Today's other technology stories in brief
BlackBerry whipping up a Storm
BlackBerry's highly anticipated touchscreen Storm smartphone hit Irish shops yesterday. Currently only available on the Vodafone network, it retails for between €50 and €110, depending on the price plan chosen. The Storm-specific plans include bundled text and minutes, differing allowance for e-mail traffic, as well as music downloads.
It is the first touchscreen model from Blackberry maker Research in Motion and is widely viewed as its response to Apple's 3G iPhone. The Storm has a high resolution 480 x 360 pixel colour display, 3.2 megapixel camera, accesses high speed HSDPA networks but does not support Wi-Fi.
Tech firms zoom up Fast 500 list
Ireland's fastest-growing technology firms have achieved 24 places on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, which ranks the fastest growing technology companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Per capita, Ireland punched above its weight as France had the most ranked companies with 75 of the 500. Lincor Solutions, the maker of bedside technology for the healthcare sector, was Ireland's highest ranked company at number 35. The top ranked firm overall was British communications software firm Thunderhead.
IT workers weather credit crunch
IT professionals are laughing in the face of the credit crunch, according to a new survey from ComputerJobs.ie, which found 61 per cent of respondents expect their current employer to get through the downturn. The survey of over 9,000 professionals found that 84 per cent would expect to have the same salary or get an increase in their salary if they moved jobs. When asked if they would stay in a job if they were unhappy, 62 per cent said they wouldn't.
Intuition pays off for Irish firm
Irish e-learning firm Intuition has won an award for delivering mobile learning on BlackBerry devices at the 2008 BlackBerry EMEA Alliance Summit. Intuition, which provides learning services for financial service, life sciences and the public sector, was chosen ahead of more than 100 entrants at an event in Monte Carlo recently.
