5 MINUTES OF FAME
Member Overviews
BUSINESS SUMMARY
EMS Solutions Pty Ltd is a privately owned and operated Canberra based company, established in 1995 to develop, sell and support Asset and Works Management software for a range of asset intensive organisations such as utilities (electricity, water, gas and telecommunications), airports, road authorities and government. Clients include ActewAGL and Country Energy. Systems Integrators, IT Consultants and anyone else who creates or sells packaged or bespoke business software to their clients and is interested in tools to drastically reduce the time it takes to develop .NET software applications. Allen Matthews at #6253-4211 or allen.matthews@ems-solutions.com.au
COLLABORATION NEEDS
CONTACT
BUSINESS SUMMARY
ASIS provides software business tools and associated professional services designed to support investigations, compliance audits and incident case management. It specialises in the design and development of 'semi-customised' Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) investigative case management software solutions primarily used by Government, Defence, Law Enforcement, Criminal Justice, Security, Insurance, Banking, Finance and Maritime organisations and agencies - both domestically and internationally. .NET technical expertise and complementary skill sets. Russ Lawrence at # (02) 6230-7170 or r.lawrence@asis.net.au
COLLABORATION NEEDS CONTACT
BUSINESS SUMMARY
Actividentity is the #1 vendor for Enterprise Single Sign On and Smart Card solutions. Actividentity is the only fully-integrated platform enabling organizations to issue, manage and use identity devices and credentials.
COLLABORATION NEEDS CONTACT
Mark Webster at # 6208-4867 or mark.webster@actividentity.com
NAVIGATING THE NEW INFORMATION SOCIETY
Paul Hynes, Moray & Agnew Solicitors, # 6262-6922 or phynes@moray.com.au Navigating the New Information Economy Innovations in digital technology are increasingly drawing everybody into what has been labelled as the “New Information Economy” - from businesses like the wholesale green-grocer, taking orders online, through a “virtual shop”, to the software developers, Internet service providers and telecommunications providers who service these new forms of doing business. Changes in technology and commerce are outpacing legal doctrines set up to deal with them. Information is the prime commodity of the New Information Economy, and it is information, as such, which the law is now struggling deal with. New ways of doing business online are also challenging conventional contract notions. In the past, the laws of copyright, contract, confidentiality, privacy and defamation have enabled people to control the way in which information could be used and commercialised. Digital technologies have now changed all that. Data is now very commercially valuable – such as the data relating to personal details, performance data, shopping preference and geographic information. Databases can contain millions of entries. Before the digital age, a table of information could have been photocopied. Such a direct copy would be a clear breach of copyright. These days, the data could be sucked out of a computer, entries selected and rearranged electronically. The transfer of information could be achieved without necessarily breaching the copyright – or maybe not. The trouble is that the law is different between the USA, Australia and Europe. If we are taking data off the Internet, for example, the answer may vary, depending on the location of the server with the information. Databases of personal information can be developed from traces you leave behind when you are surfing the „Net from the comfort of your own home. A mixture of “cookies” and “spy-ware” may yield up a swag of your personal data – including your level income, personal interests and health status, without your being aware of it. The information may not include your name or address, but you may still be identified by your computer‟s IP address. The information may be used for “profiling” you, making it possible to offer tailor-made prices when you do some online shopping, or slant the Online news you receive. Statutory privacy laws don‟t really protect “private” information unless your name or address is involved. In Australia, the common law may protect your private behaviour – as long as such behaviour is not in public. The question is, when you are surfing the Net, are you doing so “in private” or “in public”. Whether trying to keep your information private – or trying to extract it from a database, your legal rights may be affected by website terms and conditions. Differences between the respective electronic transactions legislation of the USA and
Australia in this regard may mean that any contract which you may agree to by “clicking here” may or may not be binding. Whether binding or not, doing things in contravention of Website terms may be construed as hacking…but that is another story.
TENDERBYTES – Free ICT Tender Newsletter
Rick Bushell, Four Streams Consulting, #0411 118 073 or rick@fourstreams.com.au TenderBytes is a simple, easy to read newsletter that will help you to take advantage of the wide range of opportunities available in the Australian and New Zealand ICT markets. TenderBytes covers Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tenders across all levels of Government, Education, Not-for-profit, and Private Industry (from every location across Australia and NZ). IT Business Owners, Business Development Managers, and Sales Executives will find that TenderBytes is an essential tool to complement existing sales processes. TenderBytes takes the heartache out of scouring newspapers and websites for information. Our FREE newsletter provides great value and is delivered once a week in a concise, friendly format. TenderBytes is part of The Four Streams Consulting Group (www.fourstreams.com.au) - an established ICT consulting business. We understand, and are dedicated to, the ICT industry.
MICROSOFT USER GROUPS
Jeff Wharton, President, SQL Server User’s Group, #0416 231 414 or jeff@wharton.com.au National User Groups http://www.microsft.com/australia/msdn/usergroups.aspx http://www.microsft.com/australia/technet/usergroups.aspx Canberra Based User Groups – Microsoft Office .NET User Group http://www.dotnetsolutions.net.au/dnsUG/
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2nd Thursday lunch and/or evening of the month
SQL Server User Group http://www.sqlserver.org.au/ o 2nd Wednesday evening of the month
Sharepoint User Group http://sps.uniqueworld.net/Canberr/default.aspx o 2nd Wednesday evening of the month
Windows User Group http://aususergroups.org/Default.aspx?alias=aususergroups.org/cbrwinug o 2nd Tuesday evening of the month
TFS/VSTS User Group http://oztfs.com/ o 3rd Wednesday morning of the month