Telstra has won contract worth $185 million over five years to manage Centrelink voice services. The deal will include the supply of speech recognition services, the introduction of smart outbound dialling systems and development of SMS text services.

IBM has reportedly reached an agreement in principle to sell its personal computer business to Lenovo, China's largest PC maker, in a deal valued at between $US1 billion and $2 billion, according to people close to the negotiations. (See News Roundup)

The past week is likely to be looked upon as a watershed in Telstra's history, not because of the announcement of Dr Zigmunt E Switkowski's departure, but because of the decisions that were taken in that fateful board room meeting.

Everybody is having a rush of blood at the prospect of replacing their old fashioned expensive to use (line rentals and call charges are a killer) plain old telephones, with sleek new cheaper VoIP systems. However, Cisco Australia managing director, Ross Fowler, says it just isn't going to happen anytime soon.