A global anti-piracy lobby group has claimed that bringing down software piracy would boost local software development and that local ISPs should be roped into stopping online pirates.

A wireless ISP has launched with a commercial service targeting broadband black holes of inner-city Sydney, including the 38 percent of city-dwellers in flats.

The two biggest PC makers in China - Lenovo and Founder Electronics - have hinted at plans to strengthen their export strategies targeting other nations, including Australia.

US contact centre applications vendor Concerto Software has signed a Melbourne-based business process outsourcing specialist, UCMS.

Sydney service provider Multiemedia has launched VoIP over satellite broadband for customers in Australia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, parts of New Zealand and eventually even further afield.

An ISV partner has attacked critics of Microsoft CRM, arguing that long-standing CRM vendor FrontRange is not qualified to assess the new application.

Lenovo is set to inherit IBM’s PC business partners in its US$1.75 billion purchase of a major share in IBM’s Personal Computing Division (PCD) – a deal that has made the Chinese vendor the world’s third-largest PC business.

Value-added resellers have emerged as the preferred choice of channel for Australian business customers seeking to purchase single-function printers.

An ongoing shortage of LCD parts - further exacerbated by a major maker's decision to halt external supply - may be partly relieved in the projection sector by products tipped for a 2004 release.

Resellers have cautiously welcomed the Coalition's ICT policy ahead of the polls, citing relief of public indemnity requirements as a big boon for channel players reliant on government contracts.

HP has officially denied allegations that it has used end-user data gleaned via channel marketing programs to go direct, cutting out resellers.

ISP Unwired has added Woolworths and Co-op Bookshops to its stable of resellers for its wireless broadband service, claiming its supply problems have been ironed out and coverage is improving.

Despite market hype around Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), one new mobile applications reseller has argued large scale, mainstream deployments are years away.