NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 5 March
05-03-2010
by Deirdre McArdle
Eircom unveils group reshuffle | iPad launch delayed until April
Eircom is to integrate its mobile subsidiary Meteor and Eircom Retail into the Eircom Group in the coming months as part of a reorganisation of the group's operations. Eircom will then be divided into three core segments: Consumer and Small Business, Government and Enterprise, and Wholesale. Meteor's current CEO, Larry Smith, is to leave the company and reports suggest he will not be replaced, although the Meteor brand will be retained. Stephen Beynon has been appointed Group Managing Director of Consumer and Small Business. Eircom also announced the establishment of a Transition Unit, which will be headed up by Gerry Culligan. Culligan will also have responsibility for Phonewatch and 11811, the firm's directory enquiries business.
Galway-based medical device maker Crospon has been named Innovator of the Year by the Small Firms Association at its annual National Small Business Awards. Crospon, which develops minimally invasive medical devices for monitoring, diagnosis and therapy in the gastroenterology area, beat out several life sciences companies for the title. The firm has had a good start to the year: in January it completed a EUR2 million round of funding, and its flagship gastroenterology product, EndoFLIP, received clearance from the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).
Security firm Espion has warned Irish SMEs that cybercriminals are increasingly targeting this segment. "As large corporations have begun to put in place real and tangible security barriers, cybercriminals are looking at SMEs -- the pickings may not be as rich, but the number of targets is greater, and the level of security in place is far lower," said Colm Murphy, technical director with Espion. One example cited, which is being investigated by the Garda Bureau of Fraud, is a cyber attack which saw criminals hack into a number of SMEs' systems, encrypt data such as order books and customer information, and leave a note on their computers demanding money to unlock the data.
Apple has announced a slight delay to shipments of its much-anticipated iPad, which will now not hit shelves in the US until 3 April. Apple debuted the iPad at the end of January, and at that stage said the device would reach the market in "late March" worldwide. All models of the device will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK by late April, according to Apple, which said that other countries will likely get the device later in the year.
Micro-blogging phenomenon Twitter has seen usage soar in recent months, with the site hitting its 10 billionth tweet on Thursday. The user who sent the milestone tweet cannot be identified as it came from a protected profile, which means their tweets cannot be viewed by the general public. The rise in usage has been quite extraordinary: in November 2008 it hit the 1 billion mark, a year later it achieved 5 billion tweets, and 3 months or so later that figure has doubled to 10 billion. At this rate, Gigatweet, the site that keeps a real-time record of all the Twitter messages sent, estimates it will reach the 20 billion milestone by July of this year.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 