With over 20 years of experience in the Queensland ICT sector, Mills is well known for his crusade for local ICT vendors to get big government contracts rather than multinationals like Oracle and Microsoft, a crusade that he pledged to continue. Mills represented Software Queensland on the government-funded ICT Workgroup — an ICT advisory board to the Queensland state government made up of the Australian Computer Society, the Australian Information Industry Association and Software Queensland. The group receives approximately $150,000 per year in government funding.

Software Queensland most recently expressed a concern about the nature of ICT leadership on both sides of Queensland politics, saying that the two sides were not adequately engaging with the real issues around ICT, nor were they engaging in a dialogue with industry.

Mills told ZDNet Australia yesterday that he had been pressed to leave the working group following recent comments he had made on his personal blog criticising the direction of the state government’s ICT policy. He believed that the workgroup had become gagged because of the funding flowing from the government. However, Queensland’s ICT minister Simon Finn’s office told ZDNet Australia that there was simply no basis for the accusation, and refused to comment further.

Mills stepped down as a board member of Software Queensland on Friday with immediate effect. The search for a replacement continues.

Source:http://www.zdnet.com.au/software-qld-loses-mills-amid-gag-claims-339321375.htm

India’s software and service exports are estimated to grow 10 per cent this fiscal, a sharp reduction from the 30 per cent growth forecast prior to the 2008 recession, according to a top official from the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC).

“The US along with Europe accounts for more than 90 per cent of total software and service exports. There is a general slowdown in America and Europe following the recession. This has an impact on the exports,” ESC chairman S. Radhakrishnan said.

However, Radhakrishnan downplayed the recent downgrading of the US credit rating saying that it would not have any impact on the Indian IT industry.

According to information and communication technology trade body Nasscom, the global economic environment is a cause for concern for the sector. However, it felt that there would not be any impact on the industry in the near future.

“Prior to the recession period of 2008-09, we were estimating a 30 per cent growth in the exports of software and services. However, estimated growth for this fiscal is 10 per cent, which is achievable,” ESC executive director D.K. Sareen said.

Software and service exports will reach $64 billion by the end of this fiscal, registering a growth of 10 per cent over the last year. Electronics and hardware exports will grow 30 per cent to reach $10 billion. Overall ICT exports are estimated to clock $75 billion against $65.28 billion in 2010-11.

Radhakrishnan said in the April-July period, ICT exports stood at $21 billion, up 10 per cent from $19 billion last year. Electronics hardware export in the first four months grew 48 per cent to $3.72 billion over the same period last year.

Source:http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110818/jsp/business/story_14391369.jsp