Microsoft has entered the search engine fray, with the official launch of its new MSN Search. The first search engine to be developed by the software giant has been available in beta version since 18 January.

Regional carrier, SP Telemedia (ASX:SOT) has won a potential $100 million five-year contract with the NSW Government to supply the core network for its state-wide broadband project, sending the company’s shares skyward. SOT beat Telstra and Optus to the deal.

Billing systems provider, Hansen Technologies Limited (ASX:HSN)), has won a $7.1 million three-year contract to supply its HUB meter reading network solution to Western Power,  Western Australia’s leading energy company.

In a survey of almost 2,000 ad executives, brand managers and academics by online magazine Brandchannel, Apple ousted search engine Google from last year's top spot as the most globally recognised brand.

The battle between the the old telephone technology and internet telephony (VoIP) is expected to heat up in 2005, as the world moves further into the much-hyped "Year of the Internet Phone".

US internet security company, RSA Security, last week announced glowing fourth quarter and year end 2004 financial results, including significant growth locally.

After much media speculation on the subject, Australian ISP, Iinet (ASX:IIN) has acknowledged that is in serious discussions to acquire one Australia's first and largest ISPs Ozemail, which is currently owned by MCI.

The CEO of EMC Australia and New Zealand, Steve Redman, said the storage giant had increased its market share dramatically in the past 12 months, mainly at the expense of Hewlett-Packard.

Online fraudsters are cashing in on ‘iPod mania’ as emails claiming to sell the popular MP3 player topped the spam charts in December, according to email security vendor Clearswift’s Spam Index.

Acer moved up one place to rank fourth in worldwide PC shipments for Q4-2004, according to preliminary figures released by global IT market intelligence and advisory firm, IDC. Acer showed the highest year-on-year increase among the top five vendors with 33% growth, overtaking Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens to grasp the No. 4 position.

Microsoft will combat piracy of its flagship operating system by requiring Windows users to verify that their copy of the software is genuine in order to receive timely updates and security fixes, the world's largest software maker has just announced.

Sun Microsystems said yesterday that its Solaris 10 operating system would soon be available on an open-source basis, a move the company hopes will help counter the perception that its technology is too proprietary and more costly than the competition's.

The word is in. Anybody who knows anything about what's going on in the IT industry is now saying it. The IT jobs market is back with a vengeance.

Online competitive intelligence service, Hitwise, gives a positive report on the performance of a new player within the Australian search engine space. According to Hitwise, Ansearch is showing strong market share stability after increasing by approximately 2000% in the Australian search engine space recently.

Network virus and internet content security specialist Trend Micro has issued a warning regarding WORM_ZAR.A, which poses as an email collecting relief funds for tsunami victims. With the subject “Tsunami Donation! Please help!” victims are lured to open the attachment, which initiates denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on a German hacker website.

The New York Times/Reuters report (23 Jan.) that increasing numbers of users are turning away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to alternative Web browsers that experts say are less prone to security flaws and offer newer features.

Century old US phone company, AT&T, plans to move away from voice carriage and towards the supply of data transmission software and services, reports the New York Times (22 Jan).

A survey of the hiring intentions in 2005 of 45 of Australia’s leading employers of graduates indicates only mediocre demand for newly qualified computing and information technology people. In contrast, the demand for new engineering and technology recruits has gone through the roof.

Worldwide PC shipments in 2004 increased 11.8 percent from 2003, due to strong mobile PC sales, according to preliminary results by research group Gartner.

Retail industry managers are dealing with an increasing amount of data by investing more in information technology, according to a survey of 100 US retail executives by Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation.