Cisco expands collaboration portfolio

Cisco will release 60 new products for its collaboration and unified communications portfolio. Cisco is upgrading its video, networking and messaging capabilities using technology from Jabber, PostPath, WebEx and other companies that Cisco acquired, reports ChannelWeb.

The products will allow Cisco's channel partners "unprecedented opportunities," says Richard McLeod, Cisco senior director of collaboration solutions for worldwide channels, in how they can upgrade existing enterprise architecture and add collaboration tools.

"Consumer-oriented instant messaging and other social things don't work for the enterprise environment," says McLeod. "People want the speed and ubiquity of social networks but to be able to do that in a secure business environment."

A special workshop was held by Bahrain's eGovernment Authority to mark the end of the second phase of the enterprise architecture project, according to AMEInfo.

The second phase, which involved assessing the current ICT platforms in all government ministries, then designing the ideal architecture of these platforms under one unified framework for all policies and applications, was carried by joint work groups from the ministries and government agencies. The project will now move to phase three.

The complex project will ultimately consolidate all government ICT platforms to optimise its configuration and avoid redundancy in executing projects.

Australia's Department of Defence has restated its goal of saving up to $1.9 billion over the next decade by spending $940 million to develop an improved Defence Information Environment (DIE) to support the armed forces and business reform objectives to 2030, states Computerworld.

The Federal Government said it would invest the $940 million at the release of the 2009 Defence White Paper in May with two-thirds of the money to be used to "address long-term underinvestment in Defence ICT by reforming access to, and management of, Defence information". The remaining funds will go to replacing hardware and improving information security.

In the most recent strategy report, Defence said it was aiming to achieve: greater ICT scalability, flexibility and adaptability; improved information speed and accuracy; continued technological capability edge; enhanced interoperability; and improved business support.