Gold Coast-based IT firm Mercury IT has just finalised a two-year technology transformation of Queensland’s largest regional taxi service.

Australian-listed integrated mobile and digital communications company, Mobile Embrace, has raised $1.1 million in a private placement.

Australian-listed satellite company, NewSat (ASX:NWT) has signed a new strategic satellite capacity contract with Asia’s Malaysian-based MEASAT Satellite Systems, which boosts the total value of all contracts NewSat has secured for its next-generation Jabiru-1 satellite to US$526 million.

The well known hands-free and unified comms company has crafted a new “education and sales program” to offer “greater support” for its 300 partners across the Aust and NZ region.

At work or at home, professional or personal? It seems more IT and business professionals than ever are now using their iPads for work communication than they are for personal communications.

International services provider Dimension Data has completed its acquisition of BlueFire.

New Zealand telco Chorus has selected Huawei equipment to increase the capacity of its rural fibre cables.

HP and Microsoft have launched a global, four-year initiative to deliver Microsoft’s communications and collaboration applications via private and public cloud services.

A survey in the UK has revealed that social media use of networks like Facebook has adversely affected the use of traditional communication channels, with the greatest affect on the use of email services, and the use of telcommunications services also in heavy decline.

When the University of Sydney this week revealed it would axe over 300 jobs and slice $28 million spending in 2012, it brought into sharp focus the budgetary challenges that the tertiary education sector is facing as enrolment revenues fall even as student numbers surge on the back of the Bradley Review. So who will pay for AARNet 4 – the backbone communications network that will now be rolled out from 2013 connecting the education and research sector at speeds of up to 100 Gbps?