From an AAP wire report, ‘PM to NSW: get your act together‘.
Asked if Mr Rees had his full support or whether he also needed to get his act together, Mr Rudd replied “Yes”, although it was unclear to which part of the question he was responding.
Gosh, it’s been a busy week; been doing so much I’ve hardly had time to self-promote about it. Outrageous.
The last issue of Nett with my mug on the editor’s page came out last Friday, including my interview with twin brothers Brian and Vincent Wu, founders of clothing retailer Incu.
The best interviews to do are the ones that defy your expectations. Plenty of small business owners aren’t shy about telling you how great they are, which gives you plenty of material for the story, but leaves you feeling a bit cheap and dirty at the end of it. Not these guys! You definitely don’t expect successful fashionistas to be friendly, humble and modest, but Brian and Vincent really are and I’m sure that has a lot to do with their success.
Over the last year, Incu managed to land a coveted deal: the rights to distribute UK brand Topshop in Australia. Considering how many Australian women buy from Topshop UK online, this is very big. The guys from Incu also told me exclusively about their plans to (finally) open an online store next year, and once again I think they have exactly the right approach.
I’ve also been doing some exciting news stories for ZDNet on stuff like telecommunications tenders, state government IT policies, how bad state governments are at looking after our personal data and ERP consolidation projects.
Aside from this, it’s all been about making clients happy by meeting their insane deadlines, finding somewhere to live and even showing up at the odd IT industry Christmas party. Phew!
It seems there’s always a story if you scratch the surface. Yesterday systems integrator Data #3 had its Annual General Meeting and MD John Grant announced – among other client wins – that the company had won four contracts with NBN Co, the company set up by the Federal Government to manage the rollout of the National Broadband Network. Nothing exciting, just some office PCs, networks and software.
Client win stories are usually very, very dull. People in the industry care because they want to know what their competitors are up to, nobody else is bothered. But in this case, the good people at NBN Co were quite surprised to find that Data #3 had announced this win. And there are some interesting questions about it being a closed bid, when the government is committed to open tenders for all its IT procurement.
OK, that was quick! I’ve posted my first freelance story for iTnews: Government on track for $1bn ICT savings: Tanner.
Soon after it was elected the Rudd Government asked UK public-sector efficiency expert Sir Peter Gershon to examine how the government and public service used information technology. This review, completed in August 2008, estimated the Government could save about $1 billion over four years just by rationalising its ‘business-as-usual’ or day-to-day IT spending. All this, apparently, without having to fire lots of people or reduce the number of IT services or the quality of delivery. (The Gershon review also cures warts and reunites long-lost lovers.)
This hasn’t gone without hiccups: Gershon estimated the Government would save $140 million in the first year, which turned out to be more like $109 million in reality. But with round one already in train, the government is pressing ahead with round two.
If it all works, in about four years’ time, the budget will be $1 billion leaner. Or $500 million at least, because half the savings will be put back into more IT stuff, which will generate more efficiency. Before you know it, the whole of government IT will be run on a couple of recycled desktops running Ubuntu!