• Hyro has secured a contract with the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development for a state-wide identity and access management solution for over 50,000 teachers, 500,000 students and 1 million parents.
• Melbourne-based startup Envato has changed the name of its FlashDen product to ActiveDen after receiving a letter from Adobe’s lawyers. Flash is a registered trademark of Adobe’s and in an interview with TechCrunch, CEO Chris Ta’eed said that although “FlashDen” was filed as a trademark in Australia in January 2008 and entered on the Australian trademark register in August 2008, they changed the name to avoid legal conflict with Adobe.
• Smart Company, an American publication with an Australian wing, is searching for Australia’s startup heroes. Companies entering can win $5,000 advertising packages and must be between one and four years old and with less than $500,000 revenue.
• Australian ERP provider, Pronto Software is expanding its operations after signing three reseller partners in the USA. Terry Leister is to head up Pronto Software’s move into the US as Vice President North America.
• Internet marketing company Geekdom is restructuring and outsourcing several parts of its business, leading to the loss of 17 positions within the company. Earlier this year Photon-owned Geekdom, which specialises in web development and search engine marketing, moved into business coaching and took on a total of 12 coaches. Of those 12, three have been offered contracts to continue.
• Entrepreneur Daniel Jarosch announced the beta opening of new Australian retail site Brands Exclusive on the Silicon Beach forum. The designer shopping site runs on a membership format where shoppers become part of an exclusive group with access to deals.
[...] the first time a little Aussie company has come up against the big guys. Melbourne startup Envato quickly changed the name of its FlashDen site to ActiveDen after receiving a cease and desist letter from [...]