IT professionals in medium-sized business face a unique set of challenges. They are often alone or in a very small team and don't have the luxury of saying "That's someone else's department"; they have to do everything IT related. Installing printer drivers, troubleshooting Exchange and making sure all computers have the latest patches are all in a day's work.

Naturally, they look for tools to automate and simplify their IT tasks, but packages such as CA Unicenter, IBM Tivoli and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)/Configuration Manager (SCCM) are enterprise level applications requiring specific hardware and high levels of expertise and maintenance. At the other end of the scale are low cost solutions that automate one particular task — software/hardware inventory with Spiceworks for example. The ideal solution is something which covers everything the big ones do, but packaged for an IT generalist audience. That product is Microsoft System Center Essentials (SCE), currently in beta testing for its third reincarnation: the 2010 version.

SCE is designed for organisations with up to 50 servers and 500 client computers, and combines hardware and software inventory, monitoring, software deployment, patch management and (new in 2010) virtualisation management, as well as comprehensive reporting. All of these capabilities are incorporated into a single console with an intuitive interface.

"One pane of glass" to monitor ALL servers, network devices and client computers.
(Credit: Paul Schnackenburg)

Installation is very easy, with detailed wizards holding your hand all the way; be aware the server needs to have at least 4GB of RAM.

Different parts of SCE can be spread across several servers.
(Credit: Paul Schnackenburg)

Monitoring

At the core of SCE's monitoring capabilities are Management Packs (MP), a set of rules and scripts for a particular product that captures the "knowledge" of how that application should behave and what to do when it doesn't. Every Microsoft server product has a corresponding MP, created by the product team responsible for the program itself. Many third-party MPs are also available: for hardware from Dell and HP, networking devices from Cisco, applications like BlackBerry and other operating systems like Linux. These MPs are created for SCE's larger sibling — Operations Manager — but work fine in SCE. A new feature in 2010 is that the "chattiness", ie, the number of alerts, is automatically turned down by about 50 per cent when an MP is installed in SCE compared to SCOM.

If you've never experienced monitoring at this level, it's the definitive early warning system. Without monitoring, usually the first you hear of a problem is when users call with complaints. With monitoring, you'll have alerts long before then, which means you can often fix minor problems before they turn into service outages. By capturing "best practises" in MPs, deep product knowledge is presented in an easy-to-understand fashion, which can change your IT support from reactive to proactive.

Wake up! Something's wrong with one of your servers.
(Credit: Paul Schnackenburg)

SCE 2007 installed about 70 MPs under the assumption that this would cover the vast majority of installed OSes, services and applications in most mid-sized business, with the option to install further MPs manually. SCE 2010 takes a different approach, only installing a handful of core MPs then looking at its inventory of your particular environment and only plugging in the MPs required for those applications and platforms. If you later add another server or application, SCE will prompt you to install the necessary MP.

Detailed hardware and software inventory is only one of the many features of SCE 2010. (Credit: Paul Schnackenburg)

If you add new client computers or servers to your environment, SCE can detect these, install the agent and automatically make them managed. New in SCE 2010 is the ability to create dynamic groups where new computers are automatically put in the right group based on particular characteristics, make and model for instance. The SCE console can be installed on several client workstations for remote access; for times when you're out of the office SCE can email/IM or send you an SMS with relevant alerts.

Not in the office? No problem — SCE lets you know about problems no matter where you are. (Credit: Paul Schnackenburg)

To avoid a planned server outage generating unnecessary alerts, use the new Maintenance Mode feature, which temporarily halts warnings related to the object.

Software deployment

It's a critical task when there are hundreds of client computers in your environment and making sure users have the right software to do their jobs. The traditional approach of manually starting the installation on each machine doesn't scale well beyond more than a few PCs, so a centralised solution is necessary. SCE 2007 can create packages based on MSI installation files that you then assign to the relevant client computers. Many set-up programs only come in an "exe" variant — fortunately, SCE 2010 supports creating packages from these. There's a bit more manual work, as you have to define which OS and architectures are supported, but this feature considerably broadens SCE's ability to deploy all needed software.

Patch management is built on top of Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), the free patch management product from Microsoft, but SCE 2010 adds a few bells and whistles. Rather than downloading the whole catalogue of available updates, SCE 2010 looks at what's in use in your environment and only gets what's necessary. Another issue with WSUS is that the size of the database grows over time; SCE 2010 adds a nifty wizard to schedule "clean ups" of old or superseded updates. SCE not only updates Microsoft's products; there are several third-party catalogues available, and you can also define your own.

For server applications, the addition of an "Authoring" tab provides an interesting feature: Distributed Applications monitoring. End users (and your boss) don't care about SQL Servers or Exchange Servers; they care about being able to do their job. Using this new tool set, you can model all the servers and applications that make up a particular service into one object for management and monitoring.

End-to-end service monitoring lets you know when there's a problem with any part of your applications. (Credit: Paul Schnackenburg)

Going virtual

The big Kahuna in SCE is undoubtedly the addition of virtualisation support. Essentially a scaled down and integrated version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), this adds host management, Intelligent Placement and Physical to Virtual conversion (P2V). Both Windows Server 2003 with Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 with Hyper-V are supported hosts. If you point to a server as a virtualisation host and it doesn't have the corresponding platform installed, it'll automatically be added for you.

Once you have one or more host servers going, the next step is taking existing physical servers and converting them to virtual machines. SCE helps by identifying good candidates for converting to the virtual world. A simple wizard gathers information about the candidate server, installs a small agent and proceeds with the process. Afterwards, you can simply turn off the physical machine and start up the VM; users should notice no difference. The wizard is robust and a delight to work with, making a complex task easy.

Once you have VMs, the next question becomes which server to house them on. Intelligent Placement takes into account performance data from both hosts and the VM to recommend the best host to place the VM on.

Missing from the SCE implementation of SCVMM is management of VMWare's VirtualCenter/VSphere, so if you need that, the full SCVMM will need to be added.

Once you have some or all of your servers running as VMs, SCE 2010 doesn't differentiate how you manage the physical and virtual world — it's all the same.

Performance and Resource Optimisation (PRO) is a feature that lights up in SCVMM when SCOM is also installed in the environment. It allows for policy-based control of VMs: if a website is receiving higher than usual traffic, an additional web server VM can automatically be started, for example. PRO is not in the current beta of SCE 2010, but it looks like it'll be in the Release Candidate, which puts the concept of a "dynamic datacentre" in reach of medium businesses.

Conclusion

SCE 2010 is a key cornerstone for comprehensive IT management in a medium business. If you're in this category and are spending more time fighting fires than adding business value through IT, it's time to look at this very comprehensive and easy-to-use solution.

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The 1300-square-metre facility will provide 24/7 services to Telstra's government and enterprise customers across Australia. The centre will start out with 40 staff, and have capacity for 100 staff.

Telstra enterprise and government group managing director, Nerida Caesar, said in a statement that the centre would provide customers with a complete view of the network environment in order to better prepare against and isolate security incidents.

The new centre will be fully integrated with Telstra's existing global operations centre in Melbourne and managed network operations centre in Sydney.

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• Ludlam: Telstra-split Bill unlikely in '09
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The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is available now on the Next G network.
(Credit: Telstra)

Telstra tightens its grip on the smartphone market and is first to market with the highly anticipated BlackBerry Bold update.

As of today customers will be able to purchase the BlackBerry Bold 9700, nicknamed Onyx by manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM), through Telstra shops for the outright price of AU$999, or for $0 upfront on an AU$85 per month Mobile Plus plan from 1 December.

The Bold 9700 is the successor to last year's Bold 9000, RIM's first smartphone to feature HSDPA connectivity for access to the web and data services. The 9700 features the same specifications as the former, but packed into a smaller, more lightweight package. It also features an optical trackpad below the screen which behaves like a laptop touchpad in certain applications, such as the web browser.

One important distinction for certain Australian customers will be that the newer 9700 does not carry Telstra's Blue Tick — a badge indicating superior coverage and best suited for customers living in remote regional locations. Last year's model was given this distinction by Telstra; however, the Onyx is "recommended for handheld use in metropolitan and major regional areas", as per Telstra's website.

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• Excellent build quality
• Good keypad
• Improved camera
• Very responsive
• Good battery life
• 3.5mm audio port

• Optical navi-pad can be annoying at times
• S60 platform feels dated in light of the competition

The Nokia E71 was one of our favourite business smartphones thanks to its attractive design and full range of useful features. More than a year on, is its successor, the E72, just as compelling a smartphone? Let's look at the differences between the two to find out.

Design

Given how well-received the form factor of the E71 was, there wasn't a need to change things much in its successor. The E72 has a similar solid metallic feel and is almost the same size and weight at 114x59.5x10.1mm and 128g. On the front, you get the same landscape-oriented QVGA display, below which lie shortcut buttons and a QWERTY keypad. The shortcut keys surrounding the directional pad are laid out differently, but the ability to access your calendar, contacts and mail in one button press remains intact.

The directional pad is significantly different to the E71. While it shares the same square design with a large selector in the middle, this centre button now doubles as an optical navigational pad. So, aside from pressing one of the four direction buttons, it is possible to move cursors by stroking your finger over the selector. This can be annoying as we found ourselves moving the cursor accidentally at times. The application in which it is useful is the browser as it gives better mouse cursor control — clicking on small links can sometimes be a very precise affair. Those who don't like the optical pad can turn it off completely, rendering the directional pad identical to the E71's.

The E72's QWERTY keypad layout doesn't differ much from the E71's. It has a shorter spacebar, making way for two extra keys on the bottom row — a shortcut to select symbols and a dedicated exclamation mark key. As indicated by a diagram on the spacebar, it now doubles as a shortcut to turn the camera light on for use as a torch; pressing and holding the key will activate that useful feature. Though the shape of the keys remains the same, we found the tactile feedback different. Less force is required to depress a button, and consequently, the "springiness" of the keys is reduced. This takes some getting used to if you are switching from an E71 and we can't conclude if it's better or worse — just different.

One of the best changes is the inclusion of a 3.5mm audio port on the top of the device. The E71 had a 2.5mm version which required an adapter if you were using your own pair of headphones. Other connectors remain the same with a dedicated connector for charging and a micro-USB port on the left. One thing it lacks, which is present on the E71, is infrared, but we reckon it's not too big a loss to most users.

Features

When it comes to connectivity features, the E72 doesn't differ much from the original. You get the full works including HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS for navigation. There are some slight improvements such as a faster 10.2Mbps HSDPA maximum speed and HSUPA for high-speed uploads. Do note that these are highly dependent on the operators' 3.5G network quality, so users may not really feel the impact.

Since the launch of the E71, Nokia has been making improvements in the Symbian S60 third edition software. The E72 has convenient features such as transition animations, Ovi Store for downloading third-party applications and built-in support for Microsoft Exchange synchronisation. It's important to point out that these features can be activated on the E71, too, by downloading the appropriate updates from Nokia. What makes the experience different is that the E72 is much more responsive thanks to a faster processor. More on that in the Performance section later.

Another improved feature is the inclusion of a 5-megapixel camera, up from the 3.2 megapixels in the E71. In our tests, we found the photo quality much improved with excellent macro shots as one of its highlights, perfect for archiving name cards. Also, you don't have to press the "2" key to activate autofocus, a cumbersome and unintuitive implementation on the E71. Now, simply touching the optical pad will let you focus on your subject, while depressing it will snap the shot.

Performance

The performance of the E72 is where it really shines compared with the E71. Now, the E71 is no slouch and, in fact, was one of the most responsive S60 devices when it was launched. But this Nokia comes with a 600MHz processor that blows the E71 out of the water when it comes to speed. There was no lag felt throughout the menu system and even long contacts and message lists loaded very quickly. This was felt most in the web browser as you can now scroll around full web pages before they are fully loaded. There may be software improvements in play here, but we're pretty sure the faster chip has a part in that, too.

The improved speed didn't affect the battery life much. With the same 1500mAh battery, we got about 2.5 days of use on a single charge. This included phone calls, messaging and occasional use of HSDPA for emails and Twitter updates. Most users will be able to get by on more than a day without recharging.

We had no issues with reception and call quality, and the speakerphone was sufficiently loud for use in quiet situations.

One thing we've brought up time and again over the past year is how the S60 platform feels dated compared with the competition such as the iPhone OS and Google Android. This reduces the value proposition of the E72 slightly, especially when you consider the availability and quality of third-party apps.

Conclusion

As you would have probably gathered by now, the E72 is a very competent business smartphone. Nokia stuck with what worked in the E71 and made a few improvements in the process.

The big question is whether current E71 users should upgrade to the E72. There's no quick answer to that, but if the camera quality and responsiveness of your current smartphone irk you, the E72 would be a good replacement. Otherwise, stick with your E71 because the major features such as a good keypad, push email and decent battery life remain the same.

Via CNET Asia

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The strategy sets down war plans for Australian spy and policing agencies to protect Australian internet users in response to the 2008 E-Security Review.

"Our Cyber-Security Strategy details Australian government arrangements to defend economic institutions, critical infrastructure, government agencies, businesses and home users from cyber threats," McClelland said in a statement.

The priorities as set out by McClelland were to better detect, analyse and protect against threats, especially around government and critical infrastructure; partner with business on security; use ICT best practice in government systems; educate Australians on threats — releasing a new identity theft booklet entitled Protecting your Identity; change the legal framework to be more effective at prosecuting cyber crime; and create a skilled "cyber security workforce".

McClelland also announced the creation of a new Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT Australia, which will start initial operations in January 2010 and be fully operational by July. It will contain a number of cyber security activities currently being undertaken by Australian government agencies, including the Australian Government Computer Emergency Readiness Team (GovCERT.au) within the Attorney-General's Department.

"CERT Australia will work with other national CERTs around the world, the IT industry and Australian internet service providers to help network operators to identify and respond to cyber security incidents," McClelland said.

The government was investing $6.2 million over four years on top of current funding for GovCERT.au to bring together the team. CERT Australia is currently negotiating with the University of Queensland for the provision of services. (AusCERT is managed by the university.)

It will also work with the Department of Defence's Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), established as part of the Defence White Paper.

"The Cyber Security Operations Centre provides the Australian Government with cyber situational awareness and the ability to facilitate operational responses to cyber security incidents of national importance," Defence Minister John Faulkner said.

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"An assessment of PayPal Australia revealed deficiencies in the systems PayPal had in place to assess and manage its money laundering and terrorism financing risk," AUSTRAC CEO John Schmidt said in a statement.

The centre's concerns based around PayPal's assessment of how likely it was that new customers, whose account balances were less than $1000, were involved in money laundering or terrorist financing.

The concern was that PayPal wasn't compliant with the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, which says that reporting entities should assess the risk of their customers, products and services. Following a declaration issued by AUSTRAC on 3 October, PayPal was required to present the centre with an enforceable undertaking — a written enforceable in a court.

The undertaking, presented yesterday, promised to strengthen PayPal's existing systems and controls to comply with risk assessment requirements. The company will also appoint an independent expert to review its compliance and prepare a plan to remedy deficiencies.

PayPal said that it not only had been running a global anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing program since its founding 10 years ago, but had also spent US$13 million to enhance it, including changes for Australian requirements, over the last two years. It has introduced additional registration data collection, electronic identity verification for customers and additional reporting to AUSTRAC, to meet requirements and would work with AUSTRAC to meet others, the company said.

"We consider the [legislation] extremely important and take all of our compliance obligations seriously. We are confident we will meet AUSTRAC's requirements," PayPal Australia managing director Frerk-Malte Feller said in a statement.

"Compliance with the Act's risk assessment requirements is crucial in Australia's fight against money laundering and terrorism financing. The acceptance of this undertaking is a clear sign to industry that they must have robust systems and controls in place to manage and mitigate the risks their business may face," AUSTRAC's Schmidt said.

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• PayPal Australia gets new chief
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New virus worse than Rick Astley attack
(Credit: Whirlpool ID, Batman)

If your iPhone has been jailbroken, change your passwords now, advised Paul Ducklin, Sophos Australia's chief of technology.

Ducklin said the writers of this virus included a program call "Duh", which added malicious capabilities not present in last month's ikee release.

"'Duh' is the bot component," said Ducklin. "When an iPhone is first infected it uses Duh to call home, which by chance happens to be a server located in Lithuania. It dobs in your IP numbers — Wi-Fi, 3G — and the name of phone and makes a unique identifier which will identify your phone the next time you connect," he said.

The virus would replace Apple's default root log-in password, "Alpine", which was automatically used for the SSH program that was exploited by ikee. SSH is used to set up network communication capabilities on a jailbroken iPhone.

The new password installed by this virus was "ohshit", which can be used to remove the threat of further remote attacks on an infected device. Ducklin said to clean up the device by searching the file "directory/private/var/mobile/home", type in "passwd" to initiate the command, and change the password. "Otherwise the buggers can get back in anytime they want," said Ducklin.

Fellow information security boffin, and the first researcher to analyse a sample of it, F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen, wrote today: "The worm is not widespread, but it is much more serious than the first iPhone worm as it seems to try to steal information from the devices."

Ducklin agreed. It was not widespread because it was only a threat to iPhone users that have a jailbroken iPhone, have installed SSH, and have not changed the root log-in password from Apple's "Alpine" default.

On the other hand, while ikee turned off SSH, which would have prevented further attacks of a similar nature, this virus changed the password, meaning that the controller of the server based in Lithuania could gain access to the device.

"That's why I gave out the password," said Ducklin. "It's more malicious because it installs a bot which checks home for instructions. That site's now down but it has the potential to send a file to delete all files on [an infected] phone."

The latest iPhone virus is the third of its kind in the past two months.

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• Solid build quality
• Excellent screen
• New multi-touch trackpad
• High performance
• Affordable

• No backlit keyboard
• No HDMI or FireWire

Design

With the new MacBook in your hands it's difficult to tell at first glance what the differences are over the last version. But look a little closer and you'll realise: "hey, the trackpad's a little bigger, and it's got that unibody thingy". Like the MacBook Pro, the new Macbook features a unibody construction — only this time it's polycarbonate and not aluminium. Apple also cheats a little by including a detachable rubberised base, but this serves its own purpose by ensuring the MacBook doesn't slide away while typing.

The trackpad is a muti-touch glass sandwich and feels good to the touch. The pad is hinged in such a way that any point on its surface can act as a mouse click.

Features

The notebook features a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphic chipset. The MacBook features a 13.3-inch screen which is LED-backlit for better colours and power consumption, and comes in a 1280x800 resolution.

As a unibody the MacBook features a built-in battery, which Apple claims is good for seven hours of life. The new body means it's now a little lighter at 2.1kg. Other additions include a non-slip bottom and a 90-degree MagSafe power cable that should make it harder to knock out. To borrow from the D-Generation it now comes in a huge range of white.

On the left-hand side you have the power adapter, a LAN port, a mini DisplayPort, two USB ports, a combination headphone/microphone input compatible with the newer iPod headphones, and a Kensington slot. On the right-hand side you simply have the slot-loading 8x SuperDrive. If you don't want to try using the combination in/out headphone thingy there is also an on-board microphone next to the integrated iSight camera.

Networking includes a built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking adapter, the aforementioned gigabit Ethernet and Bluetooth.

Performance

In use, the new Apple MacBook is a lot like the old one — no surprises there. Of course, having multi-touch does speed up productivity somewhat, and the new 13.3-inch screen is simply exquisite. The panel is bright, detailed and clear, but it can be reflective due to the glossy, "high-contrast" coating.

The laptop proved itself to be quite capable as a gaming machine, and while this isn't that useful under OS X it really comes into its own once you fire Boot Camp up. Despite the cries of "Dear God! What abomination have you unleashed?!", we loaded and benchmarked a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate onto the machine. Running the venerable 3DMark05 we were able to extract a very usable 2119 marks — most modern games will run on this system without a hitch.

Despite being a new operating system, Windows 7 behaved on the Mac quite well due to the bundled Windows drivers on the OS X disc. Only occasionally did the trackpad have a brain-fart and misinterpret left-clicks as right-clicks. Again, not an issue if you use a mouse.

The keyboard is the "pebble" style we've seen from the company previously, and the action is as good as you'd expect with decent tactile feedback. There's no backlighting, though, so if you often type in the dark it may be better to try its bigger brother, the MacBook Pro.

While we didn't get anywhere near the claimed seven hours, we did manage to get a very decent four hours and 50 seconds using our video playback test. At almost five hours it can outplay most netbooks — which is an excellent result for a "budget" laptop. This is because unlike light internet browsing and word processing, movie files tax both the processor and the video adapter which makes it a "worst-case scenario" of battery life.

Sound quality via the on-board speaker is very good, and while lacking in any bass whatsoever it has a detailed sound that highlights vocals well.

Conclusion

If you have an Apple MacBook already there is no compelling reason to upgrade to this one. While multi-touch is a nice addition, serious productivity hounds will be using a dedicated mouse anyway. But, if you're looking to buy a new laptop and like the flexibility of a dual-boot system then this MacBook and a copy of Windows could very well be the ticket.

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Below, in no particular order, are eleven presentations from the night.

Ukulele for geeks — Christian Crumlish

Selling yourself online — Chris Mills

Compassion and collaboration — Tim Ayling

Video games and the real world — Vinh Nguyen

How online self-publishing is transforming — Tim Parsons

Location intelligence in the real world — Stephen Lloyd-Jones

Why Gen-Y should care about legacy — Simon Dikkenberg

How to be a zombie journalist — Renai LeMay

Change the world — Matt Jones

A.D.D. — A creative's curse or a blessing? — Malmuth Damkar

A world of words — Pamela Fox

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• Ignite Sydney sparks up
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(Credit: Avaya)

The scenario would always play out the same way. With your normal analog desk phone, you would place a call to speak to someone in another organisation, normally one in the financial sector with more money to throw around on the latest technology than sense.

As your contact answered their phone, you would hear a weird kind of hissing, crackling or popping noise, maybe accompanied by strange delays in between the time they spoke into the mouthpiece and when the sound reached their ear.

"ARE YOU USING VOIP BY ANY CHANCE?" you would ask loudly into your end of the connection.

"YES, THEY JUST ROLLED IT OUT LAST WEEK, HOW DID YOU KNOW?" they would yell back.

What had happened, of course, is that your contact's IT department had rolled out a new corporate IP telephony system, but without really testing the network connection and quality of service required to support it in the back end.

I can't say how often this happened to me, but it happened often enough, and I'm sure it has happened to most people at some point.

The thing is, however, that over the past several years it has stopped happening. Now, I never have problems making calls using IP telephony, whether it be to organisations like Westpac that I know employ the technology, or even from my consumer-grade home VoIP connection (I'm an iiNet customer).

There could be several things behind this fact.

Firstly, organisations could simply be throwing massive network resources behind their IP telephony connections to guarantee they never, ever have problems that would be noticeable by upper management.

Or, secondly, that quality of service and other technology at the heart of IP telephony solutions has become very mature over the past few years.

What's your IP telephony experience been like?

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Adrian Di Marco
(Credit: TechnologyOne)

"It is noted that the 2009 base salaries increased by 5-6 per cent because they were approved prior to the global financial crisis," the company's preliminary annual report for the year to 30 September said. "To compensate for this, at the remuneration committee meeting held on 6 November 2009, it was resolved to freeze the base salaries for executives on the back of the 2009 profit result."

Di Marco's pay currently sits at $831,101, of which $395,527 is base salary. His performance related bonus dropped 9 per cent in line with the company's profit reduction.

The company increased its sales revenue by 11 per cent to $120.7 million, a smaller number than it had hoped, as forewarned by founder and executive chairman Adrian Di Marco in September. Net profit fell by 9 per cent to $15.7 million.

One factor which lead to the profit fall was rising costs. Last year, costs rose 47 per cent up year-on-year on the back of growth. This year, TechnologyOne has managed to cut down the cost growth to only 17 per cent. Other factors in the lower profit included a delay in a multimillion-dollar contract, as mentioned by Di Marco in September, and the poor state of the market in the UK.

"[The UK market] has made operating conditions for a new entrant such as TechnologyOne much more challenging than originally anticipated," the results said. The company has now carried out a review of its sales operation and was making changes in Australia and the UK.

Yet Di Marco was not cowed by the company's numbers. "In a time of significant economic uncertainty and global financial crisis, when our competitors have reported dramatically reduced revenues and licence fees, TechnologyOne has posted our sixth consecutive year of record revenues and licence fees," he said in a statement.

In Australia and New Zealand, the company had won new deals with the New Zealand Stock Exchange, Beyond Blue, Lifeline Australia, the City of Melbourne, Arab Bank, SunSuper, the University of Tasmania, Seqwater and the Children's Medical Research Institute, he said.

Another strong point, according to Di Marco, was the $24.9 million research and development (R&D) spend, 20 per cent up on the last year.

"In such a challenging economic period some would argue that we should have made substantial cuts to our R&D programs," Di Marco said. "Without a doubt R&D has underpinned our long-term success in the market, and to this end TechnologyOne has taken a long-term strategic view that has seen all our R&D projects continue, with no staff reductions."

The company also announced that it would open a new "state-of-the-art" R&D centre in early 2010 to consolidate all of its R&D staff in one location. The cost of the centre was not stated, with the company only saying it would be a "significant" investment. TechnologyOne had, however, implemented a headcount freeze in its R&D division to control costs.

Di Marco was sure that the increased revenues were due to the R&D spend. As one example of where the spending is heading, next year will see the company create pre-configured enterprise systems which is slated to reduce implementation times and therefore risk.

"Since we launched our first preconfigured solution in September 2008, OneFMA, for federal government agencies, which we designed in response to feedback from customers needing to streamline their financial reporting, we have seen more than $3 million worth of new business," said Di Marco.

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The most significant telecommunications legislation in decades — the Labor Government's Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill — is likely to be scuttled, at least for the year, thanks to Shadow Communications Minister Nick Minchin's "abuse of Senate procedure", according to Ludlam.

"I will be surprised and impressed if we get to [the Bill] this year," Ludlam told ZDNet.com.au. "To use the [Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS)] Bill to delay passage of another is a real abuse of Senate procedure."

If Minchin's tactic is successful, he will have achieved a previous goal to have the debate deferred until the government released documents related to the first NBN proposal — a motion that was voted down last month by crossbenchers — the Greens, independent Nick Xenophon, and Family First Senator Steve Fielding — which cleared the way for Thursday's debate.

If the Bill is passed in its current form, Telstra will either be required to voluntarily separate its wholesale and retail arms or else face harsher regulation and be forced to sell its HFC network and stake in Foxtel as well as being banned from acquiring radio spectrum that would support emerging 4G wireless technologies. It also amends ministerial powers to determine how Telstra is broken up, and makes significant changes to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's powers to regulate the industry.

The government is likely to be persuaded into making significant amendments to the Bill. The Nationals support for the Bill in its current form is likely to be contingent on the outcome of the CPRS debate, but how that plays out is not known. The Nationals, in particular Barnaby Joyce, have expressed support for Telstra's separation but may back the Liberals to show a united Coalition.

Ludlam said the Greens support was contingent on the government making seven key amendments to the Bill, largely focused on telecommunications regulations during the years between the Bill's passing and the deployment of the National Broadband Network in its entirety.

The Greens also want protections for Telstra's staff included into the Bill, and ministerial discretion over what Telstra's separation should look like wound back. Ludlam said that as the government faced an election year, Conroy should not have "the ability to write a blank cheque" which could impact how Telstra's assets are valued.

Xenophon has already thrown his support behind the plan to split Telstra but, like the Greens, wants to ensure regional households are not disadvantaged by proposed Universal Service Obligations under the Bill.

It's still unclear exactly which way Family First Senator Steve Fielding will swing, or indeed what he wants, given his belief that negotiations between the government and Telstra over its separation should be conducted commercially rather than through legislative instruments.

Fielding's office today told ZDNet.com.au that his main concern was "the legislative gun which is being held to Telstra's head".

"We want to make sure Telstra gets a fair deal, but this is a matter of commercial negotiations between the parties," a spokesperson told ZDNet.com.au. Fielding has yet to make a final decision on whether to support the Bill.

Meanwhile, Minchin has celebrated that after two years in power the government has not delivered its NBN. "This Labor government and Senator Conroy have been huge disappointments and despite all the big talk, Mr Rudd cannot escape the fact he has failed to deliver a single new service under his NBN in two years," Minchin said in a statement this afternoon.

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Capgemini's new exec
Deepak Nangia
(Credit: Satyam)

75 of the increased headcount came from the company's acquisition of Nu Solutions last September, but the other half has come from organic growth. The company now has around 534 people in Australia. It also has around 250 employees working in India to support Australian clients.

"We've gone tremendously well this year," Capgemini CEO Paul Thorley told ZDNet.com.au.

The company has been trying to escape the image that it is purely a technology consultancy competing with the likes of KPMG. Its true competitors are the IBM's and Accentures of the world, Thorley said, since outsourcing and technology services were a large part of its portfolio.

Currently, the global percentage sits at around 70 per cent outsourcing and technology services and 30 per cent consulting. Having this sort of focus helps escape the "feast and famine" type model which Capgemini has suffered under in the past, Thorley said.

Despite there being many suppliers in the outsourcing and technology services market, Capgemini was succeeding by finding its own niche, according to the company's managing director new business, Deepak Nangia, who decided to move to Capgemini from Mahindra Satyam instead of becoming acquainted with the disgraced Indian outsourcer's new global management.

For instance, Capgemini has had some success in the financial services market with specific products such as credit card processing, wealth management and anti-money laundering products. "We've focused ourselves and looked at the market and said we're going to bring you expertise in certain areas," he said.

Capgemini's niche wasn't just in specifics, but also in deal size, Thorley said. He believed that if a company had a $50 to $100 million outsourcing deal as opposed to a $100 million to $400 million deal, it would think twice about giving it to IBM. "You don't want to be the twentieth largest customer for IBM," he said. He thought customers would rather be a more important customer of Capgemini.

Nangia pointed out that there had been a lot of industry consolidation, such as HP buying EDS, which meant there were less service providers that were not hooked up to particular products. "There are very few organisations which are true blue service organisations," he said. This could lead to favouritism he said. "It's easy for an organisation to discount one part of the business," he said. Despite this, he believed that Capgemini's independence was its ace.

Thorley thought the financial services would see the biggest growth in the new year, followed by the consumer products sector, the Federal Government and telcos.

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The NBN isn't the only way Australians can get 100Mbps services, the telco giant has proved; it is now up to the government to match and exceed Telstra's example.

With actual, purchasable 100Mbps consumer services out there in the real world, Australia's broadband market will change dramatically — not in terms of what most speeds people are actually getting, but in terms of what everybody else's services are compared to. Bet your booties that all three companies, which have first-mover advantage thanks to their turbo-charged fibre and hybrid fibre-coaxial networks, will be working to raise the bar as high as they can.

Let the services begin, as they say in the classics. What services? The long-elusive triple play — telephony, television and data — is a good place to start. They may be a footnote to its ongoing political intrigues, but Telstra has been steadily building its credentials as a triple-play provider: increasingly flexible Foxtel packages now reach mobiles, smartphones (including, recently, the iPhone), and even allow viewing of video via the web.

It's all part of a strategy to add more flexibility to shift its video interests online — not only because it sounds cool, but because a data-based video stream allows Telstra to look beyond the edges of its own network and onto the eventual NBN.

For now, however, Telstra's 100Mbps customers are limited to its own HFC network, which makes these initial services as much about expectation-setting as anything else. But there is a bigger game afoot here as Telstra proves a very big point with the government.

The proven ability to deliver 100Mbps services to large numbers of customers is a big step for Telstra — like when your little brother says he can eat more worms than you, and then does. In delivering real 100Mbps services like it said it would, Telstra has shifted the onus onto a government that now faces even more pressure to deliver the NBN as designed.

If problems derail the NBN, or if it cannot deliver the same experience Telstra's cable network can, Telstra will score no small amount of philosophical bragging rights. Ditto TransACT, which has long provided some pretty excellent triple-play services to residents of a few select pockets of the ACT; its content offerings already well established, the addition of 100Mbps is not so confrontational as evolutionary.

Even Optus — which will be third to the market with 100Mbps but still has good reach with its HFC network — isn't going to be sitting around waiting for the NBN.

So, while Telstra's HFC network is still limited to the same 2.5 million households or so that it has always serviced, its head-start in building customer loyalty should not be underestimated. Telstra has several years to set customer expectations for 100Mbps internet in Melbourne, potentially becoming the favoured provider — and developing strategies to counter the eventual introduction of the NBN.

Even as the government continues to back the NBN's ponderous roll-out, Telstra, Optus and TransACT will use their lead time to tweak pricing, charging a premium for their 100Mbps services today to recover their capital investments — and build up a data-based infrastructure that's ready to be switched onto the NBN at a word. Telstra's new T-Box is another extension of this, combining PVR capabilities with access to Telstra's increasingly data-based content library over any network capable of carrying it.

Little wonder Conroy is so eager to wrest control of the HFC network from Telstra: if Telstra plays its cards right, it can build up a strong 100Mbps following and create the same kind of inertia that for high-speed broadband that it has long enjoyed on the copper local loop. This, in turn, will diminish the NBN's natural market and create new forms of competition for Conroy's biggest project.

Pricing, marketing and bundling will of course be critical for the success of these new services. But by living up to its promise to bring 100Mbps services before year's end, Telstra has scored a direct hit on the government. The NBN isn't the only way Australians can get 100Mbps services, the telco giant has proved; it is now up to the government to match and exceed Telstra's example. From 1 December, every day the NBN is not operating, is another tiny win for Telstra.

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I think the Kindle would be a perfect fit for Chrome OS — it's an ebook reader and doesn't pretend to be an internet device, but could function as one

One needs to be clear on what Chrome OS does and doesn't do. This operating system will turn a perfectly functioning XP- or Linux-based netbook into, for all intents and purposes, an internet kiosk. And for many users that would sound perfectly acceptable.

It's not until you realise how much functionality is typically taken for granted but has now been pared out of the operating system that alarms bells start to sound.

The great internet hype machine has been claiming for many years that the web is the OS, and to my mind, Chrome OS is merely the logical conclusion of the Netscape webOS prophecy. But going cold turkey in terms of ditching all native applications in favour of cloud apps is a daunting prospect.

Take email for instance. Gmail is its usual great self on Chrome OS — no surprises there. This is Gmail where you have to use the web interface; there are no native clients, so say goodbye to Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird or Evolution. Having your work and personal inboxes in one easy-to-use application just went out the window. You'll need one tab for work, and another for personal email. Chrome OS just made the most mundane everyday task twice as hard.

Twitter is even worse. Rightly or wrongly, an internet connection nowadays will often mean that a Twitter client is also started. But with Chrome OS, you will be stuck with the Twitter website itself, or a HTML clone of an application such as TweetDeck. Make no mistake, a HTML 5 TweetDeck/Seesmic clone will happen, but I am extremely pessimistic of its functionality and usefulness approaching that of the AIR-based or native clients.

Playing music on this device is not going to be fun in Australia. When queried on the topic of playing music, the lads behind Chrome OS told a roomful of Sydney journalists that it was dead simple to stream music from Pandora (a US-only service). Great if you are in the United States, but less than useless if you are anywhere else.

Chrome OS will be launching with a worldwide simultaneous launch at the end of next year, and plans to be internationalised to 40 languages — 39 of which I can guarantee will not be able to use Pandora as a music streaming solution.

Less fun for Australians will be Chrome OS's potential hunger for large amounts of connectivity. While I do think that having the OS check against signatures for signs of corruption, and in the case of malware, then downloading a fresh OS image and essentially reinstalling the OS to clear it of infection is a good idea; however, it needs real broadband, not what we currently have in this country.

The Chrome OS lads wouldn't give out numbers on the size of the operating system, but said it was 60 times smaller than a certain competing operating system (Windows), and had added debugging code to be stripped out to make it smaller. Taking their numbers, a typical Windows 7 install is around 8 gigs, and at 60 times smaller that comes out at around 120MB.

Let's be nice to Chrome OS and say it can halve that number by release — that means approximately 60MB will need to be downloaded to re-imagine a corrupt Chrome OS instance. A tiny number if you are in South Korea perhaps, but on a non-Telstra 3G connection you're going to be waiting a while, and if you are on Next G you probably just used up your quota. Of course, on a fairly normal home or office broadband connection with Wi-Fi you should be fine.

With that said, I can see a use for Chrome OS — just not in the places that Google does.

It would take quite a low price point for me to begin to consider removing the option of native applications. I may use the netbooks more often than not for pure internet-only activities, but doing away with the significant OS benefit of native applications, even if they are seldom used, better come with a more promising proposition than speed and lack of malware. A tiny Linux installation, which is what Chrome OS really is, accomplishes the same thing.

Where Chrome OS would have a significant impact is in devices with internet connectivity whose primary function is not that of a glorified internet kiosk. I think the Kindle would be a perfect fit for Chrome OS — it's an ebook reader and doesn't pretend to be an internet device, but could function as one, a very good one, should Amazon ever choose to loosen its shackles.

An ebook reader form factor that has the ability to quickly check email, play a couple of tunes while reading or maybe some flash gaming to keep the kids occupied appeals far more than a netbook masquerading as an ebook reader (one of the uses cited by Google today).

As I look at Chrome OS today, it has less functionality than an iPod Touch. When an MP3 player has more flexibility, functionality and is cheaper than a netbook, I'll pick the MP3 player every time. At least the MP3 player is able to play music and browse photos without demanding connectivity.

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While some other local carriers such as Optus and Vodafone have allowed users to access the internet using their iPhones since the 3GS launch (Optus costing $10 per month), Telstra has not allowed customers to use the feature.

However, Telstra CEO David Thodey stated on the telco's Exchange site today: "We are listening to our customers on this issue and, while I can't provide any specific dates, we are working with Apple to enable tethering on the iPhone. I will keep everyone informed about our progress".

Some on the Telstra Exchange site have their doubts about Telstra's follow-through on tethering, with commenter James stating: "I've already gone with a different provider for my latest fibre install by way of protest ... can't be working too hard — this feature has been out since June 26 or so. It will probably be time to replace my handset with an Android by the time this is fixed. I just hope the Dec 3 rumour is on the money."

Telstra's hesitation on adopting tethering has caused some frustration with customers, and it is currently unknown whether Telstra will charge its customers extra to use iPhones as a modem for their computers.

A Telstra spokesperson confirmed the comment was Thodey's and not an impersonator, but declined to comment further on the issue.

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The upgrade means moving from SAP's traditional R/3 platform to the new suite — a combination of what the vendor believes are the best applications for doing different business functions such as customer relationship management. It was announced in February, and was made generally available in May.

Thirty nine and 47 per cent of Australian and New Zealand companies respectively had made the commitment to move to it, SAP ANZ Solutions manager Tim Wilkes told ZDNet.com.au yesterday. Those figures put the speed of adoption at 10 to 15 per cent faster than the last major release, R/3 4.6C, back in 2000, he said.

Customers truly saw the benefit, according to Wilkes. "The heart of it is that there are sound platform reasons for upgrading," he said.

Business Suite 7 was set to put an end to stove pipe systems, with data inside the company being linked with external feeds such as Twitter to give executives a complete view of its company and products. This creates more "clarity" for users, according to Wilkes, something useful in penny pinching times of crisis. Companies were able to use the suite to get a better idea of how the business is really operating — "instant gratification" in terms of information.

The new release also tackled a problem of battling through massive upgrades where the end result of billions of dollars worth of research and development was pushed through in one go. For Business Suite 7, SAP has expansion packages which come out every four to six weeks. Customers choose which of the new features they want in a check-box fashion.

"Once you've got [Business Suite 7] in you don't need to upgrade," Wilkes said. He believed customers were thinking about what they needed to do to get ready for better times.

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A statement by the minister's office said the telco had established it was not able to deliver six major milestones in its operational separation progress by the due date of 31 December 2009.

Telecom NZ is in the process of splitting its business into three as it attempts to keep its retail, network and wholesale operations separate from each other, in a plan approved in March 2008.

"The approved variation to the Undertakings sets a new date of 30 September 2010 for implementation of logical separation of shared information systems containing customer confidential information," Joyce's office said in a statement.

"The approved variation also exempts a small number of aging PSTN information systems that contain technical information about the PSTN, from the requirement for logical separation." PSTN refers to the public switched telephone network, or in other words, the old copper analog telephone network.

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• Slimmer design
• Lighter chassis

• Ugly, protruding battery pack
• No ExpressCard slot

Lenovo's IdeaPad S10 netbook was one of the most popular budget mini-notebooks for good reasons: its business-friendly tools, ExpressCard slot and reasonable price all made it a great option for consumers or corporate users.

When we last visited the S10 in May, the addition of a six-cell battery fixed our gripe about the short battery life of the previous version. Now, another revision is available that effectively replaces the S10 — the S10-2. This new model has some physical changes — most good, a couple bad — but keeps the same general components at a reduced price. It's a better deal than previous models, but you'll have to live without one key feature.

As far as the main body goes, the S10-2 is thin: so thin, in fact, that we'd be hard-pressed to want anything thinner. However, while the netbook closes up into a neat package, the six-cell battery protrudes out the back and hangs off the rear hinge like a laptop riser that can't be put away. Maybe it's the netbook's new thinness, but the dangling battery seems more intrusive here. We'd love to see that battery folded into the chassis, somehow, in future versions — it's just plain unsightly and also gets in the way of packing the netbook flat into sleeves or cases. It does, however, make for a nice stand on a desk.

With a matte-black interior and keyboard, a glossy 10.2-inch screen, and a smudge-collecting glossy black exterior with a black-on-black polka-dot pattern, the design feels a bit lost between business and consumer. It also looks a little more like an Acer or Asus than a "pro model" netbook, if we can use such a term.

The keyboard is comfortably responsive and has good travel, but the feel is still shrunken-down from a full-size keyboard experience. The multi-touch Synaptics trackpad is adequate and has average buttons beneath it, but getting finger-scrolling to work is a frustrating exercise. While the keyboard has been improved with full-size shift keys and a larger, wider set of tapered keys, it still doesn't approach the comfort of a ThinkPad keyboard, or even the HP Mini 110's fuller-size keys.

A quick-start button above the keyboard launches a Splashtop Linux-based instant-on OS if pressed when the power's off. The functionally limited web browser, music player, photo viewer, Flash-based game player and Skype/chat options are decent, but still take time to boot up (although less than booting XP). We'd prefer to put XP in standby and just resume when needed. When not running Splashtop, the QS button can be customised as a hot key to launch apps within Windows XP.

The 10.2-inch widescreen display has a 1024x600-pixel native resolution, which is standard for 10-inch netbooks. The new glossy screen looks stylish, but attracts light much more than the S10's. Video, including 720p clips, look clean and bright, though. Stereo speakers are positioned on the bottom of the S10-2, projecting sound but sounding muffled because of their positioning. They'll suffice for basic listening, but we recommend headphones.

One thing that made the S10 a standout was the inclusion of an ExpressCard/34 slot. It's sadly omitted from the S10-2's connection options. Maybe space had to be made to account for the thinner size, but taking away extra connectivity is never a good thing. Three USB 2.0 ports are your only options for connectivity without it. This means it'll be harder to connect a 3G modem, for instance. The rest of the S10-2 port options are netbook standard, though nothing to write home about. We hope in the future Lenovo turns things around by adding connectivity instead of taking it away.

The Lenovo S10-2's performance was average on our benchmark tests, mainly because it has the same N270 Atom that nearly all netbooks do. Some processors, such as the AMD Neo, perform faster, but the S10-2 doesn't under-perform for its category. For email, chatting, office documents and basic media playback, the S10-2 works perfectly well. Facial-recognition security software and OneKey data backup add some business-friendly applications to the package.

Compared to the IdeaPad S10's six-cell battery, which lasted four hours and one minute on our video playback test, the S10-2 gets four hours and 17 minutes on the same number of cells. While that's good battery life (actual battery life will be even longer with basic netbook use), laptops like the Asus Eee PC 1005HA outperform it by a considerable margin.

System configurations:

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Western Digital 5400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1005HA
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Hitachi 5400rpm

Acer Aspire One AOD250
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5400rpm

HP Mini 110
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5400rpm

Toshiba Mini NB205
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Toshiba 5400rpm

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"Optus confirmed today that it is already upgrading its HFC network in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to [standard] DoCSIS 3. Further details will be announced shortly. Optus is committed to offering innovative plans and pricing across all its competitive networks," the company said yesterday in a statement.

Upgrading to the DoCSIS 3.0 specification significantly increases transmission speeds — 100Mbps in the case of Telstra, which this week announced the completion of its $300 million DoCSIS 3.0 upgrade to one million homes. Optus did not say which speeds it hoped to achieve.

When Telstra's upgrade was first announced last year, Optus would not be drawn on whether it intended to follow suit.

"Upgrading HFC is not the answer to Australia's broadband future as it will only ever benefit selected areas in major capital cities and not 98 per cent of the population," a spokesperson for the company told ZDNet.com.au at the time in a statement. "The fact is, only a very low percentage of customers at best will ever experience the claimed speeds of 100Mbps."

The speeds on HFC would vary, Optus had said, since the network was shared, meaning that the more users on the HFC network the slower the speeds. Optus also believed that the upgrade, which would require each home to be individually wired up to the HFC, would be an inconvenient process for most customers, and potentially be an expensive one if they wanted to achieve the higher speeds, since they would have to upgrade their modems.

However, the telco seems to have overcome its concerns about laying out money to achieve faster speeds, even going further than Telstra by upgrading all cities where it has a presence. Optus' HFC network is available to around 1.4 million homes in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

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