AIIA has welcomed the launch of the National ICT Contracting Framework, launched on Friday by the Australian Procurement and Construction Council (APCC) at a Ministerial Council Forum in Melbourne.

AIIA says that Framework will bring a greater level of consistency to standard contractual issues.

According to AIIA’s Chairman, Peter Kazacos, adopting a consistent framework will realise a raft of benefits for government customers and industry, including improved contracting processes and outcomes, and a reduction in negotiation costs with ICT suppliers.

“By reducing the complexity of doing business with the Australian governments, we will encourage greater participation and investment from both local and international ICT suppliers,” Mr Kazacos says.

The Framework aims to achieve consistency in ICT contracts across participating jurisdictions.  Current participating jurisdictions are the Australian Government, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.

Over time, each participating jurisdiction will gradually transfer their existing ICT model or standard contracts into the Framework and new standard contracts will be drawn up in line with the Framework.

Further areas of consistency are likely to be identified through the greater cross-jurisdictional cooperation, and these will be progressively rolled into the Framework.

The next phase of the project will be the creation of a ‘clause bank’ – a set of agreed standard clauses that jurisdictions could adopt in their standard contracting framework. This would represent a significant step towards creation of a single national ICT contract saving the industry thousands, even tens of thousands, on each transaction, Mr Kazacos explains.

“The Framework is supported by the ICT industry, on the basis that it will lead to a more consistent contractual landscape in the strategically important government market,” Mr Kazacos says.

“The project has created a dialogue between participating Australian government jurisdictions and the ICT industry and fostered a spirit of collaboration.

“This has the potential to reduce the time and costs involved in reviewing and negotiating ICT contracts across jurisdictions and allow ICT companies to focus on providing the best outcomes for their government customers,” Peter Kazacos concludes.

AIIA has welcomed incoming Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, and paid tribute to the stellar work of outgoing Premier, Peter Beattie.

“Under the guidance of Premier Beattie, Queensland has taken a leadership position in terms of industry/government relations,” said AIIA’s Queensland State Chair, Catherine Ford, upon hearing the announcement.

Next year the Australian telecoms market will top the $37 billion mark, with another $1.5 billion being added to that figure by 2009, according to research house BuddeComm.

BuddeComm says that data revenues, which include broadband and dial-up Internet. will grow from $6 billion in 2007 to $8 billion in 2009, representing the largest growth in the industry. Telstra dominates this market with a 66 per cent market share.

At a luncheon in late July, AIIA presented Telstra’s CEO, Sol Trujillo, who shared his opinions about the future of broadband in Australia. (You can view the podcast online.)

Last Wednesday, AIIA presented the views of four more distinguished speakers on this topic.

View AIIA’s podcasts of the speakers’ presentations:

• Macquarie Telecom’s Maha Krishnapillai; 
• Primus Telecom’s Rhavi Bhatia; and
• Ed Willett, Commissioner at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

AIIA podcast a panel discussion to coincide with the launch of the Byteback program, which is now available from AIIA's website.

Moderated by AIIA's CEO, Sheryle Moon, industry experts David Mol from HP, Urs Mader from Fujitsu and Ramsay Moodie from Fuji Xerox examined critical environmental issues surrounding the ICT industry.

Today, on Talking Technology, Sheryle Moon looks at an international report into digital prosperity, which examines the impact of ICT in five key areas: productivity, employment, more efficient markets, higher quality goods and services, and innovation and new products and services.

The report finds that the integration of IT into virtually all aspects of the economy and society is creating a digitally-enabled economy that is responsible for generating the lion’s share of economic growth and prosperity, both in the US and internationally, including in developing nations.

Find out more at Talking Technology.

Enrolments for ACS Computer Professional Education Program (November intake) close on 31 October.

This week, the largest research project into the Open Source industry and community will be launched.