Here’s a look—sometimes serious, sometimes not so serious—at what Frame and its staff have been up to ...
Occu-Pi released by the Frame Group 2011
AN INTELLIGENT ROOM MANAGER
Do you know how well your meeting rooms are utilised? (Many meeting rooms are utilised less than 40%.) How often does it happen that all meeting rooms appear to be booked, but after walking the floors you’ll find some of them idle? Wouldn’t it be great if an intelligent room booking system would automatically truncate meeting room bookings if the room is idle, and assist you in finding and booking a vacant room based on real time occupancy information?
Frame is proud to announce Occu-Pi, a unique solution that facilitates and manages room bookings in an intelligent new way using your existing data network. It finds and books rooms not only faster and more effectively, but also assists you in optimising the utilisation of your expensive office real estate. Occu-Pi provides real time information about the actual occupancy status of each room - booked but idle rooms are automatically released and become available for others to book. Users can subscribe to a waiting list if rooms are not available, and will be notified when the rooms become available. Users who casually walk into a vacant room will cause it to be instantly booked
All these functions utilise real time information that can be relied upon – taking away embarrassing situations such as taking clients into occupied rooms, or wasting valuable time searching for rooms that are vacant but shown as booked.
Occu-Pi provides a digital signage kiosk system that complements the functionality of our solution and assists users with checking room availability status and booking of rooms while on the floor.
Occu-Pi integrates seamlessly with your Microsoft Exchange environment and allows users to book rooms using their standard Microsoft Outlook calendar. Occu-Pi offers a lot more exciting functionality to manage your rooms smarter and more cost efficient (an innovation patent is currently pending).
Download our marketing brochure here, and contact us on +61 2 9323 2800 (Australia) or send an email to
sales@framegroup.com.au to find out how you can benefit from using Occu-Pi in your organisation.
Melbourne Airport – 2011
With demand for air travel unlikely to slow in the foreseeable future, the owner of Melbourne Airport, Australia Pacific Airports Corporation Limited (APAC), is acutely aware of the need to ensure that its facilities grow and develop to accommodate the expanding needs of aircraft, businesses and passengers. The Frame Group (Frame) assisted Melbourne Airport by developing and recommending a strategic direction to build upon its existing information and communications technology (ICT) environment, and provided an evolutionary roadmap that integrates with capital works planned within the airport precinct.
The backbone of this evolution is a carrier-grade IP network, designed and rolled out by The Frame Group and comprising innovative business solutions from Cisco. Frame recognised that the inherent capabilities and functionalities provided by this type of network gave Melbourne Airport the opportunity to become an ICT service provider to the many businesses operating there. The resulting enterprise service provider and cost models developed by Frame has given Melbourne Airport a cost-effective common-use shared network that will enable the airport to capitalise on opportunities and deliver excellence. The network and new services – most notably, a digital media solution – have streamlined operations and transformed the experience for travellers.
Watch the below video for more..
Roger Barlow recently quoted in CEO Magazine – August 2011
The current edition of CEO magazine has a feature article on Chris Woodruff from Melbourne Airport and the recent technology changes undertaken. The Frame Group was instrumental in working with Melbourne Airport on the strategy and installation. Roger Barlow, Business Manager at The Frame Group was quoted on Frame's partnership.
Roger was quoted as saying: "Working with Melboure Airport is challenging and rewarding. For over four years, Frame's relationship with Melbourne Airport has evolved into a strategic partnership that has enabled Melbourne Airport IT to meet its vision and goals, using world-class solutions."
Please read the August edition of CEO Magazine if you are interested in the full article.
 GTR Roundtable - What you need to know about data centres – July 2011
Karl Medak, Director of ICT Practice at The Frame Group will feature in the July/August edition of GTR Magazine as an expert on the round table discussion panel aimed at providing the information you need to know about data centres before you build one, hire one, or create an application to run in one.
Read the article in the current issue online now. (page 24)
back to top
The Frame Group Appoints New General Manager of Sales and Marketing – 28 July 2011
Sydney, Australia, 28 July, 2011 - Today, leading Australian technology services organisation, The Frame Group, announced the appointment of Shane Baker to the newly created role of General Manager of Sales and Marketing, as part of a strategic move to further strengthen Frame’s expanding senior management team.
Mr Baker brings over 15 years management experience to the Frame senior management team and has a strong background in the IT services sector. Prior to joining Frame, he held the role of General Manager of Sales and Marketing at Hostworks where he was responsible for business development, client relationship management, marketing and presales. Mr. Baker has also held similar senior sales and marketing positions at Holden National Leasing and the Innovation Group.
As General Manager of Sales and Marketing, Mr. Baker’s key responsibility will be developing the Sales and Marketing Strategies for the Frame business, with a view to expanding the sales team and drive strategic growth throughout the business.
“Given the current state of the Australian Technology market, it is a fantastic time for me to be joining The Frame Group. Frame has built up a solid reputation amongst many government and corporate clients as a result of our its exceptionally talented team who are known for delivering superior quality services on time, and on budget. I see great opportunities for Frame and I very much look forward to growing the business and driving its success." said Mr. Baker.
Brad Ferguson, Managing Director at Frame, welcomed the appointment of Mr. Baker, saying;
"The creation of the General Manager of Sales and Marketing role, and indeed the appointment of Mr Baker, are strategic actions by the management team to drive the expansion of Frame over the next five years, and beyond. I am certain that Shane will be a real asset to the Frame team, and to our customers, with the wealth of experience and fresh thinking that his appointment brings.”
 Datacentre security an investment, not a cost – 18 July 2011Karl Medak, here at Frame was quoted alongside Frost and Sullivan today by ARN on the topic of data centre security.
Frame Group director, Karl Medak, said datacentres had been elevated to the business criticality that most executives in the past looked at as their core business; in financial terms, they were now elevated to that level depending on how much they rely on datacentres.
Medak also said, “The best way for businesses to embrace datacentre security is not by being dragged into it but rather when they see a benefit in it.”
Click here to see the full article.
Data Centre Dynamics Panel Discussion: Watch how everything-as-a-service changes the data centre and why are most Australian data centres 'self-rated'? – 14 May 2011
 On 20 June 2011, Karl Medak, Director of ICT Practice at The Frame Group was a guest participant on the discussion panel at the Datacentre Dynamics Sydney Event chaired by iTnews editor Brett Winterford. Click on the links below to be directed to excerpts from this interesting discussion.
Why are most Australian data centres 'self-rated'?
How everything-as-a-service changes the data centre
Analysis: Carbon tax to define IT success – 12 July 2011
 Greg Goode, senior data centre practice consultant here at Frame was quoted today on the issue of Carbon Tax.
Those that clung onto outmoded technology will struggle to remain competitive in an era of steadily rising power bills, according to Greg Goode, senior data centre practice consultant at The Frame Group.
"The power efficiency of a data centre will have a knock-on effect in terms of cost," he said. "The biggest winners will be data centres who make headway into improving energy and CO2 efficiency. They'll get a savings on energy use and carbon – data centres that don't will find it difficult to compete."
Click here to read the full article.
IAG call centre upgrade – 10 May 2011
Frame recently completed the call centre upgrade project for Insurance Australia Group in conjunction with IAG stakeholders and partners. Frame successfully managed the project to complete the work ahead of schedule and on budget. The new system will be fully operational within IAG’s call centres from 17 May 2011.
AGIMO appoints the Frame Group to Federal Government Panel of Data Centre Migration Service Providers – 5 May 2011
 Canberra, Australia. 05 May, 2011 - The Special Minister of State, Mr Gary Gray AP MP, today announced the selection of The Frame Group (Frame) as a member of the Whole-of-Government panel of Data Centre Migration Service Providers which went to tender in October, last year.
Over the next five years government agencies will be able to enlist Frame’s expertise in data centre migration services, the demand for which will be driven by the number and size of the agencies as they migrate data centres in accordance with the Australian Government’s Data Centre Strategy 2010 – 2025. Frame’s selection comes as part of a dual-pronged strategic measure by the Gillard government to stimulate investment in the commercial Data Centre sector whilst avoiding projected data centre costs to agencies of an estimated $1 billion by 2025.
Frame was successful across all Data Centre ICT migration categories and subsequently, will be providing Data Centre Migration Services including; requirements definition, procurement, design, data centre project management and logistic planning, installation and logistics, decommissioning vacated data centre, data centre metrics and capacity management on behalf of agencies.
Frame’s Director – Data Centre Practice, Karl Medak, said, “We are very pleased to be selected to be a member of the Whole-of-Government Data Centre Migration Services Panel. The Frame Group has a significant history in assisting major data centre users with highly specialised, cost effective data-centre infrastructure. Frame has ongoing relationships with State and Commonwealth Agencies. Membership of this Panel demonstrates our commitment and capability to work with government agencies in consistently delivering exceptional results for them in an increasingly fiscally constrained environment. Our differentiator is the way that we work with our clients and industry partners as a team to deliver high quality analysis, advice, designs and project implementation. It’s not only what we do; it’s how we do it that differentiates us.”
Greg Goodes wrap-up of the South Pacific Bicsi Conference – 10 April 2011
The topics I spoke on were;
Data Centres – Monitoring, Measurement and Management or the 3M’s – Are we there yet?
The second one in particular drawing some very keen interest among the cabling fraternity and the data centre users who attended. With copper having always been king, there is a tremendous amount of R&D going on to ensure it addresses the growing need for speed and bandwidth. Fibre, however, is now the medium of choice in new and retrofitted data centres. Many great questions and points of discussion were raised by the participants and I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the conference. I received a thank you letter just recently from Bicsi advising they had received great feedback from attendees who found the conference and presentations insightful and helpful in determining their connectivity strategy going forward.
Bicsi is an industry body that represents cabling manufacturers/vendors, cabling contractors and host of ancillary manufacturers. They provide a conduit for both industry knowledge to be exchanged, for providing training and the associated certification, for regular news releases, for the initiation and organisation of local and global industry forums and trade shows and for the production and dissemination of technical literature.
In the last year, Bicsi has begun to develop a specific industry stream in the data centre environment. Last year, they released a publication addressing the data centre environment from a standards and guidelines perspective (the publication is known as the BICSI 002-2010, Data Center Design and Implementation Best Practices). The publication has a strong emphasis on the physical layer of the infrastructure. Currently the content is US-centric, however they are in the process of altering it to suit the international market.
Communications agencies Bite Communications and Brand Expression have been jointly appointed to handle a PR and marketing campaign for technology services company The Frame Group.
The announcement:
Bite Communications in conjunction with Brand Expression has been appointed by The Frame Group to manage an integrated PR and marketing communications campaign in Australia and New Zealand. Bite’s innovative Point of View approach to PR and Brand Expression’s insightful marketing skills are expected to drive The Frame Group’s growth in ANZ.
A technology solutions provider, The Frame Group, specialises in providing tailored technology for enterprise businesses with clients spanning government and enterprise across ANZ.The Frame Group aims to further strengthen its brand and aggressively grow its presence in Australia. The strategic approach recommended by Bite and Brand Expression is aimed at meeting these core objectives.
Brad Ferguson, Managing Director, The Frame Group says, “We will be reinforcing Frame’s technology solutions in values-based, business terms. Bite and Brand Expression bring together storytelling and technology expertise that will enable Frame to cut through the jargon and better communicate our values and business focused technology solutions.”
Bite and Brand Expression have successfully worked together on previous joint integrated campaigns. They have collectively developed a highly creative and innovative strategy to deliver The Frame Group’s business objectives.
Brand Expression has worked with leading technology companies to identify their own unique stories and used them to engage audiences across multiple platforms.
Rowan Jacob, Creative Director, Brand Expression says, “It’s not about hype, it’s about integrity and believability. So finding the DNA of an organization is essential. Frame’s values-based approach to technology is refreshing and exciting in an industry that sometimes struggles to see beyond the techno-hype.”
With strong digital credentials, an established technology background and extensive media relationships, Bite creates new age PR fundamentals essential to build almost any business.Roger Marshall, Managing Director, Asia-South & Technology Lead, Asia Pacific says, “The Frame Group is a progressive technology business that’s taking a non-traditional approach in communicating with the market. It starts with core business values, and then looks to business outcomes rather than starting with the technology itself. Frame is more than a ‘tech vendor’ and will be taking full advantage of Bite’s Point of View methodology, based on original, relevant, insightful and objective content delivered across digital and offline channels.”
Frame thought leadership breakfast, data centres – 1 March 2011
 On 23 February 2011, Frame and Cisco held a joint thought leadership breakfast event at the Shangri-la hotel in the Sydney CBD.
Greg Goode, Senior Data Centre Practice Manager with Frame was the honored guest speaker. His presentation on data centre trends and their commercial implications was both informative and thought provoking. The main focus of the presentation and following discussion touched on five of the current data centre trends: green, cloud, facility, property and information technology. Also in attendance to lend their expertise to the discussion were Karl Medak, Data Centre Business Stream Manager with Frame and Kevin Bloch, Chief Technical Officer with Cisco.
It was great to share this knowledge with our clients in a valuable way and certainly bodes well for the success of future events!
Melbourne Airport's new data centre will be the first in Australia to use KyotoCooling – 24 February 2011
Frame introduced air-side economisation to the Melbourne Airport data centre cooling design mix when the airport replaced its disaster recovery data centre. Frame was instrumental in proposing the KyotoCooling cooling solution.
The KyotoCooling is an engineered data-centre-centric air-side economiser solution developed in Amsterdam, Holland. It specifically addresses the stringent environmental requirements of the data centre by using outside air to reduce cooling power use and ultimately CO2 output.
Frame’s first-hand investigation of the technology in Holland to gauge its capability, allowed us to specify and guide local mechanical engineers to incorporate the technology into the data centre. Frame integrated this innovative solution with other emerging data centre infrastructure technology, such as hot aisle containment, to optimise the cooling efficiency.
Frame is not afraid to take the initiative and challenge current data centre paradigm norms: by identifying and characterising the disruptive trends the data centre industry will encounter in the years to come; by providing open education and thought leadership to data centre users.
By adapting this knowledge and experience in creative and practical ways, we help our clients to achieve their business goals.
Twenty20 QLD Bulls versus NSW Blues cricket match – 24 January 2011
Lezah Kupfer
 On Monday 24 January 2011, Frame played host at the Gabba for the Twenty20 Queensland Bulls versus New South Wales Blues cricket match.
Despite the date shift of the match due to flooding and an unexpected change in attendees (with the early arrival of a new baby!), representatives from Origin Energy and Queensland Health joined the Brisbane Frame crew in our corporate lounge for a night featuring plenty of wickets, fireworks and laughs.
With Queenslanders outnumbering New South Welshmen five to one, the Queenslanders made good use of the outside viewing area by locking out the (very smug) eventual victors on the balcony!
Frame welcomes new additions to the sales team – 9 November 2010
Dhirendra Singh has been appointed Partner Alliance Manager and joins Frame with over 14years experience in a diverse range of ICT environments.
Dhirendra's position is a new role and forms part of Frame's strategy to strengthen its relationships and support with key partners.
Dhirendra brings with him a wealth of experience having worked at Optus, Nortel and most recently Avaya. He holds an MBA in Business Management, a BA in Economics and a Diploma in Project Management.
Alysha Bragil has been appointed Sales and Marketing Coordinator and will be responsible for driving field marketing activities to increase the awareness of Frame's achievements in the marketplace.
Alysha's most recent experience has included roles at Express Data and American Power Conversion.
Brad Ferguson, Managing Director at Frame, commented on the new positions: "I'm excited at the experience that both Dhirendra and Alysha are bringing to Frame, fulfilling vital roles in Frame's sales strategy."
ISACA one-day summit – 1 November 2010
Terry Rowlings
Frame was a major sponsor for the recent Information Systems Audit and Control Association ( ISACA) One Day Summit. The conference theme was ‘Leading in Times of Transition’ and covered the following topics:
- IT Governance
- Information Risk
- Business Continuity
- Information Security
- Information Systems Audit and Compliance
I found the keynote address by Dean Kingsley, of Deloitte, to be a compelling look at the IT industry between now and 2015. Deloitte undertook a strategic planning exercise to determine where they should be focusing over the next 5 years. Interestingly they adopted a McKinsey approach which says ‘if you want to know where things are going, don’t talk to yourself, talk to external organisations, preferably ones that you are not closely involved with’. I recommend you look at Kingsley’s presentation Information Technology 2015 Prediction. In particular look at:
- His I told you so slide which links to this YouTube video of past technology questions.
- The Forrester View slide which shows that we are in an 8 year cycle of 'innovation & growth' which followed 8 years of 'refinement & design'. The current cycle is called ‘IT Everywhere’ and we are now 2 years into a growth and investment period which Forrester predicts will run until 2016.
Here are PDFs of some of the other presentations from the summit.
 Stumping Serious Diseases charity event – 23 October 2010
Greg GoodeLast weekend, some of the Frame team headed down to the Illawarra for the University of Wollongong Stumping Serious Diseases charity event. The event involved a Twenty20 cricket match held during the day, followed by a Gala Dinner for more than 300 people, to raise funds for research into the causes and treatments of serious diseases.
The day was all about sport, more specifically cricket (the Twenty20 match was a giveaway). An all-star celebrity line-up including Michael Bevan, Greg Campbell, Glenn McGrath, and even a former Wiggle, took to the field for an action-packed game. Adam Gilchrist, a University of Wollongong Ambassador, joined Vice-Chancellor Professor Gerard Sutton in hosting the match.
Frame hosted a table at the dinner where the primary focus of the night was fund raising. This included a very entertaining series of open and silent auctions. One needed to be a sports memorabilia aficionado to really get into the bidding, but I did manage to pick up some art from the all famous Mr Pro Hart (I think it was part of his carpet that he chucked paint all over and the cleaning agent couldn’t really get the stain out).
The Fame team left the ‘field’, so to speak, having batted (feasted), bowled (imbibed) and fielded (socialised) in their best fashion on a very festive pitch.
 Women in Technology Awards Dinner – 18 September 2010
Lezah Kupfer
Frame hosted a table at the recent 2010 WiT Awards dinner. Lezah Kupfer, Frame's Relationship Manager for Queensland, played hostess. Lezah has a long association with Women in Technology and featured as a panellist in 2007’s Great Debate.
The WiT Awards is an annual program fully developed by WiT in association with industry to celebrate outstanding women in the technology industries.
This program provides all women regardless of age or career status, opportunities to develop their careers and be recognised. The WiT Awards focus on professional achievement, commitment to continuous career development, and support of WiT's objectives.
|
|
|
|