Three companies found guilty of spilling 10,000 litres of petrol have been ordered to pay the heaviest fine imposed in a regional council case in Auckland.

Petrol Alley Services (GAS), URS New Zealand and Brown Bros (NZ) were found guilty in the Auckland District Court over a fuel leak from a petrol station in Line Rd, Glen Innes.

The companies have been ordered to pay a fine of $160,000, as well as court costs of $80,000.

The court has also demanded an investigation of the fuel which remained in the ground, and the companies could be forced to pay a further $200,000 for a clean-up.

Prosecutor Auckland Regional Council said the charges and fine sent a strong message to large companies to be tighter in their procedures. (Read on …)

SOFTWARE TO TAME THE RMA EVEN FASTER

Online environmental compliance company CS-VUE has been named New Zealand’s 28th fastest growing company in the annual Deloitte/NBR Fast 50 competition. Having achieved growth of 217.77% across the last 12 months, CS-VUE’s innovative technology is catering to a niche market and providing clients with an online system that enables organisations to track and manage and report on consent compliance, saving significant time and money. (Read on …)

Microsoft Exchange and Outlook are on the way out at NZ Post, with 2100 staff moving to Google Apps in a bid to save $2 million over three years. The deal marks the first time a major New Zealand account has swallowed its qualms about putting its documents out in the cloud – at least on such a scale. But now the first domino has fallen, others could follow. (Read on …)

Global Career Link CEO Simon Swallow has moved his company’s ICT operations into the cloud computing environment. He says the decentralised system suits the company’s offshore expansion.

(Read on …)

A Gartner forecast states that SaaS spending will more than double by 2012.
By Chris Kanaracus, Boston | Thursday, October 23 2008 (Read on …)

Managers are looking more closely at software-as-a-service as the number of unfinished IT projects grows, skilled workers become increasingly scarce, and upgrade and maintenance costs skyrocket.

(Read on …)