IONA Fuse Open Source

Iona Technologies released a range of new offerings designed to deliver the enterprise-quality products, services and support programs, and opportunities for community participation required to successfully incorporate open source technology into strategic SOA deployments.

IONA's new family of open source products are available now under the FUSE brand and are based on projects hosted by the Apache Software Foundation.

The new FUSE components are designed to provide the fundamental requirements for messaging, service enablement and SOA connectivity in enterprise IT environments and are interoperable with Artix™, IONA's advanced SOA infrastructure suite.

More: http://www.iona.com/pressroom/2007/20070709.htm

Changing Worlds new deals with 3 Mobile Operators

Emma Kennedy, writing in the Sunday Business Post, writes that Dublin software company Changing Worlds is in the process of negotiating new deals with three mobile operators in Europe.

"The company’s software is used by mobile phone companies to personalise the menus on mobile phones. It signed deals with ten mobile operators last year, bringing to more than 40 the number of operators that use its software."

More: http://www.changingworlds.com/sublevel.jsp?ID=774

IBM CAS Software and Systems Engineering Symposium 2007

Call for Papers!

The IBM CAS Software and Systems Engineering Symposium 2007 (Dublin Ireland) is the third annual IBM Dublin CAS research symposia organised as a multi-track single day event on October 24th 2007.

This symposium is organised in association with CASCON 2007 the 17th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering (http://witanweb.ca/cascon2007/) and in cooperation with Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Center (http://www.lero.ie).

More: https://www-927.ibm.com/ibm/cas/cascon/dublin_track.shtml

Economy Fears Wipe €2bn Off Irish Shares

Cyril Hardiman, writing in the Independent, highlights that "investors in the Irish equity market have had to watch the value of their holdings plunge a massive €12bn in the space of just seven weeks since the market moved into reverse at the start of June."

He adds: "Financials were the chief culprits once more yesterday, with the four major banking stocks backtracking by a further 2.6pc, giving up €1.3bn of their value - or more than half the €2.2bn by which the market dropped yesterday.

AIB lost €500m and is now capitalised at just €17bn. In February, Ireland's largest banking group was close to €21bn, while CRH, the market's largest company, also fell heavily yesterday on worries about the US economy.

Get the full story at: http://www.independent.ie/business/stocks-markets/economy-fears-wipe-euro2bn-more-off-value-of-leading-irish-shares-1043526.html?service=Print

Cowen Plays Down Impact Of ECJ Decisions

Jason Gorringe, reporting in Tax-News.com, says that "Ireland does not have as much to be concerned about because of European Court of Justice decisions in the corporation tax field as other Member States, according to the conclusions of a new study launched by Finance Minister Brian Cowen last week."

Cowen said that Ireland would be able to incorporate ECJ judgments into national legislation much more easily than many other EU member states.

"There have been some interesting developments since this study was concluded which serve to indicate both the importance of the European Court and our ability and willingness to respond to ECJ judgments in a timely way," Cowen told the audience.

Read full story >>>

Irish Minister hosts National Dairy forum

Irish Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, hosted the National Dairy Forum in Dublin.

According to Farming Life, "The Minister said she was very pleased with the huge response from those invited to participate and was looking forward to welcoming the leading players in the dairy sector to the Forum and to hearing their views on the future outlook for this very important sector of the Irish economy."

Full story at: http://www.farminglife.com/farmingnews?articleid=3056650

Peter Sutherland interview

allAfrica has an intereting profile of Peter Sutherland, the Irishman and former captain of Lansdowne rugby club who has also been a lawyer, politician and trade liberalisation apparatchik.

The 61-year-old Sutherland is also chairman of Goldman Sachs International. Read the full interview at: http://allafrica.com/stories/200707270242.html

Aircraft leasing benefits Irish economy

The Independent reports that "a 'top five' leasing company, RBS Aviation, has recently expanded its operation in Ireland too. Others with bases here include AWAS, CIT, Genesis and AerCap."

Joe Gill, a specialist on aviation for Goodbody Stockbrokers, writing in the paper highlights that "while aviation-related headlines in Ireland are dominated by airlines, such as Aer Lingus and Ryanair, the sector also contains another potent and fast-growing segment - aircraft financing."

He also add that "For those readers interested in owning shares in this sector, recent changes make that possible. Since summer 2006 three of the leasing companies have floated on the stockmarket - AirCastle, AerCap and Genesis. Each is quoted in New York, and one of them, Genesis, is headquartered in Shannon. Since its IPO last December, the shares are up 14pc while generating an annual dividend yield of over 5pc."

The full article is at: http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/aircraft-leasing-propels-massive-benefits-for-economy-1038142.html

Bouyant Irish retail sector contributes to economic growth

According to IBEC, the retail sector of the Irish economy remains buoyant and looks set to make a significant contribution to economic growth in 2007.

Data from the CSO show that retail sales in May were up 9.9% on the corresponding month last year and sales excluding the motor trade increased by 9.1%.

IBEC Senior Economist Fergal O’Brien says, "the retail sector remains exceptionally strong at present and the SSIA impact is evident in a number of areas. Given that about half of the SSIA accounts matured at the end of April it would have been a major surprise if we hadn’t seen a bounce to the retail figures in May.’

‘Total retail sales in the first five months of the year are up 7.2%, while the volume of car sales was up just marginally higher. Car sales in the month of May were very strong – up 11.4% on the same month last year. Other retail areas performing strongly are clothing and footwear which are both up almost 20% so far this year. The electrical goods sector also appears to have benefited from the SSIA factor in May as sales were up 2.3% on the previous month and are ahead by 14% in the year to date’.

www.ibec.ie | www.cso.ie

XML pipelining technology for IBM WebSphere

PolarLake's Messaging Integrator product is to be deployed within IBM WebSphere Application Server.

WebSphere customers will be able to utilize PolarLake’s patented XML pipelining and unique Data Circuits technologies to enable data streaming, routing, mediation and orchestration of data flows.

“XML pipelining is a very powerful, standards-based way of low latency processing of multiple data formats onto standard middleware technology. The processing, routing and mediation of non-XML, CSV, SWIFT™ and FpML® messages without coding is one of PolarLake’s strengths. This gives a head start to any WebSphere integration project where people are forced to code thousands of lines of complex J2EE™ code, resulting in a maintenance project that will last far longer and cost far more than the initial implementation”, commented John Randles, CEO of PolarLake.

www.polarlake.com

Contractor appointed for Shannon Broadband network

Shannon Broadband Ltd has appointed a contractor to lay 52kms of broadband fibre network in eight towns around the Shannon Region.

Clarke Quarries Ltd part of the Clarke Group based in Co. Cavan has been awarded the contract to undertake the laying of fibre optic cable in eight towns which are: Abbeyfeale (approx. 4.1km of cable to be laid) and Newcastle West (approx. 6.2km of cable to be laid) in Co. Limerick; Kilrush (approx. 5.2km cable to be laid) in County Clare, Nenagh (approx.10.8km of cable to be laid), Roscrea (approx. 8.1km of cable to be laid) and Templemore (approx.5.7km of cable to be laid) in Co. Tipperary; Banagher (approx.4.2km of cable to be laid) and Birr (approx. 7.7km of cable to be laid) in Co. Offaly.

The network being installed around the towns is called a ‘Metropolitan Area Network’, or ‘MAN’ for short.

Shannon Broadband Ltd is a public sector consortium led by Shannon Development, in partnership with Limerick City Council, Limerick County Council, Clare County Council, North Tipperary County Council, and Offaly County Council. Established in 2003 Shannon Broadband Ltd is the first public sector regional telecoms company to be set up in Ireland. It was set up to establish good broadband ‘connectivity’ around the Shannon Region. The MAN programme is made possible due to funding from the Department of communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

Once work in all towns has been complete, the broadband networks infrastructure will be managed by a special Government appointed Management Services Entity (MSE). The MSE will be responsible for making the facilities of the MANs available to authorised telecoms operators on a wholesale basis, so that they can offer broadband services to the different segments of the local market.

www.shannondev.ie

Geotec to deliver eSpatial’s iSMART throughout Brazil

Geotec, a Brazilian GeoTechnology provider, has signed a Reseller Agreement for iSMART, eSpatial’s leading GeoSpatial software suite for the development of integrated, enterprise grade spatially enabled applications throughout the Brazilian Marketplace.

The Geotec Planejamento e Consultoria Ltda. is a company with national performance in Brazil and is one of the main players in regional geotechnologies segment. Geotec provides solutions for remote sensoring, geoprocessing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) through systems implementation for diverse vertical business lines.

iSMART supports several deployment models including Pure Web and Customized Client within a scalable, role-based and secure environment. The architectural features delivered with iSMART address standard IT requirements for the deployment of enterprise business applications. iSMART provides an ideal enterprise grade hosted services delivery platform for geospatial applications. Delivered applications and services can also be provided to conform with the Open GeoSpatial Consortium (OGC) Web Services standards.

http://www.espatial.com/

SEC Close Investigation on SkillSoft

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is to take no action against Skillssoft in connection with the resolution of the SEC's investigation into SkillSoft's restatement of SmartForce PLC financial statements issued prior to the merger between SmartForce and SkillSoft in September 2002.

After the merger, SkillSoft determined that SmartForce had made accounting errors with respect to its historical financial statements, corrected those errors and cooperated with the SEC throughout the course of its investigation into those errors.

The SEC staff has not closed an informal investigation concerning option granting practices at SmartForce prior to the merger for the period beginning April 12, 1996 through July 12, 2002.

Vordel wins British American Tobacco Contract

British American Tobacco (BAT) has deployed Vordel's SOA security and management technology to manage its XML traffic throughout a global network of data centers.

Using Vordel, BAT can remotely manage its SOA deployment on a global level. According to BAT, key decision factors for selecting Vordel included their acceleration of XML security primitives, the product's scalability and intuitive centralized policy management controls.

Forrester analyst, Randy Heffner, adds: "Security is most critical for external integration scenarios, but its value is often underestimated in internal integration. More so than many other aspects of your SOA platform, complete security requires an integrated solution across multiple types of products and solutions."

http://www.vordel.com

Personalized Mobile Adverts

ChangingWorlds released its ClixSmart AdPersonalizer mobile advertising platform which delivers targeted, personalized and relevant adverts to their subscribers.

This new product leverages ChangingWorlds artificial intelligence and personalization technologies to ensure that advertising campaigns are relevant to each individual mobile subscriber.

It generates targeted and personalized adverts that grab subscribers’ attention, thus increasing ad click-through rates and driving up revenues for network operators and advertisers.

It ensures that adverts are relevant by matching them with each individual subscriber’s interests and behavioural profile, thus providing the best possible user experience. It also leverages supplementary subscriber information, if available, such as: subscriber demographics, context, location, handset capabilities and tariff plan to assist in targeting the right subscriber with the right advertisement at the right time.

www.changingworlds.com

Proposal for Tidal Monitoring Equipment Systems

The Marine Institute seeks tenders (proposals) for the supply of technical & maintenance services for tidal monitoring systems used in the Irish National Tide Gauge Network.

This equipment to be installed and serviced is used to carry out water level monitoring. Currently the network is comprised of 11 systems, with a proposal to increase this number to ca.40 over the next 8 years.

The service will be limited to installation and then annual equipment performance and maintenance.

http://www.marine.ie/home/aboutus/tenders/opentenders/Tide+Gauge+Tender.htm

Closing date: 01 Aug 2007

Centre for Cross Border Studies awarded €1.5 million by Irish Aid

The award was given by the Irish Government’s development co-operation agency to lead an all-Ireland consortium of universities to help build the research capacity of universities in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi.

The funding will go towards research capacity building in the African universities in health, education, ICT and gender issues. All nine Irish universities (North and South) and four African universities – Makerere University in Uganda, Dar-Es-Salaam University in Tanzania, Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique and the University of Malawi – will participate in the consortium.

The Centre is the first Northern Ireland-based higher education institution to receive a major grant from an Irish government agency.

The other third level institutions to receive funding in this first round of Irish Aid awards are University College Dublin, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Mary Immaculate College Limerick and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

http://www.crossborder.ie/cbnews/irishaid.php

Alternative to fixed broadband in the home

The new service from O2 will provide wireless broadband at speeds of up to 3.6Mbps. O2 Broadband, through a wireless USB modem, will enable up to 10GB of data to be downloaded as standard per month, with no additional charges for occasional usage in excess of this.

O2 claim to be the first mobile provider in Ireland not to automatically charge customers if they exceed the 10GB usage limit, subject to fair usage policy.

The service will initially be available for a three month introductory price of €15 per month for those with an existing O2 post-pay voice connection or for new post-pay customers taking a voice connection*. It will be €20 for all other customers. Following the three month promotional period, the monthly cost is €30 (with voice connection*). For all other customers the cost is €40 per month. The USB modem starts at €69.

O2 Broadband is based on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology and will offer 75% population coverage at launch.

Research conducted by TNS mrbi on behalf of O2 suggested a growing digital divide between Dublin and the rest of the country. While 70% of those surveyed in Dublin had broadband access from home, the figures fall to 45% in Munster, 41% in Connacht/Ulster and 31% in the Rest of Leinster.

* Post-pay Price Plan Active Life 150 or above

House prices moderate further as uncertainty impacts performance

Sherry FitzGerald, Ireland's largest estate agents, estimate that the average price of a second-hand property in Ireland eased back by minus 1.6% during the second quarter of 2007, with the results for the year to date coming in at minus 2.7%. This follows growth of 18.1% in Ireland during the calendar year of 2006.

However, if you exclude the Dublin market from the analysis, the market show a more static performance with prices rising by 0.01% during the second quarter of the year and 0.25% in the year to date.

House prices eased further in the Dublin second hand market in the second quarter of the year with prices falling back by 3.0%, bringing the results for the year to date to minus 5.2%. This follows very strong growth during 2006 when the market expanded in price terms by 22.2%.

Cork also saw a moderation of price growth in the year to date with prices falling by 0.3%

Marian Finnegan, Chief Economist, Sherry FitzGerald Group adds: "The poor price performance was by no means standard throughout the country with some coastal locations such as Donegal and Wicklow benefiting from a combination of cross border demand and a healthy holiday home market allowing prices to continue to rise."

WIND Launches New Web 2.0 Email Experience

Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.A (WIND), Italy's leading operator of integrated fixed-mobile-Internet communications services, is set to roll out Memova Messaging 8.0 - the latest version of Critical Path's consumer messaging platform for broadband and mobile service providers. The platform will offer Web mail features for WIND's Libero subscribers.

WIND's portal, www.Libero.it, is Italy's number one email service provider and hosts the country's largest Internet community with more than 12 million active members.

In addition to providing advanced Web 2.0 email, Memova Messaging offers a number of value-added services that WIND can deploy on the Libero portal in the future. These services include community-based multimedia file-sharing, a contact-centric communications console, network address book services, integrated VoIP services and more.

The new Libero email services are available now to a limited number of beta users. WIND expects to upgrade all Libero users to the Memova Messaging platform by the end of 2007.

www.criticalpath.net | www.wind.it

Opportunities in Japan

CEO of Enterprise Ireland, Frank Ryan estimates that at 2.3pc, Irish exports to Japan have the potential to deliver 12pc of global revenue for export-focused Irish companies.

Speaking at “Japan – Take a Closer Look”, Mr Ryan said: “Japan is the second biggest market in the world and is currently enjoying its longest economic boom. The value of our exports to Japan was just 2.3pc of total exports in 2006 where the accepted figure as a percentage of trade worldwide is 12pc. Irish global companies simply cannot afford to ignore this market of 127 million people.”

http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/

eircom Accelerates Northern Ireland Investment Plans

Eircom is to extend its business presence in Northern Ireland and initially invest €5 million in its network and service operations in the province. Work on its core network around Northern Ireland started in 2006 and this will be completed later this year.

This involes establishing a network operations centre in Belfast which will employ 15 people in high value roles, including network engineers, project managers and qualified service professionals..

http://www.eircom.ie/

O2 Business Account Manager Cellular World

O2 is seeking an account manager to sell new contract connections and upgrades as well as mobile solutions to the Network target market SME and corporate. Develop sales of the above by targeting new customers as well as developing existing customers.

http://www.o2online.ie/wps/wcm/connect/O2/About+O2/Careers/

Program Managers at Microsoft Ireland

2 openings for program managers who have great technical and project management aptitude, great communication and cross-group skills, a can-do attitude and the ability to jump in and get the job done in a fast-paced and stimulating environment.

See: http://members.microsoft.com/careers/international/default.asp?lang=EN&loc=IRE