Stories by David Watson

Telecom NZ looks to boost "free cash", reduce capex

Highlights of the January-March quarter for Telecom include Gen-i winning the Fletcher Building mobile contract from Vodafone, an increase in the dividend from the Southern Cross cable to $NZ23 million, from $14 million last year, and ongoing reductions in capital expenditure.

Layoffs at Symantec NZ alleged

Symantec is refusing to comment directly on claims in The Australian newspaper that it has "announced layoffs to its 600-strong workforce in Australia and New Zealand."

Computer Power sold to Australian company

Training institute Computer Power New Zealand has been sold to Australian education services provider Didasko, which has also bought Computer Power Australia.

New Zealand IT trainer avoids Australian fallout

The New Zealand arm of IT training provider Computer Power has been put on the market along with its Australian counterpart, despite not being affected by the woes facing Computer Power Australia.

Linux papers wanted for Australian Linux Conference

The Australian Linux Conference, to be held in Dunedin in January, is calling for papers.

NZ's Capital DHB wants an all-IP network

Wellington's Capital and Coast District Health Board is seeking a converged voice and data network.

IBM restructures consulting division

IBM will make two positions in its New Zealand consulting business redundant, as part of a redeployment of consulting services staff in Australia and New Zealand.

NZ leads way for Oz with budget tool

New Zealand was a reference site when the Australian branch of trans-Tasman insurer Vero bought Cognos' Enterprise Planning suite.

Optus takes toll on Telecom NZ

Telecom New Zealand's relationship with Toll Holdings in New Zealand is unaffected by Toll's switch to Optus in Australia, Telecom spokesman Phil Love says.

New Zealand antispam product goes open source

Firetrust chief executive Nick Bolton says the company has launched its MailWasher Server antispam filter as an open source product because the antispam market is becoming commoditised and Firetrust "spent too long developing it, to get it the way we wanted."

CIO should stand for innovation, consultant says

Most CIOs do an excellent job of overseeing IT operations, but few lead their companies' efforts to get real business benefits from IT.

Desktop Linux age around corner, says SUSE head

Markus Rex, the co-founder of SUSE Linux who became Novell's vice president and GM for SUSE when Novell bought the company last year, says the purchase gave SUSE a greater global outreach and the acquisition has given Novell "a real appreciation of how software gets developed in the open source world".

Big Blue no white knight for PeopleSoft

The recently announced alliance between IBM and PeopleSoft won't do much in the short term to make it harder for Oracle to acquire PeopleSoft, according to Gartner Australia analyst Kristian Steenstrup.

Auckland District Health Board to trial VoIP

Auckland District Health Board rejected VoIP when it looked at IT for its new hospital in Grafton, Auckland, but the technology has matured enough since then for a trial to be conducted, DHB CIO Steven Mayo-Smith says.

'Dirty dozen' tips from former cybersecurity czar

Hackers and phishers are preventing e-commerce and e-government from reaching their full potential, according to a former special advisor to the US president on cybersecurity.