Daily Digest 8 October

08-10-2008

by Emmet Cole

BlackBerry kicks up a Storm | Symantec to acquire MessageLabs

Companies that exploit their internet presence will be best positioned to take advantage of an economic upturn when it comes, according to Ronan Harris, director of online sales and operations with Google. Speaking at an advertising summit at Google European headquarters in Dublin on Wednesday, Harris told attendess early signs show that high street retailers are being harder hit in the current slowdown, while online purchases continue to grow. "Why? Because consumers are empowered and enabled by the wide penetration of the internet. Users have the tools to research, investigate, share opinions, compare and purchase," says Harris. "Consumers are migrating their buying power to the internet and successful companies are the ones who are positioning themselves to secure this business."

A significant number of handheld communication devices which are bought second-hand contain sensitive company and personal information, according to research from BT, the University of Glamorgan in Wales and Edith Cowan University in Australia. The survey of more than 160 used gadgets found a range of information including salary details, financial company data, bank account details, sensitive business plans, details of board meetings and personal medical details. Forty-three percent of gadgets examined contained information from which sensitive data could be identified. Whilst being far less sophisticated, 23 percent of the mobile phones examined contained sufficient individual information to allow the researchers to identify the phone's previous owner and employer.

Antivirus firm Symantec has announced plans to acquire messaging and web security company MessageLabs for nearly USD700 million in cash. According to sources at the company, Symantec plans to use the buy to strengthen and grow its software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and integrate the MessageLabs technology into the Symantec Protection Network Team. The acquisition will result in the creation of a new Symantec SaaS product group.

The BlackBerry Storm smartphone from Research In Motion (RIM) was launched on Wednesday. The phone will be available exclusively on Vodafone's high-speed 3G mobile broadband network in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand from November.

Turlough Fitzpatrick has been appointed as business development consultant at SAS Ireland's Customer Excellence Centre in Dublin, according to an announcement from the company on Wednesday. Fitzpatrick is expected to play a role in expanding SAS's risk practice in the market by assisting customers identify and address their enterprise risk management requirements. In the late 1990s, Fitzpatrick managed the introduction of SAS's Enterprise Miner product into the Irish and UK markets.

Finally, Yahoo has announced the availability of a new web-based Yahoo Calendar. The calendar software, which begins rolling out in beta to users from Wednesday, is based on open standards and integrates social networking functions with the events and appointments functionality. The software is built on the Zimbra platform using the iCalendar (iCal) and CalDAV3 standards and is interoperable with other online calendar services including Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft, AOL and Google.