The Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games is on the prowl, through its official recruiter, for information technology specialists to work on a variety of projects for the event.

Global telco, AT&T, has appointed 24 new staff to support its continued growth in the Australian market.

VoIP wholesaler, iVox, has appointed former Optus executive, Dean Foley as director, sales & marketing. An 18-year veteran of the telco industry, Foley's career includes more than a decade with SingTel Optus within the carriers' Wholesale division, including five years as wholesale sales manager.

Unisys West, a joint venture owned by Unisys and BankWest, has appointed Trevor Lewis as strategic business development director for the Australian mineral and mining resources sector. Lewis joins the Unisys West management team and will also serve in the Unisys industrial products, outsourcing and infrastructure services teams. He will perform the new business development role for both organisations out of the Unisys Melbourne branch. Lewis joins Unisys West from CSC Australia where he was vice president and managed the global infrastructure and applications outsourcing account for BHP Billiton. Prior to that he was CSC's chief operating officer for its financial services group, managing the company's vertical business.

Business intelligence software vendor, Business Objects, has announced the appointment of Tracy Kent-Jones as director of pre-sales, Asia Pacific. Kent-Jones, an IT industry stalwart with over 23 years experience, has been with Business Objects and Crystal Decisions for over eight years. Her previous role was pre-sales manager ANZ.

Australian digital video technology developer, Mediaware, has appointed one of the world’s leading digital video systems experts as its development director of broadcast and IPTV.  Siri Hewa, former head of Cisco’s global broadcast and digital video practice, has held a number of significant business development and technical leadership roles with some of the world’s most successful telco and broadcasting organisations. These include head of systems engineering for Star TV Hong Kong, head of visual communication for OTC and director of engineering for WIN TV. As chief architect of Optus’ Network Systems Design Broadcast and Satellite TV operation, Hewa was responsible for creating and operating Optus’ $47 million Pay TV Video Operations Centre.

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.