IAB Australia has boosted its team, announcing the appointment of Michael Taylor as Programs Manager. Michael will work closely with IAB Councils and Working Groups to deliver core programs to support the continued growth of the online industry.

Primus Telecom today announced its new QUAD-1 Broadband Plans offering consumer customers the biggest download quotas in Australia on ADSL2+. This comes after an encouraging take up of Primus National Broadband Network (NBN) services in Tasmania and ahead of further NBN deployments commencing soon on the mainland.

Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) today unveiled the newest addition to its GoFlex™ family of hard drives—the GoFlex™ Home network storage system. When this easy-to-use device is connected to a wireless router, an entire household can centrally store, easily access and continuously back up files wirelessly from both Windows® and Mac OS® X operating systems on the home network1. The new centralised storage system simplifies the backup process by being compatible with Apple® Time Machine®, as well as including a version of the backup application for both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. With the GoFlex Home storage system, families can also wirelessly stream photos, movies and music to most network connected DLNA devices, such as game consoles or a GoFlex™ TV HD media player, from any room in the house. With just two cable connections and a simple, illustrated, step-by-step installation tool that gets the device up and running in minutes, the GoFlex Home system solves the household storage puzzle in a snap.

Communications Alliance, the peak body for the Australian communications industry, today released for public comment a framework for business-to-business (B2B) interactions between NBN Co and Retail Service Providers (RSPs).

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX), the world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions, and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that they have entered into a joint development and licensing agreement.

Sharon Bennett (Freelance) and Sally Hill (Freelance) have beaten off strong competition from fellow New Zealand journalists and bloggers to snare first place in the photo and video categories respectively of Seagate’s 2010 Precious Memories competition. Their entries, along with the first two runners up in each category, will now progress to the regional final of the Precious Memories competition where they will compete against the winners from eight other APAC countries.

Dan Warne (APC Magazine) and John Westwood (freelancer) have beaten off strong competition from fellow Australian journalists and bloggers to snare first place in the photo and video categories respectively of Seagate’s 2010 Precious Memories competition. Their entries, along with the first two runners up in each category, will now progress to the regional final of the Precious Memories competition where they will compete against the winners from eight other APAC countries.

Tequila’s ‘Pedigree Adoption Drive Application’ has been declared the winner of the first round of the fifth annual Creative Showcase, Australia’s best free online award for creativity in digital advertising. In a close competition, Visual Jazz was awarded second place for its work on Defence Force Recruiting campaign while Holler secured third place for its XXXX campaign. The winners were chosen by a panel of industry judges.

The Device Digital division of Australian mobile internet solutions provider, MIA International has developed a special iPhone app for GlaxoSmithKline’s Children’s Panadol brand, which is aimed at new mums. The new app helps mums with breast feeding, soothing their baby and also provides them with the correct dosage of Children’s Panadol products while they are out and about.

Millward Brown Firefly, the qualitative research division of Millward Brown, today announced the appointment of Peter Foster as Senior Account Director for Firefly in Melbourne.

Primus Telecom today announced the first business customer had been connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Scottsdale, Tasmania, scoring another first for Primus for the NBN.

Dimension Data, a specialist IT services and solution provider, has announced a significant Australian recruitment drive, with plans to recruit more than 170 additional personnel over the next six months. This follows the addition of 80 new staff last quarter.

Brocade® (NASDAQ: BRCD) and McAfee, Inc. (NYSE: MFE) today announced that they have completed the next phase of a strategic partnership created to deliver a broad set of fully interoperable, simplified network-based security solutions through joint channel partners. McAfee and Brocade have developed a series of jointly designed, end-to-end network security solutions with advanced functionality, including fully automated threat response and enforcement, firewall load balancing and a broad set of intrusion prevention capabilities.

ZenithOptimedia has been crowned 2010 IAB Awards Best of Show for its Lion Nathan “Tooheys Extra Dry - Six Beers of Separation” campaign. Announced at the IAB Awards ceremony last night, the campaign won the new Branded Content category and trumped a record number of entries to scoop the prestigious Best of Show title and secure its entry into the 2010 US IAB MIXX Awards.

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX) today reported financial results for the quarter ended July 2, 2010 of 46.8 million disk drive unit shipments, revenue of $2.66 billion, gross margin of 27.4%, net income of $379 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.76. The financial results for the quarter include $6 million of purchased intangibles amortisation expense, $16 million of restructuring charges, $3 million expense (Other income/expense) for the May 2010 termination of Seagate’s revolving credit facility offset by a $6 million recovery of previously impaired long-lived assets and a $50 million income tax benefit due principally to valuation allowance adjustments related to deferred tax assets. The aggregate impact of these items was a $31 million increase to net income or approximately $0.06 per diluted share.

Brocade (Brocade®) (Nasdaq: BRCD) today announced that Bank of China is utilising Brocade host bus adapters (HBAs) to improve server connectivity within its data centre. The bank will deploy 200 Brocade HBAs to improve server connectivity and performance in the IT infrastructure that supports the organisation’s innovative and fast-growing banking and insurance businesses.

The winners of the prestigious 2010 Communications Alliance & CommsDay Awards were announced last night at the Annual ACOMM Awards Dinner which featured Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy, as keynote speaker. The industry’s top honour, the 2010 Communications Ambassador Award, was won by Telstra’s Deena Shiff.

Australian mobile solutions provider, MIA International today revealed that it has provided a publishing solution to deliver a customised version of the BigPond® portal for Telstra’s T-Hub®; Australia’s first device that combines a traditional home phone with advanced mobile phone-type applications. This is the first home phone device project for MIA and marks the company’s strategic move towards developing solutions for all personal devices, not just mobile phones.

In a world first, Australian company Noggin has secured Evaluation Assurance Level 2+ (EAL2+) certification for its OCA incident management software under the Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (Common Criteria or CC) standard. This makes OCA the only incident and emergency software in the world to be certified to this level.