Bruce Winzar says, “It’s a complete misnomer that you have to be good at maths to pursue a career in computing.” Winzar has certainly seen the pace of growth in computing and applications for business grow unabated. This is one of the main reasons he is still stimulated by what technology can do. He started his computing career as a student at Bendigo Institute in 1971 on an ICL 1901 which used punch cards for programming and data input.

The NBN has certainly engendered debate about fibre versus wireless. Motorola’s Roy Wittert enters the debate and charts the future of wireless networking in Australia.

IPscape appoints two senior executives: Emma Dart and Steve Roknic. [ + ]

NetSuite has announced the opening of a new office in Melbourne to provide sales, support and services to meet the growing demand for NetSuite's cloud solutions. [ + ]

The reality of cybercrime is that many businesses make it easy for both malicious and inadvertant breaches of company IT security to occur. Rigorous adoption, implementation and enforcement of in-house security guidelines can help limit the threats to data security. These five tips are a good place to start.

GlobalConnect Australia has appointed Rodel Fortunado as National Sales Manager. [ + ]

Silver Peak Systems has announced the opening of offices in Sydney and Melbourne, with Wayne Neich leading the company's strategic growth. [ + ]

Tom Heiser has been named as President of RSA, the security division of EMC. [ + ]

New Zealand’s largest privately owned call centre Telnet is the first call centre in New Zealand to achieve accreditation by the Australian Teleservices Association (ATA). [ + ]

Since 2000, the number of internet users has grown fivefold from 361 million to 2 billion in 2011. We’ve also seen explosive growth in services and products available online. Today, almost any activity - from personal banking to shopping and social networking - can be carried out over the internet. As such, it has become a treasure trove of money and information that cybercriminals can exploit for their personal gain.

After the global final crisis, 2011 is looking brighter on the economic front and companies are still looking for smarter ways to streamline their internal IT structure - unified communications is one of those areas.

Virtualisation technology is a growing trend that is supporting a shift in business priorities which requires data centres to deploy new applications quickly and efficiently, provide fast and reliable ‘round-the-clock’ access to information, meet or exceed stringent service levels with zero downtime, and all be done while driving down costs by maximising investments. Graham Schultz builds the business case for virtualisation of the data centre and the importance of the data centre network.

As the debate about the NBN rages, there is growing public awareness that the future of voice communication is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and not traditional lines. As a result, the VoIP for business market will hot up substantially in 2011. And, due to persisting global economic uncertainty, companies will look for quick return on investment in case the economy was to rapidly shift back into a downturn, predicts Marc Englaro, Fonality Australia’s Managing Director.

Overseeing the green data centre program in Digital Realty Trust facilities around the world has given Jim Smith the opportunity to speak at numerous data centre conferences, share case studies about energy-efficiency initiatives in facilities, and offer advice about best practices for making data centres greener and more sustainable. Smith has gained valuable insights from attendees in the best practices for greener data centres, which he shares with Voice&Data.

With a long career in IT spanning years at vendors such as Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Tandem as well as working at the helm of IT operations for large corporations such as Corning, Ziad Sukkar*, CIO of SIRVA in Asia-Pacific, is most excited about virtualisation technology.