeded our customer’s initial requirements. This has given us the confidence so that we can continue to innovate. It is encouraging to know that we have a partner we can reply upon when implementing future retail solutions.”

“Our Partners are at the very heart of our delivery model and this award recognises the tremendous results that we have been able to achieve within our region,” says Genevieve White, Channel Sales Director – Australia for Fortinet. “Each Partner brings specialist knowledge and skills to the market and, together with Fortinet’s technology and support, provides an environment to innovate, enhance and deliver world-class network security solutions.”

“Fortinet’s support has been a premium experience,” continues Matser. “In addition to the technology, their attention to detail has been unwavering. Acurus is delighted that we’ve won the Enhanced Tech Partner of the year award for APAC. We’re excited to build upon this solid vendor partnership in the upcoming months and into the future.”

Acurus is a rapidly growing IT consulting business servicing the healthcare, retail, telecommunications, utilities and insurance industries in Australasia. A Fortinet Gold Partner since 2010, Acurus delivered outstanding results in 2015 primarily into the retail sector. With a focus on their Enhanced Technology range of FortiWiFi solutions, product sales grew significantly in 2015. As evidence, Acurus helped a major client roll out Wi-Fi to more than1800 stores around the region.

“I would like to congratulate this year’s winners and personally thank every one of our partners for their continued dedication and commitment,” said Ken Xie, co-founder, President and CEO of Fortinet. “Fortinet’s growth and success could not have been achieved without the partnership of all of our resellers and distributors working together with us to deliver security without compromise.”

Fortinet’s annual Global Partner Conference (GPC) provides the Fortinet partner community with access to key marketing and business strategies, leadership and information regarding specific customer solutions designed to help partners succeed in the marketplace. Along with informative learning opportunities covering sales, marketing, services and technology, the Fortinet GPC presents an ideal setting for partners to take away valuable knowledge from their peers and from Fortinet.

About Acurus
Acurus Pty Ltd, a Fortinet Gold Partner, is an Australian IT consulting and solutions provider that offers a variety of professional services with a focus on developing and maintaining a close working relationship with clients. This relationship is key to the successful delivery of specialised custom solutions that are in line with the customers’ culture and vision.

Acurus’ portfolio of clients includes companies ranging in size from SME to Enterprise. Acurus has a proud history of committing to a high quality of customer support and delivering tailored solutions that work. Their extensive range of experience means they can stand in a diverse range of environments which allows them to provide clients with systems that are innovative, reliable and appropriate.

 

 

ACCC makes telcos open ‘superfast’ broadband networks to competitors

COMPUTERWORLD, July, 2016 – The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has pushed ahead with opening up so-called ‘superfast’ broadband (25 megabits per second or faster) networks, forcing network operators to allow other telcos to sell services over their infrastructure.

Both TPG’s fibre to the basement (FTTB) network and Telstra’s residential fibre networks in South Brisbane are set to be affected by the decision, which has seen the ACCC declare a ‘superfast broadband access service’ (SBAS) for five years.

The move towards declaring the service, which allows the ACCC to set the pricing and other conditions imposed on network access seekers, began in September 2014. The inquiry into declaring the SBAS followed the competition watchdog’s decision that TPG’s FTTB rollout did not violate anti-cherry-picking rules designed to protect the National Broadband Network rollout.

The ACCC issued a draft decision on the issue in November last year.

The anti-cherry-picking rules are intended to stop telcos building high-speed broadband infrastructure that could undermine the NBN’s business case in high-value or low-rollout-cost areas.

Teclos are prohibited from rolling out infrastructure capable of delivering 25Mbps+ download speeds to residential end users unless they offer the service on a wholesale-only basis. However, they are allowed to extend by up to a kilometre networks that existed prior to 2011.

The TPG rollout also caused alarm because of the potential for some blocks of apartments to be limited to one retail supplier of superfast broadband services.

After the ACCC revealed that TPG had not violated the anti-cherry-picking rules, as an interim measure Malcolm Turnbull, at the time the communications minister, introduced a new licence rule for telcos that forced companies to allow competitors to sell services on superfast networks.

The new SBAS rules will not apply to all networks capable of delivering 25Mbps speeds. Exemptions include the NBN and the hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) networks that will be incorporated into the NBN, as well as networks subject to the ACC’s Local Bitstream Access Service or Domestic Transmission Capacity. Also exempt are those networks that supply services only to businesses, charities and public sector agencies in CBD areas of capital cities. (The ACCC said this is because competition appears to be effective in those areas.)

“This is an acknowledgment that all superfast broadband networks, regardless of their size display natural monopoly characteristics. What this access declaration does is provide retailers with the opportunity to enter superfast broadband markets, and in turn increase competition,” ACCC chairperson Rod Sims said in a statement.

“This decision will also help to simplify and clarify the existing regulations that apply to superfast broadband services, allowing all retail providers to compete on their relative merits, regardless of the technology used, when the network was constructed, or who operates it.

“Importantly, this will benefit consumers in the long term because it means greater competition between retail providers, and more choice, can now occur.”

The ACCC will hold another inquiry that will determine the conditions, including pricing, for access to services covered by the SBAS. The regulator has put interim conditions in place until a final decision is made.

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Pearce, R (2016), ACCC makes telcos open ‘superfast’ broadband networks to competitors, Computerworld, viewed 29 July 2016, <http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/604262/accc-opens-up-superfast-broadband-networks-competitors/>.