theBizWiz
http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Manufacturing - Researchers in Business
Previously research grants were onerous. The process of applying for the grant can be time consuming and costly. The complex reporting required is difficult as well. The new Researcher in Business initiative is an attempt to reduce the complexity for smaller grant situations and also stimulate involvement between Research organisations and Industry. The details are on the ATO website and also reproduced below.
InFormGroup can help you to look further into this scheme and assist in the application.
theBizWiz
http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/
"Are you a manufacturing firm who needs assistance to develop and implement a new idea with commercial potential? Then Enterprise Connect's new Researchers in Business grant could help you.
Researchers in Business grants provide funding for businesses to employ researchers from universities or public research. Funding for up to 50 per cent of the salary costs for employing the researcher will be provided, to a maximum of $50 000. Placements can be for a period of 2 to 12 months.
To be eligible to apply for Researchers in Business an Australian SME must:
- be registered with an Australian Business Number (ABN)
- have turned over more than $1 million and under $100 million in the preceding/current financial year
- be solvent
- have filed Business Activity Statements for at least three consecutive years
- not have received funding for the project from other Government programs (whether Commonwealth, State, Territory, local or otherwise) within the last three years, and
- be a manufacturing firm or a manufacturing service firms or be eligible for services in one of the Enterprise Connect Innovation Centres.
Further information and application forms can be obtained from Enterprise Connect's website or by calling the Enterprise Connect Hotline on 131 791 during business hours."
Sunday, February 15, 2009
IT and the Recession
Arguably the best IT company to work for in the last couple of years has been NetApps. In announcing their results on February 12th a 6% reduction in labour force was sneaked in.
It goes to show the depth the Recession is taking now, especially in the IT sector. There was a time when IT was cool. But, sadly, it has become an mature industry that focuses on margin improvement, consolidation and efficiency. This is not bad as it translates to gains at the consumer end. Look at the desktop power available today ! Only a few years ago memory and disk sizes available today were too expensive. Now you can get Netbooks (see earlier Blogs) at sub $500 prices.
Technology that is cool is now based around mobility and "gadgets". This is where the money is and recommendations to new graduates would be have a look at companies like Apple, Nokia and RIM.
Unfortunately, as the larger end of IT town consolidates, the knowledge and experience of IT goes out the door. The Baby Boomers are leaving to Tree Changes, Sea Changes, Career changes or just the path of redundancy. I blogged previously about the cycles of IT and one thing is for sure, they dont seem to teach a subject called Computer History at University.
So what is the next big thing: Cloud Computing seems to be all the rage. Stay tuned for more on that...................
It goes to show the depth the Recession is taking now, especially in the IT sector. There was a time when IT was cool. But, sadly, it has become an mature industry that focuses on margin improvement, consolidation and efficiency. This is not bad as it translates to gains at the consumer end. Look at the desktop power available today ! Only a few years ago memory and disk sizes available today were too expensive. Now you can get Netbooks (see earlier Blogs) at sub $500 prices.
Technology that is cool is now based around mobility and "gadgets". This is where the money is and recommendations to new graduates would be have a look at companies like Apple, Nokia and RIM.
Unfortunately, as the larger end of IT town consolidates, the knowledge and experience of IT goes out the door. The Baby Boomers are leaving to Tree Changes, Sea Changes, Career changes or just the path of redundancy. I blogged previously about the cycles of IT and one thing is for sure, they dont seem to teach a subject called Computer History at University.
So what is the next big thing: Cloud Computing seems to be all the rage. Stay tuned for more on that...................
theBizWiz
http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/
Monday, February 9, 2009
Computer History revisited - Virtualisation
I must be old enough to have seen the full circle in lots of technology. I remember when Operation Systems were proprietary and this thing called Unix came along. The OS became "proprietary" when this thing called Linux came along. In each case as we entered the new paradigm, the operating system was not that good compared to the proprietary ones and we have to wait these days for features to be added to the various Linux distributions that have been in "Unix" versions for ages.
So lets talk about Virtualisation. The saviour in Green Computing. IBM in the 1960s ran Virtual Machines in it's operating software with things such as TSO and CICS around the place and running on the same hardware.
Today we have VMWare for example. In essence, it allows a single computer to run a number of instances of the same or different operating systems. So you could have a computer running RedHat, Suse, Windows XP, Vista for example and be able to log into each of these "machines" and run applications that are best suited to that operating system.
Before this, if you needed a Windows machines and a Linux machine you had to have two different computers. This meant more electricity and cost.
Of course the computer being used to host the virtual machines must have sufficient CPU and Memory and disk space but surveys have shown that a lot of computers are not fully utilised. With VM you now up your utilisation of an expensive resource.
There are downsides. For example the physical ports on the computer, the USB or serial ports, sometimes have contention problems between the different virtual machines. This has been mostly worked out and is not really an issue anymore.
So lets talk about Virtualisation. The saviour in Green Computing. IBM in the 1960s ran Virtual Machines in it's operating software with things such as TSO and CICS around the place and running on the same hardware.
Today we have VMWare for example. In essence, it allows a single computer to run a number of instances of the same or different operating systems. So you could have a computer running RedHat, Suse, Windows XP, Vista for example and be able to log into each of these "machines" and run applications that are best suited to that operating system.
Before this, if you needed a Windows machines and a Linux machine you had to have two different computers. This meant more electricity and cost.
Of course the computer being used to host the virtual machines must have sufficient CPU and Memory and disk space but surveys have shown that a lot of computers are not fully utilised. With VM you now up your utilisation of an expensive resource.
There are downsides. For example the physical ports on the computer, the USB or serial ports, sometimes have contention problems between the different virtual machines. This has been mostly worked out and is not really an issue anymore.
theBizWiz
http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
How to make a recession reality !
I just went down the shops to buy a book on Joomla. That is another story too geaky for here.
It was quiet, it was empty.
Maybe it is the post holidays time and kids are back at school. Maybe 4:00pm is a dead time anyway, I dont usually go shopping at that time.
Maybe..........people are not out spending money. But why would that be the case? They have tax cuts. There has been another interest rate cut yesterday. Maybe they are hanging onto cash and not spending because the big "R" may be just around the corner.
Not Recession, the other "R".....redundancy. This is really a conundrum.
The news is full of people being "R"etrenched. They are being retrenched because business is preparing itself for "R"ecession so it needs to conserve cash and that means some jobs are made "R"edundant.
If people dont spend in our economy, there will be more "R"edundancy. Dont get me wrong it is good for the Government to spend on infrastructure and other incentives in building as that has a flow on effect to the retail and services economy. But as less people travel to Australia and more of us stay home for holidays, the more people will grow to be "R"edundant.
Tonight I am repairing my pool chlorinator. Normally I would have replaced it. But making sure I conserve cash, I am getting a full life out of it before I am forced to replace.
I bet you are doing the same?
It was quiet, it was empty.
Maybe it is the post holidays time and kids are back at school. Maybe 4:00pm is a dead time anyway, I dont usually go shopping at that time.
Maybe..........people are not out spending money. But why would that be the case? They have tax cuts. There has been another interest rate cut yesterday. Maybe they are hanging onto cash and not spending because the big "R" may be just around the corner.
Not Recession, the other "R".....redundancy. This is really a conundrum.
The news is full of people being "R"etrenched. They are being retrenched because business is preparing itself for "R"ecession so it needs to conserve cash and that means some jobs are made "R"edundant.
If people dont spend in our economy, there will be more "R"edundancy. Dont get me wrong it is good for the Government to spend on infrastructure and other incentives in building as that has a flow on effect to the retail and services economy. But as less people travel to Australia and more of us stay home for holidays, the more people will grow to be "R"edundant.
Tonight I am repairing my pool chlorinator. Normally I would have replaced it. But making sure I conserve cash, I am getting a full life out of it before I am forced to replace.
I bet you are doing the same?
theBizWiz
http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/
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