Customer interaction management software provider, Talisma, has opened offices in Australia and New Zealand and appointed Paul Bunn as managing director of the local operation. Talisma's Australian offices will be in Sydney and Brisbane. Bunn has more than 18 years' experience in the software market.  Most recently he was vice president of sales for the Western Region of the United States at iPhrase Technologies Inc. and Open Market Inc. Larger Talisma Australian customers include St.George Bank and Yarra Valley Water.

Biometric technology provider, BQT Solutions Limited (ASX:BQT) has appointed senior security executive, Len Werba, to head up the new BQT Solutions office in Queensland and new commercial division of BQT to be announced this week. Werba has been involved in security project management and sales engineering of large scale integrated security systems since 1982. He has worked projects both in Australia and overseas, with organisations such as Project Services Qld, AMP, The Australian Federal Police and Western Australia Corrective services. Werba has a technical knowledge of a range of integrated security systems, CCTV, Digital Video Recording, Explosive Detection systems, Biometrics, Smart Card technology, Narcotics Detection, Weapons Detection systems and the integration of these systems. During the last 5 years with Johnson Controls, he has been involved in medium to large scaled projects, both designing and managing those installations. Before Joining Johnson Controls, Len was involved in Sales and Project Management for DKS Integrated Security Systems in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

Financial software provider SimCorp has appointed Rod Dew as sales executive, based in SimCorp's Asian headquarters in Sydney. Dew joined SimCorp from Distra, a company specialising in high-performance consumer payments infrastructure applications, where he held the position of sales and marketing director since January 2002. Prior to joining Distra, Dew worked with Reuters for seven years, initially for three years as a solutions sales manager with Reuters UK and for the ensuing four years as manager, Trading Systems with Reuters Australia. Dew also worked with Olivetti in the UK for six years, in network solution sales to the financial services industry and as business development manager for ATM self-service branch
solutions.

Adobe Systems has appointed Stephen Nichols as its new application specialist responsible for the creative professional space.  Based in Sydney, Nichols will be the Adobe Creative Suite workflow specialist providing pre-sale technical support, marketing presentations and client implementation support. He joins Adobe after running his own design and training agency, Lasers Edge, for the past 15 years. Nichols was responsible for the development of complete corporate identities for Amcor, Dairy Farmers and Westpac.

Advances in mobile technology, broadband communications and the internet over the past decade has made home-based teleworking an economically practical proposition as never before. However, the majority of Australian employers still refuse to buy into it because they don't trust their employees to work without someone looking over their shoulders and cracking the whip.