NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 7 July
07-07-2009
by Emmet Ryan
IT spend dropping: Gartner | Sony enters netbook market
Northern Irish business software firm Singularity has signed a deal with UK communications firm Opal. The contract will see Singularity’s technology be used to integrate Opal's diverse IT systems, streamline key business processes, and reduce costs. The first project involving Singularity’s technology is for the provisioning and fault reporting processes for managing wholesale line rental telephony products. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
A new series of free online webinars will be conducted by Sogeti. The IT services firm is holding the series of online events, which focus on helping Irish tech firms cut IT costs. One free webinar will be held each month for the next five months. The webinars will address the cost, quality and productivity issues involved in software development, testing and deployment.
Worldwide consumer location-based services (LBS) subscribers and revenue are on pace to double in 2009, according to analyst firm Gartner. LBS are services that use information about the location of mobile devices derived from cellular networks. According to Gartner, despite an expected 4 percent decrease in mobile device sales, LBS subscribers are forecast to grow from 41 million in 2008 to 95.7 million in 2009 while revenue is anticipated to increase from USD998.3 million in 2008 to USD2.2 billion in 2009.
While LBS services are on the rise, the overall picture is a more downward trend. Gartner has found worldwide IT spending is on track to total USD3.2 trillion in 2009, a 6 percent decline from 2008 spending of USD3.4 trillion. Continued weak IT spending because of the economic situation combined with the effect of exchange rate movements has resulted in Gartner lowering its 2009 forecast from earlier projections. In March of this year, Gartner had forecast 2009 worldwide IT spending would decline by 3.8 percent.
Yahoo has launched the beta version of a new service called Search Pad, a feature that lets people capture, organise, save and share information they find while researching online. Search Pad aims to simplify the collection of data by automatically recognising when people are conducting research, and allowing them to capture information and websites found in their search results.
In other product launch news, Dell has unveiled its Digital Forensics solution. The new service is designed to help law enforcement and security forces find data that is critical to pursuing criminals. The solution is a suite of hardware, storage and software services designed to make the process of handling seized data less complicated, dramatically increasing the productivity of digital forensics experts and ultimately improving conviction rates.
Finally, Sony has announced plans to enter the netbook market with a new Vaio device targeted at the burgeoning segment hitting the shelves in August. PC maker Asus pioneered the netbook market but other major PC names such as HP, Dell, Acer, and Toshiba have all joined in over the past year. Sony is one of the few major players that has so far stayed out of the market. The Japanese firm hopes the design of the new Vaio will help it to establish a presence in this growing market, which has emerged as the only shining light in the global PC market.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 