IT HAS BEEN called the ICT industry’s David and Goliath battle – and two Davids won again when Brisbane-based companies SuretyIT and Cloud Plus beat out Telstra and Vodafone at the inaugural CRN Impact Awards. 

The CRN Impact Awards were established to recognise IT providers for projects that delivered real benefits for customers. Cloud Plus and Surety IT were awarded for their partnership on an information and communication technology (ICT) solution contract for John Deere dealer Chesterfield Australia. 

FINANCIAL software company, myprosperity, has strategically partnered with The Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) to assist accountants to better service their clients.

The partnership, which joins one of the country’s oldest representative professional bodies with a relatively recent addition to the financial technology (fintech) scene, aims to help accountants implement technology into their practices to make them more efficient. 

AUSTRALIA’S largest enterprise software provider, TechnologyOne can now claim to be the first, and only, company in Australia to have its enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, certified to the highest standard by the Federal Government.

TechnologyOne executive chairman Adrian Di Marco said the business has been endorsed as the safest and most trusted provider of enterprise SaaS by attaining the Australian Federal Government’s Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) certification. 

IRAP Assessors recommended that the Federal Government’s Certification Authority certify TechnologyOne’s SaaS solution as compliant to the Australian Government’s Information Security Manual (ISM) and be included on the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) Certified Cloud Services List.

“This endorses TechnologyOne as the safest and most trusted provider of enterprise SaaS in the world,” Mr Di Marco said.

“In the wake of the recent malware attacks across Europe, and with Australia’s investment in cloud solutions is set to approach $800 million by 2019 (according to The Telsyte Australian Infrastructure & Cloud Computing Market Study 2015), it has never been more important to verify the highest level of security for software provided and managed from the cloud.

“Businesses and governments must demand that their cloud software providers demonstrate the highest levels of security and data protection, to ensure business continuity.

“TechnologyOne has taken this step because there is too much at stake to overlook the importance of cloud security. It’s non-negotiable, especially as we approach the digital revolution when a cloud first, mobile first world is the norm.

“Having our software accredited to the highest standards possible enables our customers to acquire their security accreditations too,” Mr Di Marco said.

Elaborating on the measures TechnologyOne has taken around cloud security, Mr Di Marco said, “For us, it’s simply a matter of reiterating to our customers the multi-tiered security measures that come linked to the TechnologyOne SaaS solution.

“Automatic, highly secure and fail safe. This is the premise behind cloud technology of the future. There’s no excuse for omitting these measures in today’s cloud environment or taking short cuts,” Mr Di Marco said.

www.technologyonecorp.com

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POSITIONING technologies are already part and parcel of daily life and business across Australia – from using Google Maps on smartphones to emergency management and farming – but there is a lot more to come.

With increasing us and new technologies to come, the Australian Government has announced an investment of $12 million in a two-year program looking into the future of positioning technology in Australia.

Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester said the funding would be used to test “instant, accurate and reliable positioning technology that could provide future safety, productivity, efficiency and environmental benefits across many industries in Australia” including transport, agriculture, construction, and resources. 

Research used by the government indicated the wide-spread adoption of improved positioning technology had the potential to generate upwards of $73 billion of value to Australia by 2030.

Mr Chester said the program could test the potential of Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) technology in the four transport sectors—aviation, maritime, rail and road.

“SBAS utilises space-based and ground-based infrastructure to improve and augment the accuracy, integrity and availability of basic Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals, such as those currently provided by the USA Global Positioning System (GPS),” Mr Chester said.

The future use of SBAS technology was strongly supported by the aviation industry to assist in high accuracy GPS-dependent aircraft navigation.

“Positioning data can also be used in a range of other transport applications including maritime navigation, automated train management systems and in the future, driverless and connected cars,” Mr Chester said.

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Matt Canavan said access to more accurate data about the Australian landscape would also help unlock the potential of the North.

“This technology has potential uses in a range of sectors, including agriculture and mining, which have always played an important role in our economy, and will also be at the heart of future growth in Northern Australia,” Senator Canavan said.

“Access to this type of technology can help industry and government make informed decisions about future investments.”

The two-year project will test SBAS technology that has the potential to improve positioning accuracy in Australia to less than five centimetres. Currently, positioning in Australia is usually accurate to 5-10m.

Mr Chester said the SBAS test-bed is Australia's first step towards joining countries such as the US, Russia, India, Japan and many across Europe in investing in SBAS technology and capitalising on the link between precise positioning, productivity and innovation.

The Minister said Geoscience Australia, with the Collaborative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI), would soon call for organisations from a number of industries including agriculture, aviation, construction, mining, maritime, rail, road, spatial, and utilities to participate in the test-bed.

www.ga.gov.au

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