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FCB Technology was briefed to develop an SaaS SME HR tool for a national retail association and its 5000 members. The first of its kind in Australia, the system contains: • Industry award and wages calculators • Electronic employee and candidate profiles to store and archive information • Doc creation wizard with 70 templates, mapped to hiring, employee management and termination workflows Over 1,200 registered users in the first three months. Testimonial: ‘Let me congratulate you. Well done. The site is easy to read and easy to use. Love it.’ Nominated for Best Legal Innovation in the 2010 Australian Law Awards.

How easy is it to do business in Australia? Apparently, it's easier than doing it in Germany, Japan and Portugal. And it's a damn sight easier than in Argentina or the Solomon Islands. That's the assessment by The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation in their latest rankings of the world's economies. On the other hand, Australia crawled in at 63rd for "dealing with construction permits" and 59th for "protecting investors". Ouch!

Here’s a startling fact.

YouTube is now the world’s second biggest search engine, with over three billion videos viewed daily and 48 hours of video content uploaded… every minute! What are you doing to make your claim in the video marketing multiverse?

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When your family and friends are scattered across the globe, your phone bill can quickly become the stuff of nightmares.

This innovation came to life when we realised a gap in a developing segment in the telecommunications market. With telecommunications becoming commoditised, many entrepreneurs have joined the groundswell of companies offering innovative product mixes in voice, Internet, data, PBX, and hosting segment. While there are plenty of wholesale providers of these services, No one in the market has delivered an end-to-end BSS/OSS platform (front, middle, and back office solution) for these innovators. Utilibill Lite empowers such players to be competitive and offer first-class service while minimising overheads that were previously required to set up a telco.

Sonja Bernhardt, ThoughtWare Australia's CEO, was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia today for her contribution to the information technology industry.

According to the 2011 edition of the Country Brand Index, Australia is the fifth most powerful country brand in the world, following Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand and Japan and ranking above countries such as the United States, France and Italy. The report also shows that the general opinion is that Australia is good for business, ranking 4th on the list of the countries with the best investment climate.

After 25 years in hospitality businesses and at the age of 45 I knew I had one last chance of making it big. Sat down with 18-year-old son (doing business at Uni) and said, this is the big picture of a successful business and lifestyle. It can take you all your life following everyone's path or let's start at the top first. Lifestyle, money, minimal staff, outsource worries, outsource expertise, go national (more money), biggest ROI with least investment. The business dream. 6 months R&D globally distinguishing up-and-coming industries. A fully accountable national advertising platform on digital network.

Last year's Mother's Day gifts of showy bling and fancy perfume will likely give way to chocolates and bouquets. It's not that we love you any less, Mum. It's the economy, y'know.

With NBN on the horizon, there has been an increase in businesses looking to take the ‘virtual leap’ towards high-quality, feature-rich IP voice solutions, commonly called VoIP (Voice over IP) or hosted/virtual PBX. There are other options to the traditional landline for business telephony.

Of the 861 products nominated for our inaugural 'Smart 100' Index, some doozies are in our Top 100. While we can't announce the winners until 2 April 2009 (with the release of our Apr/May/Jun edition), we can bow to your prolific and very persuasive emails requesting a sneak peak at 'who has entered'.

Last year, the Pearcey NSW ICT and Digital Media Entrepreneur awards celebrated much talent, including that of Lars and Jens Rasmussen for the pinnacle award. The awards are back and the committee needs some nominees!

Ian Charles Stewart (Co-founder of WiReD Magazine), Warren Coleman (Co-writer and Co-director of Happy Feet), Michael Naimark (Founding Member of the Atari Research Lab, the Apple Multimedia Lab and Lucasfilm Interactive), Shinta W. Dhanuwardoyo (Recognised by Globe Asia as one of the 99 Most Powerful Women in Jakarta), Gerry Gouy (Senior Director, Global Business Development, MTV Networks International), Corvida Raven (One of Time Magazine’s 25 Facebook Profiles You Should Subscribe to Right Now)...

This week, Domenic Carosa's Future Capital Development Fund (FCDFL), Australia's only internet-focused Pooled Development Fund, announced its plans to raise a new round of capital in the lead up to an IPO. It's current portfolio consists of approximately 15 companies, including MP3.com.au, which he bought back from Destra last year.

Australian online department store, CatchOfTheDay, has local supermarket big kahunas firmly in its sights. CatchOfTheDay trialled the discounted groceries model for 12 months before launching GroceryRun. The company offered groceries as part of a two-day event each month. It sold, on average, two grocery items a second, netting more than $1 million in just 48 hours.

It's on again. Over coming weeks, we'll be scouring the nation for Australia's coolest companies. It's the first stage in Australia's most innovative business awards program - The Nomination Phase.

A vigilant cybersecurity consultant in Sydney, a self-made-man success story out of Darwin, and a tiny but persistent teacher-recruiting outfit in suburban Adelaide are among this year's winners of the Telstra Business Awards.

The deadline for The Australian’s innovation awards – presented by the daily in partnership with Shell and the Commonwealth Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research – has been extended, apparently on growing popular demand. The awards recognise innovation for the public good as well as breakthroughs that have potential for commercial use. The winners of each category will receive a cash prize of $5,000. The overall winner will receive an additional $25,000. The Backyard Innovation award open to the general public has a $10,000 prize.

You might, from time to time, forget to give your kids money to pay for their lunch orders. Or perhaps your children have a habit of using the lunch money you give them to buy lollies instead of the alfalfa sandwiches for which it is intended. Either way, mHITs is hoping both parents and schools will sign up for Easy Canteen.

Of the 861 products nominated for our inaugural 'Smart 100' Index, some doozies are in our Top 100. While we can't announce the winners until 2 April 2009 (with the release of our Apr/May/Jun edition), we can bow to your prolific and very persuasive emails requesting a sneak peak at 'who has entered'.