Posts filed under 'Industry Trends'
From March 26th a brand new domain extension, .asia will become available for people to register on a first come first served basis.
The .ASIA domain is aimed at companies doing business in any part of Asia, similar to how the .eu name covers Europe. This is the advantage over having an Asian country specific name such as Chinas .CN.
We will be making .ASIA names available to register on our site as soon as we can so if you regularly do business in Asia or wish to extend your brand there, don’t miss out on this great opportunity.
February 7th, 2008
Some 51,000sq metres in Grange Castle Business Park in Dublin will soon be home to Microsoft’s new European data centre that will serve the entire EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region. This means that tens of thousands of servers located in Ireland will provide Windows users with information and services like Windows Live as well as store actual data for Microsoft’s online services businesses including MSN.
During the construction phase alone Microsoft will be investing US$500m in the data centre’s infrastructure, after which state-of-the-art server technology will be installed. This is expected to be completed by summer 2009.
November 7th, 2007
Intel has become the latest in an increasingly long line of companies to launch a so-called ‘no e-mail day’.
On Fridays, 150 of its engineers revert to more old-fashioned means of communication.
In actual fact e-mail isn’t strictly forbidden but engineers are encouraged to talk to each other face to face or pick up the phone rather than rely on e-mail.
In Intel’s case the push to look again at the culture of e-mail followed a comment from chief executive Paul Otellini criticising engineers “who sit two cubicles apart sending an e-mail rather than get up and talk”.
Last year, fulfilment firm PBD launched a no e-mail Friday, when chief executive Scott Dockter suspected that over-dependence on e-mail was damaging productivity.
Four months later the company felt the trial had been a resounding success, with better teamwork, happier customers and quicker problem solving.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7049275.stm
October 22nd, 2007
There is a growing gap between the strongest and weakest performers of broadband penetration in Europe, while Ireland continues to languish below the EU average.
That’s according to the latest European Commission report which examined broadband penetration rates amongst Member States from January to July 2007. The report found that Denmark has the strongest broadband penetration at 37.2 percent while, with more than a 30 percent difference, Bulgaria has the worst at 5.7 percent.
“Broadband growth remains strong with the top EU countries now world leaders in broadband penetration,” said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding. “However, it is unacceptable that the gap between the strongest and weakest performers in Europe is growing. Europe must act now to get its broadband house in order.”
Ireland remains at 14th for European broadband penetration at 15.5 percent. The report also found that Ireland has had the third highest proportional growth rate in the EU with 6.7 new broadband lines being installed per 100 people from January to July 2007. Only Luxembourg at 7.1 and Denmark at 7.7 installed more fixed broadband lines per person in the same period.
Source: http://enn.ie/article/138486.html
October 22nd, 2007
Cork is to get its own dedicated data centre when doors open on a new purpose-built facility early next month. It?s claimed to be the first such centre outside Dublin.
The CIX (Cork Internet eXchange) is almost complete, with ongoing construction documented online at www.cix.ie. ?We?re showing people the scale of the project ? it?s not just a rack in a comms room,? said Tom Raftery, the Cork-based the social media consultant who is backing the centre along with two other directors.
CIX has fully redundant telecoms connectivity, uninterruptible power supplies and backup generators for disaster recovery purposes. The centre will also house a 24m mast on its roof which will be made available to wireless internet providers and telecoms operators.
According to Raftery, this will lower the price of broadband into the building and the savings will be passed on to customers. ?It?s a strategic move to put the mast in because it gets our cost down,? he said.
Full story : http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single9284
September 28th, 2007
Communications Minister Noel Dempsey voiced regret over the privatisation of Eircom as he unveiled details of the new National Broadband Scheme on Wednesday.
Speaking at a press conference marking commencement of a public procurement process designed to solicit telecoms operators to provide high speed internet services to rural Ireland, Minister Dempsey suggested the country’s broadband situation would be different if the State had control of Eircom’s “assets”.
“I would imagine that we wouldn’t be where we are right now. Although we probably wouldn’t be much further on because we’ve made such good progress over the last two years, but we would have got there quicker had we the control of the assets at this stage,” he said. “The State has regarded the roll-out of broadband as a priority since the late ‘nineties.”
For its part, Eircom has already expressed interest in pitching for the five-year government contract which has been designated ‘technology neutral’, meaning all broadband technologies — wired and wireless — will be considered as long as they can satisfactorily handle services such as VoIP (internet telephony) and online gaming.
“Yes, Eircom looks forward to participating in the Government’s tender process,” a spokeswoman for the telco told ENN.
Senior executives in telecommunications company Digiweb are also understood to have discussed pitching for the contract, which is structured to allow either one company, or a consortium, to apply.
“The technology neutral criteria and guidance on minimum service capabilities provides the opportunity for the best solutions to be selected for each situation,” said Digiweb managing director Colm Piercy. “At first glance the scheme appears to have the remit and scope to genuinely address the 15 percent to 20 percent of the Irish population who would always remain outside the reach of DSL even if every single exchange were enabled.”
Source: http://test.enn.ie/article/10050554.html
September 28th, 2007
Internet consultancy Amas has released a colour-coded map of Ireland showing the country?s Digital Divide, with colours indicating counties with the highest and lowest Internet uptake. The Amas map shows that areas close to Dublin have the highest net adoption, closely followed by high uptake in Galway, Cork and Waterford cities, while the North West and Wexford have the lowest uptake.
Orange indicates the areas of highest Internet penetration where more than 20 % of people have access, while brown indicates counties where less than ten per cent of people are online. However, the orange areas of the map were confined to the counties around Dublin and to a small part of Galway City, which has 31.6% or people online. Cork City had access rates of 22%, almost the same as Wicklow, while Kildare was a little higher with 23% of people online.
Source: http://www.techcentral.ie/articles/Amas/
September 28th, 2007
For a fixed monthly cost and a 12-month minimum term contract, BT Web Clicks puts a sponsored link on major and local search engines, including Google, Yahoo and MSN.
“More than 70 per cent of internet users rely on search engines to find a local service, and they are a proven way of generating leads. But it can be time consuming and costly to set up and sustain a campaign,” said Bruce Abercromby, general manager of strategy and development at BT.
Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2197926/bt-offers-online-advertising-SME
September 10th, 2007
Companies have been warned to be aware of the security risks that come with the use of ‘Web 2.0′ features such as blogs, wikis and social networking. Analysts at Gartner say that although these risks are manageable, enterprises must put security measures in place in the early stages of developing Web 2.0 applications. Speaking at a conference in Sydney, Australia, Gartner fellow Joseph Feiman said many of the concepts of Web 2.0 technologies run against traditional IT security practice and force companies to relinquish a “level of control that they historically would not tolerate”, meaning a rethink of security is essential. Among the issues to consider, according to Feiman, are how to protect internal users and the business from malicious code, RSS feeds and information leakage through blogging. Read more on this story on Silicon.com.
Source: http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39168148,00.htm
September 3rd, 2007
A new Geographical Name Search facility is now available from
the IEDR website.This search facility has been created to
provide applicants with a searchable list of Irish and Northern
Irish places names that are restricted under the Geographic
Naming Policy (section 3.6).
FULL STORY: http://www.ie-zine.ie/e_article000874642.cfm?x=bb20gK4,b5yl83JW
August 10th, 2007
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