NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 23 March
23-03-2009
by Emmet Cole
Vodafone and Telefonica hook up | BT broadband rollout: Belfast wins
Vodafone and O2's parent company, Telefonica, have announced a collaboration to share their network infrastructure in Ireland and across Europe. The deal also covers Germany, Spain, and Britain, and may be extended to the Czech Republic. It covers an estimated 64 million Telefonica customers and 77 million Vodafone customers. The companies hope the move will enable them to save hundreds of millions of euros over the next 10 years.
Travel software firm Datalex has reported a pre-tax loss of USD1.4 million for 2008, compared to a pre-tax loss of USD2.1 million in 2007. Revenue at the firm grew by 7 percent year-on-year to USD33 million. However, cash balances fell USD4.4 million to USD14.8 million.
Three out of four European organisations are outsourcing elements of their security function due to increasing risk, regulatory and cost pressures and staffing problems, according to a Symantec research report. The survey of 500 mid-sized to large enterprises found that 95 percent had experienced attacks in the past two years, with three quarters rating such attacks as their number one or number two risk. Seventy-seven percent of companies in the survey said they were outsourcing some of their security functions.
Salesforce.com has launched a CRM service for Twitter. Salesforce CRM for Twitter will enable companies to search, monitor and join conversations taking place on Twitter directly in "the Service Cloud" -- a community-based, customer service feature. Salesforce CRM for Twitter will also enable companies to use the Service Cloud to connect directly with the more than 8 million Twitter users.
Dublin-based games developer, PopCap Games, has announced the launch of its word game Bookworm for the iPhone. Already a popular game, Bookworm was first launched in 2003, and a mobile version was released in 2007. Bookworm for the iPhone is available now from the App Store.
Last week, the Institute of Technology in Blanchardstown hosted more than 50 school teams from 17 different counties battling it out to qualify for the remaining 17 places in the National Final of F1 in Schools Technology Challenge. The qualifiers have been announced and include 'Les Femmes Ceresis' from Cnoc Mhuire Secondary School, Co. Longford; 'Cheetahs' from St Mary's School for Deaf Girls, Dublin 7; and 'F1 Most Wanted' from Ardee Community School, Co. Louth. The National Final will take place on the 28 April when 25 qualifiers from the three regional finals compete for the overall title of F1 in School Technology Champions. The winning team will go on to represent Ireland in the World Championships in 2010.
Belfast has done well in BT's UK rollout of fibre-based broadband. The Balmoral exchange in Belfast has been selected as one of 29 UK exchanges in the first phase of the largest investment -- STG1.5 billion -- in superfast broadband ever seen in the UK. BT announced that it will install fibre-based broadband in the Balmoral exchange in early 2010. The technology will offer initial speeds of up to 40Mbps to nearly 30,000 households and businesses in the exchange area -- speeds more than 10 times the speeds available to most UK households.
Finally, as part of new CEO Carol Bartz's management rehaul Yahoo has announced that Elisa Steele has joined the company as chief marketing officer. Steele will be responsible for Yahoo's brand, global marketing strategy and its marketing functions including brand marketing, audience marketing and corporate communications. Steele was previously senior vice president of corporate marketing at NetApp.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 