Software Qld loses Mills amid gag claims

Bruce Mills, an outspoken member of Software Queensland, has officially stepped down from his role amidst a row over his personal blog.

With over 20 years of experience in the Queensland ICT sector, Mills is well known for his crusade for local ICT vendors to get big government contracts rather than multinationals like Oracle and Microsoft, a crusade that he pledged to continue. Mills represented Software Queensland on the government-funded ICT Workgroup — an ICT advisory board to the Queensland state government made up of the Australian Computer Society, the Australian Information Industry Association and Software Queensland. The group receives approximately $150,000 per year in government funding.

Software Queensland most recently expressed a concern about the nature of ICT leadership on both sides of Queensland politics, saying that the two sides were not adequately engaging with the real issues around ICT, nor were they engaging in a dialogue with industry.

Mills told ZDNet Australia yesterday that he had been pressed to leave the working group following recent comments he had made on his personal blog criticising the direction of the state government's ICT policy. He believed that the workgroup had become gagged because of the funding flowing from the government. However, Queensland's ICT minister Simon Finn's office told ZDNet Australia that there was simply no basis for the accusation, and refused to comment further.

Mills stepped down as a board member of Software Queensland on Friday with immediate effect. The search for a replacement continues.