NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 20 July
20-07-2009
by Emmet Ryan
Major deal for Muzu.tv | Icahn wants MicroHoo deal
Dublin-based music video website Muzu.tv has secured a major new global licensing deal. The arrangement with Merlin, which represents the largest set of music rights outside the big four music labels, gives the Dublin firm access to a huge number of videos from independent labels and artists such as Tom Waits and The White Stripes. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
UK based wireless technology firm 802 Global has supported Metronet UK’s roll-out of high-speed wireless broadband service in Dublin, Leeds and Birmingham. This expansion, building on previous projects in Manchester and Liverpool, is part of Metronet UK’s strategy to bring wireless connectivity to many other urban centres across Ireland and Britain.
Irish translation services firm Lionbridge has secured a deal with Dell to become a strategic provider for translation and language quality review for the PC maker’s online content group. Lionbridge will translate web content, online marketing content, desktop publishing content and training material across 30 languages for Dell. Lionbridge's LQS Group, a division of Lionbridge Localization Group, will also perform a full review and audit of all translations from a variety of sources for the PC maker. Financial details of the deal were not revealed.
US and European IT budgets are expected to fall 2 percent over the next year, less than the 5 percent decline predicted three months ago, according to a new report by UBS. The study of 100 chief information officers (CIO) found that Europeans are more pessimistic than their counterparts across the pond. European CIOs expect a 3.4 percent fall, compared to US CIOs who anticipate a mere1.3 percent drop.
Activist investor Carl Icahn has once again come out in favour of a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo. Icahn, who has long advocated a purchase of Yahoo by the Redmond-based IT giant, reiterated his support for such a deal as talks between the two firms appeared to regain momentum. Icahn, who owns 5 percent of Yahoo, told Reuters a deal would be beneficial to both the search firm and Microsoft.
The US is a haven for spammers, according to new data from SophosLabs. Research published by the security firm found that one in six spam messages are being relayed from compromised computers in the US. The levels of spam emanating from China and Russia, which have been amongst the top sources for such unwanted mail, appear to be dropping, according to the study. Sophos said that greater attention needs to be paid to IT security threats coming from within the US.
Storage behemoth EMC has acquired majority ownership of data duplication firm Data Domain. The purchase will see Data Domain form a new product division within EMC. The acquisition, which is expected to be completed by the end of this month, will be at the heart of EMC's development and delivery of next-generation disk-based backup, recovery and archive solutions. EMC acquired Data Domain for USD2.2 billion following a protracted bidding war with its smaller rival NetApp.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 