NEWS IN BRIEF
For the record 3 April
03-04-2008
by Charlie Taylor
New Intel Classmate PC design unveiled | IBM completes Telelogic acquisition
Dublin-based data centre provider Interxion has become a contributor member of the Green Grid, a global non-profit consortium of companies dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems. The Green Grid seeks to provide industry-wide recommendations on best practices, metrics and technologies that will improve overall data centre and business computing energy efficiencies. Other members of the consortium include Microsoft, IBM and Cisco.
Almost all UK companies back up their critical IT systems and data; however more than a quarter of them still do not have a disaster recovery plan in place while half of those that do have plans, fail to test them. That's according to the 2008 Information Security Breaches survey carried out on behalf of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The survey also indicates that 15 percent of companies do not take their backups off-site. This is despite the fact that 92 percent of businesses now consider disaster recovery planning an important driver of their IT expenditure. The study reveals that 58 percent of UK businesses admit that they would suffer significant business disruption if their IT systems were not available for a day, a figure which rises to 70 percent for large companies.
A new design of the Intel-powered low-cost Classmate PC has been unveiled at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. The classmate PCs are built on Intel Celeron M processor with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and mesh network capabilities. The laptops include a 9-inch LCD screen, 6-cell battery life, 512 MB memory, 30GB storage and an integrated webcam. The Classmate was originally designed for use in the developing world. Intel announced their availability in the US and Europe in March
Belfast-based ICS Computing has been awarded the ISO27001 certification for its data centre. The ISO27001 is accepted worldwide as the security framework standard that employs a process-based approach to establishing, implementing and monitoring an Information Security Management System. The security standard, which encompasses people, processes and IT systems, aims to reduce the business risks associated with information security and provides assurance to all stakeholders on the applicable security controls in order to counter the various threats to the information. ICS also holds a number of other international quality awards including ISO9001 and ISO14001. The company currently employs over 300 staff in its offices in Belfast, Dublin, London and Chennai.
IBM has completed its USD845 million purchase of software developer Telelogic. The company is a provider of software to develop technical systems and enterprise architecture, and has more than 8,000 customers worldwide. It employs more than 1,200 staff in 22 countries around the world, including Ireland where it has 15 staff at its office in Blackrock. IBM offered USD3 per share to purchase the public company, which had revenue of about USD208 million in 2006. The Telelogic software will become part of IBM's Rational division, which already sells application lifecycle management products.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 