Alicia Camphuisen

Microsoft and ecorp are moving to quash rumours the software giant is planning to pull out of the locally-developed portal ninemsn, their 50/50 joint venture. Industry rumours were triggered by a private client report issued by financial services group HSBC Securities to Australian media conglomerate Publishing and Broadcasting Limited PBL which suggested a recent 20 […]

Australian online music retailer ChaosMusic has allied with Microsoft to market, promote, and place protections on digital audio and video at its site. Within the deal, Chaos will use Microsoft’s Windows Media Technologies (WMT) 4.0 to make protected downloadable music from its roster of local artists, as a prelude to the platform’s consumer launch in […]

Australian telecommunications carrier Telstra has acquired an equity interest in local Internet and e-commerce technology developer Sausage Software in a cash and options deal. Telstra will pay AUS$18.9 million (US$12.47 million) for 10 percent of Sausage, purchasing 14 million ordinary shares at AUS$1.35 each (US 89 cents). It then has 40 million options over the […]

Australian online auction site stuff.com.au will put local art under the hammer in the country’s first fine art auction live on the Internet. The auction will include more than 230 items of Australian contemporary, traditional and Aboriginal art, from artists such as Brett Whiteley, Norman Lindsay, and Sidney Nolan. A small number of European works […]

Sydney-based content publisher and provider Horan, Wall & Walker (HWW) is to raise AUS$6.1 million (US$4 million) through a public share issue. The company will float 16.7 million shares at AUS 50 cents each. Of this total float, 12.2 million have come through an underwritten issue of new shares, while existing shareholders are contributing the […]

The country’s national, publicly-owned television network, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC), is set to move into multimedia with the help of the Victorian state government. Cinemedia, the government’s film and multimedia funding and development body, have agreed to each contribute AUS$1.6 million in cash and in-kind resources over the next two years to develop a […]

Australian Internet usage trends justify maintaining a 25 cent price tag on untimed local calls, according to Dr. Ziggy Switkowski, CEO of national telecommunications carrier Telstra. The average duration of local calls has more than doubled over the past few years from three minutes to seven minutes, primarily because of the increasing amount of time […]

Home access to the Internet has risen 50 per cent in the past year, according to latest figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). In the 12 months to February 1999, 1.3 million Australian households, or 18 per cent of the total, had Net access, up 423,000 from February 1998. Of this new […]

Computershare and Web content developer Spike Networks have partnered to launch Australia’s reportedly first Internet-delivered initial public offering. The IPO, which is a precursor to Spike’s float on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), is designed to automate the share application process for investors and is the first domestic service of its kind for equity capital […]

ecorp, the Internet business arm of Australian media company Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd (PBL), will conclude a AUS$4 million (US$2.6 million) content deal for its portal, ninemsn, by the end of this month. This deal, which provides content for national telecommunications carrier Telstra’s Big Pond site, represents 40 percent of ninemsn’s revenue, and is the […]

Telecommunications vendor Ericsson Australia has partnered with Sydney-based Internet Protocol (IP) company i on australia to bring the Internet to the common telephone handset. Ericsson has made what it terms “a significant financial investment” in the partnership to develop and market IP solutions to Australian users. The first product in this suite of solutions will […]

The Australian Internet industry took to the streets Friday to protest against the federal government’s Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) legislation, which was introduced earlier this week. Some 400 people rallied in Perth, Western Australia, to protest against the legislation, according to Michael Malone, technical director of Western Australian ISP iiNet and chairman of the […]