NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 17 November
17-11-2008
by Deirdre McArdle
ComReg consults on Personal Locator Beacons | SLA Mobile expands in Asia
The American Chamber of Commerce in Ireland has launched a website called www.askus.ie. The site's aim is to allow students who are entering the BT Young Scientist competition to connect with experts in 40 companies around Ireland and get advice on their projects. Among the companies volunteering their time and expertise are Cook Medical, EMC, IBM, KPMG, Microsoft, Pfizer and Wyeth Biotech. Dr Pete Hetherington, chair of the research & development Education Group with the American Chamber of Commerce, hopes the site will give students "an insight into how people with science, maths and engineering qualifications are working in industry throughout Ireland".
SLA Mobile, a Belfast-based mobile firm, has opened an office in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia as it expands its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. The company designs and installs platforms to enable mobile phone companies to deliver services like games, music and video downloads. It counts heavyweights such as Nokia, Vodafone and Sony as clients. The new office will be used as the firm's base in the region.
Communications regulator ComReg has launched a public consultation on the use of Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs), which are portable radio transmitters that aid the search and rescue emergency services in the detection and location of people in distress. At the moment only those who own a ship or plane can register a PLB; however, ComReg is asking for the public's opinion as to whether the use of these devices could be extended. In some countries, for example, PLBs are used for people who do hill-walking or mountain climbing. The consultation will run until 19 December.
Manager of Ireland's fibre-optic Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), e-Net, has appointed Niall Beirne as head of Marketing. In this role Beirne will be responsible for raising awareness of the MANs and their success. Prior to joining e-Net, Beirne was marketing manager of Kingspan Insulated Panels (Ireland), having previously worked in a number of commercial roles within Kingspan in the UK.
Content management firm TerminalFour has signed a deal with Exalead, a search software provider. Exalead's CloudView product line will be made available alongside TerminalFour's Site Manager to help businesses manage their web, intranet and extranet content and provide an enterprise search facility. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Dublin mobile firm ChangingWorlds, which was acquired by US firm Amdocs last week for EUR46.2 million, announced it has won a deal with Telefonica O2 in the Czech Republic that will see the operator launch a personalised mobile internet service. The service will feature an O2 internet-like portal and a browser bar that provides navigation support for users browsing off-portal. The financial details of the deal were not revealed.
Information infrastructure solutions provider EMC has set up Decho, a new company focused on helping people protect and manage their personal digital information, also known as an individual's "digital echo". Decho has been formed by combining two formerly separate EMC businesses -- Mozy and Pi. Decho will offer consumers and businesses the Mozy-branded online backup service, as well as introduce new cloud-based services for individuals over time. "There is an immense, untapped business opportunity as personal information management inevitably migrates into the cloud," said David Goulden, EMC executive vice president and chief financial officer.
ENN contributor Emmet Ryan was named a finalist in the Specialist Business Reporting category at the Business Journalist Awards on Monday. The awards, which are sponsored by the UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School, are in their second year. They reward excellence in Irish business journalism across print, broadcast and online media.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 