NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 17 December
17-12-2009
by Emmet Cole
PC shipment figures on the rise | Iran is top Twitter topic in 2009
US multinational semiconductor company Maxim Integrated Products is to establish a new international business operation in Dublin, with the creation of 50 staff initially, rising to over 100 by 2012. The development was announced by Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan on Thursday. The company's new business, financial and technical customer services centre in Dublin will serve the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, along with parts of Asia. The centre will initially employ accountants, financial analysts, supply-chain specialists, information technology (IT) technicians, and multilingual customer-service staff. The company is hiring immediately. Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Silicon Valley in California, Maxim designs high-performance semiconductor products for the industrial, communications, consumer, and computing markets and employs approximately 8,800 people worldwide.
Ireland's IE Domain Registry (IEDR) has entered into an agreement with HEAnet, the National Education and Research Network, to hold an encrypted copy of the dot-ie (.ie) domain database in escrow as protection in the event of a force majeure. As reported in ENN recently, McAfee's 2009 Site Advisor report rated the dot-ie domain as the second safest domain in the world. The latest initiative is designed to provide greater continuity of service and protection to dot-ie registrants.
Irish software implementation company Aspera has announced that it will invest EUR1.4 million over a three-year period in an effort to become the UK's market leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) service provider in the mid-tier manufacturing and distribution segment. The investment is being financed by AIB loan finance and retained earnings. Aspera is hoping to grow its annual UK turnover to EUR1 million in 2010.
A collaboration between Dell and Microsoft has enabled three Meath VEC students from St. Fintina's Post Primary School Longwood participate in classes being delivered from Dunshaughlin Community College. Previously, the three Leaving Certificate Chemistry students had to travel to Dunshaughlin to do their practical course work. The Longwood students can now interact with the teacher via a video link and are able to follow all teaching material shared from the teacher's tablet PC. Following the success of this pilot, County Meath VEC plans to provide a wider range of subjects to students in its nine schools. All first year pupils in St. Fintina's Post Primary School Longwood have been equipped with a Dell Latitude 2100 laptop and the entire school has also been Windows 7 enabled, making Longwood one of the first schools in Ireland to be fully Windows 7 operational.
Eighty-four percent of Irish consumers are concerned about security when making online purchases this Christmas, according to a survey conducted by Microsoft IE8. On average, 73 percent of Europeans are concerned about security when purchasing online. Consumers in the Netherlands are the most concerned over privacy issues (95 percent), followed closely by Portugal (93 percent) and Norway (92 percent). Across Europe, it was consumers in the UK (83 percent), Ireland (74 percent) and Sweden (62 percent) that were most likely to shop online this December. But there are still considerable numbers not willing to make purchases online. According to the survey, just two in five consumers across Europe plan on shopping online to buy presents for friends and family. The survey also revealed that despite security concerns, more than a third of consumers (35 percent) have not updated their browsers in the past six months.
Meanwhile, Irish consumers have been warned to be extra vigilant when shopping, booking travel, or networking online this Christmas, by CA. A new report from CA's security division reveals increased levels of cyber criminal activity focused on the major search engines, social networks and rogue/fake security software. The research shows that malware doubled in 2009 and the ability to purchase malicious programs online is becoming more prevalent. While spam and phishing scams are still on the rise, the breakdown for how malware is distributed is dominated by the internet at 78 percent followed by e-mail (via attachments or phishing) at 17 percent and removable media (such as USB drives, digital photo frames, etc) with 5 percent.
Buoyed by back-to-school demand, worldwide PC shipments returned to positive growth in the third quarter of 2009 with an increase of 2.3 percent after three consecutive quarters of decline, according to figures from market analysts IDC. Consumer portables remained the key driver, with shipments increasing 33.5 percent from a year ago, while consumer desktop demand remained weak as the market continued its transition to mobility. The decline of commercial PCs also started to slow in the quarter. Netbooks saw strong growth with a 37 percent gain over the year-ago quarter, while the netbook share of consumer portables increased to 28 percent from 14 percent one year ago. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, the market's rebound in the third quarter and growth in key segments will lead to net growth of 1.3 percent for 2009. IDC expects the pace of growth to quicken in 2010, with emerging regions leading the way.
Finally, the official Twitter blog has released its 'Top Twitter Trends of 2009', with the Iranian election, Michael Jackson and the Harry Potter movie leading the way in the News Events, People, and Movies categories. In Technology, Google Wave was most tweeted about, with Apple's Snow Leopard, Windows 7, and Google Latitude also featuring in the top 10.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 