Nokia to buy Alcatel-Lucent in AU$22bn all-share transaction, European Commission officially accuses Google of infringing EU antitrust rules and Telstra to end Pacnet brand.

ICT spending by the Victorian public sector has more than doubled since 2010 by some estimates, but agencies are failing to demonstrate value for money, a state audit shows.

The government's revised national cybersecurity strategy should address issues including the IT security skills gap and include a mechanism to let businesses report attacks anonymously, the AIIA has urged. [ + ]

Australian national research computing facility NCI has deployed 11 petabytes worth of high-speed flash storage from NetApp for its supercomputing and cloud computing infrastructure. [ + ]

According to the experts, modern business process management optimisation initiatives must become faster than in years past, and such projects are becoming increasingly digital (and robotic). [ + ]

Tasmania's Glenorchy City Council has commenced a migration to the cloud, and the state's Liberal Government has unveiled a plan to expand the Tasmanian ICT workforce. [ + ]

This week: Woman’s $43m tax bill glitch, Aussie pollies are allowed to use their phones at work, lawnmowing robots take on the astronomers, rocket landings actually are rocket science, and Lost in Space is now real.

Mobile-enabled Australian workers remain blind to mobile security risks, even though 43% have lost data due to misuse of a mobile device, according to Aruba Networks. [ + ]

Telstra plans to switch on 1500 new hotspots for its trial nationwide Wi-Fi network and is asking the public to select locations where they want the next hotspots switched on.

The low initial cost of implementing open source software is very appealing to IT managers, but sticking with proprietary software can often be the better way to go, argues Paessler AG's Andrew Timms.

Transformational CIOs have an opportunity to take the helm and develop IT infrastructures that improve the quality of products and services provided, while simultaneously driving efficiencies and cost reductions. [ + ]

Cisco has failed to stop CSIRO from registering its logo as a trademark, Microsoft may one day make Windows open source and Singtel will acquire 98% of security service provider Trustwave for a little over $1 billion.

Australian IT spending will increase 4.2% in local currencies this year, but a stronger US dollar will lead to declining revenues globally, according to Gartner. [ + ]

The information security industry is failing to keep pace with the threat posed by cybercriminals, new research suggests.

The Tasmanian government has released a discussion paper covering scoping and implementation for Tasmanian Cloud, a project to move whole-of-government data to a secure, on-island cloud.