NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 21 January
21-01-2009
by Emmet Cole
Bad data costs Irish firms over EUR10bn per year | Unified comms priority for Irish IT firms: Cisco
Poor quality data costs Irish organisations over EUR10 billion per year, according to a new report from Sogeti Ireland. Gary McSherry, a data management specialist and author of the report, says that incorrect master data can lead to low confidence in the outputs of management reporting and analysis systems, while an inconsistent view of supplier data leads to companies spending more money than required on purchases. McSherry claims that if it costs EUR1 to process a simple operation or transaction when all the data is perfect, this figure will rise to EUR10 if the data is flawed.
Thirty-seven percent of Irish IT departments believe it is 'important' or 'very important' for their network to handle video and rich media, according to an independent survey of over 100 Irish IT departments commissioned by Cisco Ireland. Twenty-two percent of respondents said video and rich media is not used on their network or website, and a further 14 percent are considering it in their medium to long-term plans. Almost a third cited unified communications as a high priority in 2009, while 35 percent found meeting their unified communications objectives more challenging in the last 12 months alone. Budget was cited as the biggest obstacle to achieving unified communications goals (48 percent), followed by skills (35 percent) and resources (33 percent).
BPI Telecom -- the mobile phones and accessories importer and distributor -- has signed an agreement with Three Ireland, to distribute the operator's mobile phone and broadband services. The agreement will see the mobile operator increase its retail presence by over 200 outlets. Three Ireland was recently awarded the contract for the Government's National Broadband Scheme, which will provide broadband connectivity to rural Ireland. Communications Minister Eamon Ryan is set to officially launch the National Broadband Scheme on Thursday morning.
Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT), Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, and Georgia Tech Ireland (GTI) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore collaborative research and educational opportunities. The document outlines the possibility of joint research programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level and collaboration on the ongoing development of a Midlands Gateway Research and Innovation Centre. The agreement outlines a possible joint research programme in wireless systems, which will build upon GTI's existing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) research programmes, and will use existing GTI and AIT facilities.
Meanwhile, Eircom's battle against the effects of wicked weather look set to continue. Since the company's Storm Recovery Plan was activated following last weekend's storms, more than 6,000 faults have been cleared. Despite the efforts of 1,400 Eircom staff working on the ground, an additional 4,000 faults have been reported in the past 24 hours. The current number of total faults stands at more than 11,000. North Mayo is the worst affected area with more than 600 faults. The Western seaboard, Louth, South Kilkenny and Waterford also remain badly affected.
Twitter saw a tenfold rise in UK traffic in the past 12 months, according to new research from online research firm Hitwise. On the 19 January 2008 Twitter was ranked the 2,953rd most popular site in the UK. A year later, Twitter ranked 291st, equivalent to a 974 percent increase in traffic over the past 12 months. The researchers also found that the average amount of time that people spend on Twitter.com has more than trebled, from under 10 minutes a year ago to half an hour now.
Finally, LG Electronics has appointed Kieran Keddy to the position of mobile sales manager at LG Ireland. Keddy will be responsible for leading LG's Irish mobile business and driving awareness and adoption of the firm's mobile product portfolio. Keddy previously worked as head of sales for terminals at Huawei Technologies and, before that, was the National Account Manager for Sagem Communications in Ireland and indirect sales manager at Meteor mobile communications.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 