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Issue No. 137 | 24 May 2002 |
An Aussie Icon
Interview: Just Done It? Tribute: Lest We Forget History: Solidarity Forever Technology: Unblocking the Superhighway International: Gloves Off Unions: Out Of Work Review: Strange Business Poetry: The Lawyer's Lament Satire: Government Mourns Loss Of Last Anzac
Retailers in Outworker Spotlight Syd in Vicious Backpacker Stand-off Microsoft Monopoly Under Challenge Kiddies Not Exactly Having a Ball NSW ALP Faces Asylum Seeker Test Canberra Acts on Industrial Manslaughter Santa Claus Strikers on Christmas Island Abbott Believes Management Should Dictate Low Paid Not To Blame For Beer Price Rise Casino Award Covers Eastern States Security Workers Want Bosses Sacked Sydneysiders Rally For Western Sahara
The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Postcard Week in Review
Your Tools Page is Down Big Dave Foster Give Us a Click! Will the Real Mark Latham Please Stand Up? Unified Labour The Last Survivor Not Hate Mail
Labor Council of NSW |
News Microsoft Monopoly Under Challenge
Under the plan, part of a global push to break the Bill Gates monopoly, all state government projects would be required to deploy technology that is not reliant on Microsoft codes. Instead, it would need to adopt the 'Open Standards' designed to allow a range of service providers to build and maintain IT infrastructure. The move is seen as a major step toward competition within the IT sector. "When radio began in the 1920s, stations sprang up all over the spectrum," IT committee chair Michael Gadiel says. "Many of the first stations required you to have special radios to pick them up, because of the characteristics of the spectrum they used to broadcast. We currently face a similar problem on the internet. "Over time Government and industry agreed on public standards that allowed any radio manufacturer to build sets that could pick up all stations - or at least those that abided by agreed technical standards for broadcasting ... this was the leg up the radio industry needed, and it never looked back." The policy committee argues that Open Standards have been a way of promoting competition across a range of industries and are now being pioneered on the Internet. The New Zealand Government has already embraced this policy, publishing the standards it expects its institutions to comply with, with a few to international standards already being managed by independent standards bodies. The call is one of the key recommendations of the ALP's IT committee, which presented a bi-partisan report to the State Conference. Other recommendations include: - ensuring all IT purchases meet legal minimum employment standards - imposing controls on the use of email surveillance in the workplace - and boosting funding for Internet and IT literacy programs.
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