Australia changes IT chiefs

Incoming minister for finance and deregulation, Penny Wong, appears to have passed responsibility for the Australian federal government's peak IT strategy group to special minister of state, Gary Gray, reports TechWorld.

Over the past three years, responsibility for the Australian Government Information Management Office (Agimo), which coordinates federal government IT strategy, has sat with finance minister Lindsay Tanner. The change of masters returns Agimo to its days under John Howard's administration, when it was overseen separately by special ministers of state Eric Abetz and Gary Nairn.

In the briefing notes, the finance department urged Gray to focus on “a new strategic vision for the government's use of ICT... for the next five to 10 years”.

An ICT-enabled Sri Lankan government institution that can provide solutions to people's complaints will be set up soon, states the Daily News.

Secretary to the president, Lalith Weeratunga, says an extensive study has been done in this regard. Weeratunga emphasises that while this complaint management programme would be run directly under the supervision of the president, all its activities would be ICT-enabled.

“The computer can do many things. But it cannot win the hearts of the people. Only the government official can do this,” Weeratunga says.

One-third of business users are taking hosting, security and conferencing services from their telecoms suppliers, says Zawya.

According to an Ernst & Young survey in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unity, telcos face a challenging task of positioning themselves in certain areas of ICT.

Wasim Khan, Middle and North Africa telecom head at Ernst & Young, says: "Enterprises recognise that maintaining a high-performance network, allied with software infrastructure investment, is vital to increase business productivity. This should give telcos a head start in gaining a stronger foothold in the market for non-core and more IT-centric services.”