NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 1 July
01-07-2009
by Emmet Cole
Bing gains market share in US | Cisco ponders web-based software
One in three Irish people under 25 check the Bebo or Facebook pages of potential dates before going out with them, according to a new survey conducted by Samsung Mobile. Over half (54 percent) of people polled would refuse to go on a date with someone if they didn't like the look of their social networking profile. Women are more likely to discriminate than men with 64 percent of Irish females under 25 saying they would definitely not date a guy if their Bebo or Facebook page didn't come up to scratch. The survey also found that the average person under 25 sends 27 texts a day, almost two per waking hour. For girls, the level of texting is higher, with the average female sending 32 texts per day compared to 22 texts daily by men. The research was published Wednesday to coincide with the launch of Samsung Mobile's new social networking-enabled handset, the Samsung Tocco Lite.
Business IP services provider Strencom has announced the completion of a EUR600,000 private managed data network for Ecco Ireland, a footwear wholesaler and retailer. The solution enables real-time access to accounts and stock information between 12 Ecco retail stores throughout Ireland. Real-time view of stock, point of sale and cash register information for each shop is now possible for Ecco employees.
Monkstown, Dublin-based Realex Payments has revealed that June was a record month in terms of new business applications for online payment processing. A total of 110 new businesses signed up with the company in June, up 38 percent on previous months, according to Realex Payments CEO, Colm Lyon. Of the 110 new clients signed, 25 percent are e-retailers operating in the online marketplace.
Business software and hosted services provider Mamut is to launch its office solution Mamut One in Ireland on Wednesday 15 July. The solution, which includes capabilities for accounting, finance, CRM, sales force automation, logistics, HR, and e-commerce, recently won the 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards in the Software-plus-Services category.
Microsoft's share of the US search market increased by 1 percent in June according to figures released by web analytics firm StatCounter. Microsoft, which recently released the Bing search engine, had 8.23 percent market share in June, behind Yahoo at 11.04 percent. Google dominates the US market but has fallen back slightly from 79.07 percent in April to 78.48 percent in June. StatCounter's data is based on an analysis of 1.316 billion search engine referring clicks (336 million from the US) collected from the StatCounter network of over 3 million websites.
Cisco Systems is thought to be considering web-based alternatives to Microsoft's popular Office software, according to Cisco Senior Vice President Doug Dennerline. As Cisco expands on the internet, the company is looking to develop a service that would allow business users to create documents they could draft and share through Cisco's WebEx meeting and collaboration service.
The hacking of Britney Spears' Twitter picture service account, which was used to spread false reports of her death is a reflection of "the increasingly mischievous nature of a small, young -- and probably immature -- section of the web user base," said Rob Rachwald, director of marketing at Imperva, the IT compliance and business risk mitigation specialist. Twitter's picture service only uses a four digit password system, leaving it vulnerable to attacks, according to Rachwald, who estimates any Twitter picture service account could be hacked into within hours using "brute force" techniques.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 