E-Commerce to Boost Australia's IT Industry (Part 2)

...... data released by the corporation showed. In the meantimethe industry will also see a strong swing from spending on e-business software to e-business services, reflecting a maturation inthe information economy's life cycle. The growth in web technologyspending could also fuel a parallel growth in web-enablingtechnologies. Analysts projected that by 2004, such technologies,including the network equipment development, computing andtelecommunications platforms, will cost Australian businesses 5.6billion Australian dollars (3.7 billion U.S. dollars). The NOIEestimated that approximately 500,000 Australians will have full-time jobs in, or spend a substantial part of their time on, thecommercial activities of the information industry. Meanwhile, thetelecommunications sector, a major player in the informationindustry, will be driven by the e-commerce to reinvent itself. Fortelecommunications carriers, the change is not simply a matter ofcoping with the increasing demand. There are other important trendsto contend with. Leading the pack is the rapid increase in theamount of data being transported over public telephone networks andthis trend is forcing large carriers to reconfigure their networks.The sector will step out of the traditional switched call circuits,as used for most voice calls today, to such technologies as InternetProtocol, data transmission and fiber-optic cables. At a furtherstage, telecommunications companies could provide not only the newproducts and services on which e-commerce is based, but also directe-commerce services. These services include consulting, webdevelopment, systems integration, online billings and softwaresales. Telstra, Australia's leading telecommunications company, isprepared to meet the new challenge as well as take the opportunity,backing the move with an infrastructure development budget of morethan 4 billion Australian dollars (2.48 billion U.S. dollars)annually. Ziggy Switkowski, chief executive officer of Telstra, saidrecently: "We no longer just sell phone calls, we sell the futuremode of business operations."