IN ASSOCIATION WITH

For the record 8 May
08-05-2008
by Deirdre McArdle

Tango Telecom unveils SMS ad platform | SFI remit widened to include energy-efficient tech

Enterprise Europe Network Ireland, part of a European business and technology partnering network for companies, has been launched. The Irish consortium, known as EEN Ireland, will be responsible for delivering the services of the Enterprise Europe Network in Ireland and it consists of Enterprise Ireland and the Chambers in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Sligo and Waterford. EEN Ireland aims to increase its combined client base of Irish companies ten-fold, thus increasing the number of Irish SMEs receiving business or technology partnering support to 20,000 over the next three years.

The Guinness Enterprise Centre has announced that its 18 graduate companies have between them created 400 tech jobs. On average, the companies that started their lives in the incubation centre in 2000 have 22 employees, with this figure expected to double in the next three years. These same graduates have, on average, recorded turnover of EUR4 million. This is predicted to jump to EUR10 million in three years. Managed by the Dublin Business Innovation Centre, the facility has been the starting hub for a number of tech firms including Zamano, Prime Carrier, Capricorn Ventis and Open Jaw Technologies.

Irish firm Tango Telecom has announced the launch of iAX SMS Advertising, an SMS Advertising platform, at the Global Messaging Congress 2008 in Cannes. The platform is designed to deliver targeted SMS ads to mobile subscribers in a number of ways such as via peer to peer messaging or inserted in sponsored SMS delivery reports. It enables the "slicing and dicing of subscriber data to ensure the right message gets to the right person", said Richard Choi, VP of Sales and Marketing at Tango Telecom.

Digicel Central America Holdings, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Digicel (Panama), has won a bid process for a licence to operate a GSM mobile network in Panama. Digicel bid USD86 million for the licence, which marks the Denis O'Brien-owned firm's latest milestone in Central America. Digicel currently operates in El Salvador and has plans to launch in Honduras later this year.

Eamon Ryan, minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, has welcomed the signing into law of new regulations by Minister Micheal Martin amending the remit of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) to include sustainable energy and energy-efficient technologies. "These regulations fulfil the commitment in the Programme for Government to include a third energy research pillar for SFI. Sustainable energy and energy-efficient technologies will now be regarded as strategic areas of scientific endeavour by SFI, similar to its approach to the fields of ICT and biotechnology," said Minister Ryan. The move builds on the announcement at the Energy Forum on 6 March 2008 of an allocation of EUR90 million to target a world-class research capacity through SFI in the area of sustainable energy and energy technologies over the period to 2013.

Belfast-based mobile software firm Aepona has appointed a number of new executives in a bid to strengthen the firm's global sales and marketing efforts as well as building its presence in the US. The announcement comes just weeks after the firm welcomed Al Snyder as its new CEO. The new executives are: Dave Whalen, Executive Vice President of Global Sales; Kevin Wagner, Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Business Development; and Mike Mayfield, Senior Vice President of Global Services.

Spam accounted for 94 percent of all e-mails heading for Irish inboxes this week, according to the latest figures from IT Force. This marks a 1 percent drop on last week's figures, the company said. IT Force analysed over 376,500 e-mails received by IT Force and its clients over the past week and revealed that 352,600 were unsolicited.