One fifth of businesses still using Windows Server 2003; Nursery to back-pay $30,000 after stinging workers for rent: Midday Roundup

One fifth of Australian and New Zealand businesses are still using Windows Server 2003, despite support for the operating system ending tomorrow.

A survey conducted by Telsyte and commissioned by Dell has also found 24% of businesses running Server 2008 or older were not aware extended support for Server 2003 will end this month, reports ITWire.

While the majority of businesses surveyed said they had looked at the issue, 40% said they had not upgraded their servers because of concerns about application compatibility. Another 29% said it would be too expensive to upgrade.

Nursery prickly about rental payments

A Western Australian nursery will pay back more than $30,000 to eight former workers who each paid $450 a fortnight in rent to live in a four-bedroom house with only one kitchen, two showers and four toilets.

The workers, who hailed from Taiwan and were in Australia on working visas, complained to the Fair Work Ombudsman about unreasonable and unauthorised deductions from their wages for rent, as well as cramped conditions, lack of privacy and discomfort from the odour of a nearby fertiliser factory.

At this point the Fair Work Ombudsman discovered the nursery was also giving jobs to some overseas workers who were willing to live on-site.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has ordered Benara Nurseries to revamp its work practices after it found its polices were unlawful and unreasonable.

The ombudsman found Benara parent company Quito Pty Ltd had a verbal contract from the workers to deduct rent from their wages but the deductions were unlawful without a written agreement.

Market struggles for direction

Local shares took a dive this morning on the back of uncertainty over Greece and China, but have since rebounded as we head just past midday.

Quay Equities analyst Tristan K’Nell said in a statement while Australian shares began the week in the red, uncertainty in Greece combined with cautiousness about China left the market “struggling for direction”.

“This morning it was all about Greece and its ongoing debt issues,” K’Nell said.

“There were reports that the two biggest economies in the Eurozone, being Germany and France, are split on a resolution with speculation that even more cash will be required than originally thought, with reports that estimates have Greece requiring upwards of 86 billion Euros on top of already being bailed out of $240 billion Euros and last week requesting 53.5 billion Euros.”

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was up 0.1%, rising 7.8 points to 5499.8 points at 12.04pm AEST. On Friday, the Dow Jones closed up 1.21%, rising 211.79 points to 17760.4 points.