NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 3 November
03-11-2009
by Emmet Ryan
Science Week launched in Dublin | Nokia Siemens to cut over 5,000 jobs
We lead off with news that Dublin-based information security firm Sysnet is to invest EUR1.27 million in a major expansion programme with support from Enterprise Ireland. The Tanaiste Mary Coughlan announced the investment, which will see 60 new jobs created over the next four years. The firm said the move will aid its export business to markets such as Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East and Africa.
Science Week Ireland 2009 was officially launched on Tuesday by Conor Lenihan, the Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation. Approximately 90,000 people are expected to attend 400 events across the country from 8 November until 15 November. Science Week was launched at St Pius X Boys National School, where Sinead Lally's third class students participated in an interactive forensic science workshop, facilitated by Dr Maria Morgan and staff from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. St Pius X has received a Discover Primary Science Award of Science Excellence for the past three years and won the Engineers Ireland Xperience Engineering competition earlier this year. The highlights of Science Week include a family day in the University of Limerick and a lecture series in the Science Gallery. which will be attended by 600 second level students
The Audiovisual Federation, the IBEC group that represents the feature film, television and animation sectors, and Enterprise Ireland hosted a seminar on Tuesday entitled 'Explosion of Digital Content and TV'. The event brought together a wide range of industry leaders to discuss the evolution of broadcasting in Ireland and internationally. "With 2012 set as the target date for digital switchover, it is critical that Ireland prepares for this fundamental change," said Tommy McCabe, director of the Audiovisual Federation. "The increased take-up of digital TV will mean greater availability of content for consumers across all platforms, with new and evolving technologies such as IPTV, mobile TV and video on demand transforming the traditional model of broadcasting."
Web content management firm TerminalFour has signed its 50th web content management customer in the higher education sector. The latest signing is with Loughborough University in the UK. This means the firm's Site Manager product now powers 962 university websites and intranets. Other clients using the service include University College Dublin and University of Oxford. In Loughborough the service will be used to manage more than 150,000 web pages and 75,000 media files.
O2 Ireland has announced a range of new iPhone business price plans aimed at executives and SMEs who want to use the iPhone 3G and 3GS for business. Business price plans on the iPhone range from EUR20 to EUR109 per month, excluding VAT, including 1GB of data. The cost of the handsets ranges from free for the 8GB iPhone 3G to EUR246, excluding VAT, for the 32GB iPhone 3GS, depending on which price plan is selected.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) has been awarded a contract valued at EUR28 million to extend its work with Classroom 2000 (C2k) for a further two years. The contract, which was awarded by the Northern Ireland Western Education and Library Board, will see HP's involvement in the C2k project extend from five to seven years as part of the provision of a managed service. The C2k project helps connect over 300,000 children in 1,100 schools.
Mobile software firm Movidius has appointed two new senior executives to its management team. John Bourke and Barry Jones have assumed the roles of chief financial officer and vice president of software engineering, respectively. Bourke has over 20 years' experience on the financial side of the technology industry, while Jones has a similar level of experience in the handset sector. The move comes after Movidius changed its name from Movidia last month. Since September 2008 the Dublin business has secured over USD14 million in funding.
Windows 7 has had an encouraging start worldwide, according to web analytics firm, StatCounter. According to research by StatCounter the new Microsoft operating system saw its weekly share of the US market rise from 1.75 percent pre-launch to 2.82 percent by the end of October. Globally, Windows 7's market share increased to the same levels.
US President Barack Obama and Microsoft founder Bill Gates have been invited to back a website that promotes social politics. The Hope Plus web portal, aims to offer online tools to enable social projects such as building schools and fighting pollution. The site is currently under development with the aim of launching at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference in December. US-based consultancy PoliticsOnline is behind the project.
Nokia Siemens Networks plans to axe up to 5,760 jobs in the second round of cuts since the joint venture between Nokia Oyj and Siemens AG was created in 2007. In a statement, Nokia Siemens said it might cut between 7 percent and 9 percent of its 64,000 positions globally. This is part of the firm's efforts to cut EUR500 million in operating expenses by the end of 2011. The move comes on the back of Nokia Siemens' EUR53 million operating loss in the third quarter.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 