NBN Co will add a further 9000 spots to the Interim Satellite Service (ISS) while expanding bandwidth available to customers on the service, Comms Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced last week. [ + ]

The Department of Defence has awarded Optus a $19.5m contract extension covering the continued supply of satellite capacity and support services. [ + ]

Applications delivery networking vendor F5 Networks has opened an ANZ customer support centre in Auckland, its fifth such facility in Asia-Pacific. [ + ]

Can tech CEOs hold political opinions that run counter to their organisation's mission statement? The case of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich suggests that the answer could be 'no'. [ + ]

ICT analyst firms Ovum and Informa are merging under the Ovum brand, to create a research house that will employ 180 analysts across six continents. [ + ]

The Department of Defence has awarded Optus a $19.5m contract extension covering the continued supply of satellite capacity and support services. [ + ]

UNIT4 has won a deal to provide research management software to Monash University, to help the university manage its $300 million global research practice. [ + ]

Microsoft's recently revealed Office for iPad will appeal to some users, but will leave those looking for innovative tablet-related features disappointed, according to one analyst firm. [ + ]

Microsoft has made new leadership appointments to its Cloud and Enterprise, Microsoft Devices and Xbox groups. [ + ]

The Australian smart home automation market will be taking in nearly $1 billion by 2017, with 'smart home hubs' capturing 40% of the market, Telsyte predicts. [ + ]

Only 6.5% of PCs in Australia and New Zealand are still running Windows XP, compared to 32% worldwide, but Trend Micro warns that these laggards are posing a "public health risk to the internet". [ + ]

With Australian companies feeling more confident in their growth prospects for 2014, the percentage of businesses planning to increase headcount is also growing, a survey shows. [ + ]

Australian beverage company Bickford's has selected cloud-based and mobile CRM systems from StayinFront as part of an overhaul of its current systems. [ + ]

ACMA has issued a formal warning to Optus after an investigation found the telco inaccurately billed customers almost $9 million. [ + ]

Google has published its latest figures on authorities' legal requests for user data, including details from Australia, but the report still has no statistics on the type of user data shared. [ + ]