A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
Awards to mark 50 years
The Irish Computer Society and the Belfast branch of the British Computer Society are coming together to mark the 50th anniversary of computing in Ireland with an awards ceremony. It will recognise those who have made a significant contribution to the local industry over the last five decades.
Members of the public will also be asked to vote for the most popular IT innovation award; nominations received to date including the worldwide web, text messaging, the Commodore 64 and the iPod. The awards will be presented at a gala dinner in Dublin on September 20th. www.ics.ie/50YearsAwards
eBay users get cheap delivery
Heavy users of Irish online auction site ebay.ie can now avail of reductions of up to 45 per cent on national parcel post and 75 per cent on international packages, thanks to a new deal between eBay and An Post. Irish users of the site who have received feedback on at least 90 sales, of which 98 per cent or more has to be positive, can sign up for an e-Parcel card, which can then be used at 1,000 automated post offices around the country. Earlier this year eBay announced it had over half a million registered users in Ireland. Sign up through ebay.ie or at e-parcel.ie
Bebo and Microsoft link
Microsoft and Bebo have joined to allow users of the popular social networking site to integrate Windows Live Messenger directly into their profile page. Contact information from Bebo and Windows Live Messenger can also be imported between them allowing users to easily find contacts from one service on the other. This is the first time Microsoft has partnered with a social network on its instant messaging product. ComScore reports Bebo has about 36 million users while there are more than 280 million active users of Messenger each month according to Microsoft.
Selatra wins games deal
Selatra, the Cork distributor of mobile phone games, has won a deal with VimpelCom, which operates in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Armenia under the Beeline brand, to supply it with an enhanced Java games service.
VimpelCom has annual operating revenues of $1.5 billion (€1.1 billion) and services a territory with a population of 240 million.
Seán Cronin, chief executive of Selatra, said: "This contract win was facilitated greatly by the support of the Enterprise Ireland Moscow office with whom we work closely."
Web2Ireland Week planned
The Enterprise Ireland backed Web 2.0 Ireland group has dubbed September 10th-14th as Web2Ireland Week with a host of technical and business events taking place in Dublin to showcase the new approach to providing web-based services.
A mash-up camp and university will run in Trinity College from September 10th- 13th, showing the potential of taking data from two or more services (eg Google Maps) to create something new. The Future of Web Applications conference will host an informal evening on September 13th where 10 Irish start-ups will get a chance to demonstrate their wares.
www.web2ireland.org
Strong sales at First Derivatives
London-listed Northern Irish financial software and consulting firm First Derivatives says trading this year has "exceeded management's expectations to date" largely due to renewal of existing contracts and a number of high profile contract wins. Employment at the firm has climbed to 109 while a sales partnership with Kx Systems has resulted in strong sales.
