Optus and IBM will jointly develop a private and secure 'virtual project office' for businesses and governments called the Know How Network, enabling teams of people anywhere in the world communicate and share information as if in the same room.

The Know How Network (KHN) will be carried on secure Optus networks, hosted in Optus data centres and will utilise Lotus software from IBM, including Quickplace, Sametime and Domino.

-The service is for people with lots and lots of terminals to share and access information as if it was a knowledge database," said Bill Leakey, director of government and key division of Optus.

Optus will provide the centre of the network for an establishment fee and ongoing costs according to usage. A licence fee is also payable to IBM.

"By combining forces and offering the KHN, Optus and IBM Software can help organisations to electronically manage and store their intellectual capital," Leakey said.

"For example, a printing firm could use this solution to undertake a printing project from inception to publication, bringing together specialist designers, advertising agencies, printers and customers in one secure environment, while they are located in offices in different parts of the country or even the world," he added.

Duncan Hewett, regional manager for Lotus said KHN will make Lotus products available to a large number of customers.

-Quickplace is growing at a fantastic rate, this provides an alternate path for companies to use whether they are SMEs or large corporations," he said

Optus hope to start trials of KHN soon. -Some of our customers want to make public announcements next month," said Leakey, although he wouldn't elaborate.

The Australian Defence Force have been using Quickplace to conference since July last year.

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