Infosys ties up with Australia’s NICTA to address high technology issues

IT services firm Infosys has tied-up with research body National ICT Australia, to tackle hard technology issues faced by businesses.

These include issues faced by businesses that seek to radically update outdated data processing systems, requiring rebuilding of hardware and software systems from scratch, as also for installation of complex upgrades across their networks.

Under the collaboration agreement, announced in Canberra today, NICTA and Infosys would conduct joint research and also take on PhD student internships and professional exchange programmes.

The collaboration could lead to modernisation of  ageing technology systems used in Australian businesses to incorporate cloud computing.

According to NICTA director of broadband and the digital economy Terry Percival, a technique called "platformisation" would harvest information from a huge but ageing hardware system.

This information could be retrieved from old programs written in COBOL, for example, and used in the creation of software compatible with a newly purchased hardware platform. Dr Percival said software would not have to be developed from scratch.