The Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (soon to be the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education) has become the latest agency to sign a ten year lease through the whole-of-government Data Centre Facilities Panel. DIISRTE has inked a $4.2 million deal with Canberra Data Centres, which has won the bulk of the data centre panel deals to date.
In hardware news, the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) has bought nearly $7 million worth of desktop products from Dell through the whole-of-government panel for Desktop Hardware and Associated Services.
New Victorian Premier Denis Napthine has made several changes to the State’s senior bureaucracy. He has selected Andrew Tongue PSM to be Secretary of his own Department, Premier and Cabinet, and has appointed Greg Wilson as Secretary of the Department of Justice.
NSW Finance & Services Minister Greg Pearce has conceded to The Australian that two of the 85 action items on his Government’s ICT Strategy to-do list have fallen into the “amber zone” suggesting they are at risk of not meeting targeted deadlines. They include outcomes around virtualisation, financial and performance management reporting and governance framework.
NSW Police CIO, Chris Robson, has foreshadowed a future approach to market to kit out the force with mobile communications devices as part of the agency’s Mobility Strategy. The Strategy and the business case will be informed by a trial of Apple, Microsoft and Blackberry devices that is currently underway, reports IT News.
Following a ministerial reshuffle which saw Adam Giles take over the Chief Minister’s seat, the Northern Territory Government has elected to delay the release of its 2013-14 Budget by a fortnight to give Ministers time to familiarise themselves with new portfolios. The new budget date will be 14 May, the same day the Federal Budget is released.
The Tasmanian Government has added TasmaNet to its whole-of-government telecommunications and infrastructure buying arrangement, Networking Tasmania II. Tasmania approached the market in October last year to add one or more suppliers to panel specifically for the provision of data centre hosting.
AusAid has spent $1.6 million with New Zealand-based IT company Data Torque, in exchange for a Revenue Management System supporting the Public Sector Improvement Facility in Kiribati.
Calculations made by The Australian suggest that the Federal Government’s Senior Executive Service has expanded by 78 per cent since 1998, compared to an overall public service rate of increase of 42 per cent over the same period.
Leighton Holdings Limited has sold roughly 70 per cent of its telecommunications businesses, including Nextgen Networks, Metronode and Infoplex, to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan fund for a reported $620 million.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has signed a $2.1 million deal with Optus for Mobile Telecommunication Services spanning three years to 2016.
Related Articles:
Federal Data Centre Panel to be refreshed in 2013
Finance reviews Desktop Hardware panel
Tasmania reveals its busy ICT agenda, including NTII overhaul
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