Experts from Australia's technology industry believe the 2015 federal Budget will help stimulate the sector but are calling for more initiatives to improve the economy and address the growing ICT skills gap.

Research released this week indicates that Australian organisations are not using enterprise resource planning (ERP) to its full potential, with 66% of CIOs believing their organisations are using less than half of the features of ERP systems.

Australian enterprises risk losing $48.4m over the next two years from attacks on security keys and fear a 'cryptoapocalypse' whereby security key algorithms are compromised overnight. [ + ]

Tencent has 'gamed' performance tests say antivirus testing organisations, Chuck Robbins replaces John Chambers as Cisco CEO and Motorola Mobility ordered to pay US$10.2m to Fujifilm for infringing patents. [ + ]

Some enterprise-class SSDs can lose data within weeks or even days when left without power in high temperatures, according to research from the JEDEC. [ + ]

Mere months after Lenovo's Superfish snafu, the company has been accused of having a "massive security risk" in pre-patched versions of its pre-loaded software. [ + ]

Spark New Zealand has objected to a proposal to increase wholesale prices for copper broadband access and called on regulator the Commerce Commission to instead reduce the charges.

This week: Google's year of living dangerously, don't forget to reset your Boeing, the machine that goes bing, underwater robot swarms and a new rocket takes to the skies.

There are five questions that government departments need to ask themselves before they head into the as-a-service supermarket.

IT spending by Australian utilities companies increased to $1.7 billion in 2014, with the focus of investments starting to shift from efficiency gains to improving the customer experience.

Microsoft and NetSuite have announced a collaboration involving integrating NetSuite's cloud ERP offerings with Windows, Office 365 and Azure.

As the business world moves rapidly into the API-centric era, those companies that treat their API strategy as important will stay in the game, while those that don't will risk falling by the wayside. Your API may be your most successful product, says Mulesoft's Will Bosma. [ + ]

When Sydney's Knox Grammar School needed to boost its storage, backup and disaster recovery assets, the combination of a Nimble Storage CS240 array and VMware Site Recovery Manager was the right solution for the job. [ + ]

Vocus CEO not impressed by TPG's share-buy block of merger deal with Amcom; Windows 10 will have iOS, Android apps; and Telstra appoints an insider as new CFO.

IDC now expects Australian IT service spending to grow just 2.2% this year - down from the 2.8% forecast a year earlier - due to factors including economic uncertainty. [ + ]