[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
A new website aimed at giving aspiring musicians the low-down on music technology has been launched by Northern Irish firm Sonic Academy.

http://www.sonicacademy.com/site/default.aspx is a web resource for anyone interested in music technology, particularly in the use of software-driven music systems.
The site offers video tutorials, information, news and reviews, as well as being an online community for musicians to learn and share knowledge with each other. Musicians can download full courses or individual tutorials covering the latest software and hardware products. Registered members can also upload their own music and have it rated by other music makers.
Leading manufacturers of music technology hardware and software such as Pioneer, M-Audio, Vestax, Steinberg, Ableton and the Ministry of Sound have endorsed the site, according to Sonicacademy.com.
The website is an extension of the highly successful Sonic Academy training centre in Belfast that provides face-to-face training for music presenters and broadcasters, as well as accredited education courses for school and college students and training for home enthusiasts.
Sonic Academy is one of six successful companies to receive funding from the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment’s Broadband Content Initiative (BCI). The BCI was designed to encourage creative and IT entrepreneurs to seize the commercial opportunities of developing content for the internet.
By Niall Byrne

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
A consortium involving BT Ireland, media holding company Communicorp and Swedish digital terrestrial television (DTT) operator, the Boxer Group, outlined its case for a DTT license to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) today.

The consortium, Boxer DTT, is vying for one of the three DTT licenses that will be awarded by the BCI in July. It is competing against Onevision, a consortium involving Eircom, TV3 and Setanta, and a consortium comprising RTÉ and cable company UPC.
“It’s just not appropriate for any broadcaster to be directly involved in platform management, including RTÉ,” Lucy Gaffney, chairperson of Boxer DTT, commented at the presentation today.
She also noted that Boxer DTT was the only consortium established specifically and solely to provide DTT services in Ireland
Gaffney outlined plans for the consortium to invest €115m in a broadcast network and multiplexing services, €30m in customer support services and €20m in sales and marketing in its first four years if successful in its bid to secure a licence.
She envisaged the consortium offering over 30 channels from January 2009 through existing roof top aerials, with the service debuting in major cities and being rolled out to the whole country by 2012, when analogue TV signals will be turned off.
By Niall Byrne

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
In the latest addition to what has been a dizzying array of new job announcements in the North, one of Europe’s top IT services companies Fujitsu Services is to create 150 jobs there.

A major £8.8m sterling investment by Fujitsu, topped up with a further £2.2m sterling from Invest NI, will see 120 of the jobs based in Derry while a further 30 will be based in Belfast.
This is the third investment Fujitsu Services has made in Northern Ireland in the past 18 months.
The first, an £18m sterling investment in June created 402 jobs in managed IT operations in Derry and Belfast, while a £3.2m sterling expansion of its Centre of Excellence for Oracle created a further 30 jobs in Belfast in August 2007.
“The fact that this is Fujitsu’s third project in only 18 months sends out a strong message that this region has the infrastructure and skills to secure high-value investment from global companies,” Invest NI chief executive, Leslie Morrison explained.
“This is further evidence of the confidence international companies have in Northern Ireland as a premier investment location.”
The new positions include: customer solution architects to design IT solutions for clients, developers and specialist business and technical support professionals.
These roles will support ongoing work for a wide range of customers – including a major government department – using one of the largest Oracle eBusiness Suite implementations in the world.
“This investment reflects Fujitsu’s confidence in its Northern Ireland operations and in the region’s ability to deliver the skills and the work ethic that have made our experience here so positive,” Fujitsu Services’s Michael Crow, head of application services explained.
“This new centre of excellence will play an important role in rolling out our strategy of developing innovative delivery channels based on a global model,” added Crow.
By John Kennedy

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
Financial and purchasing applications provider iB Solutions has won five contracts with 16 NHS (National Health Service) trusts in the UK worth a total of £1.75m sterling.

The Dublin-based company, an IBA subsidiary, is the largest provider of financial and procurement applications and services to the NHS in England with a 52pc market share. It provides its own Integra web-enabled financial application to 105 NHS trusts and runs an Oracle managed service for another 140 NHS trusts.
The new deals consolidate its market position.
The contracts include one with a consortium of five NHS trusts in Greater Manchester, which has agreed a four-year contract for a bureau service from the group’s data centre at Prestwich in Manchester.
“The contract was won in an open tender and reflects the increasing popularity of fully managed services to deliver a low-risk and highly cost-effective solution to the NHS,” commented Eamon Morris, managing director of iB Solutions.
A consortium of six NHS organisations in Birmingham will implement the Integra suite of web-enabled financial and purchasing applications under a new contract. The Birmingham consortium will also replace its Version One document management and imaging system with Integra for automatic scanning, recognition, storage, archiving, and retrieval of documents.
Three primary care trusts (PCTs) in Nottinghamshire are also buying the scanning and electronic invoice approval package, and a mental health trust in the West Midlands has also agreed a three-year contract for Integra.
Also, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is upgrading its Integra applications and taking a new OCR scanning package.
Almost two-thirds of all iB Solutions’ customers have moved to electronic storage of documents, which reflects the importance of this solution for delivery efficiency and cost savings, according to the company.
By Niall Byrne

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
Research in Motion (RIM) has introduced a new BlackBerry smart phone called the ‘Bold’ phone and at the same time has created a US$150m fund aimed at encouraging a slew of innovative, third-party mobile applications from the software world.

It emerged this morning that RIM has joined forces with Thomson Reuters and RBC Venture Partners to create a US$150m venture capital fund to focus on applications and services for the BlackBerry platform and other mobile services such as payments, advertising, retailing and banking.
The company said the fund will be agnostic to both stage and balance sheet and it will not restrict the development of mobile applications and services to any single platform or any specific industry segment.
Instead, it will focus on encouraging entrepreneurial spirit and creating the most innovative new mobile offerings.
“The mobile world has evolved well beyond phone calls and simple messaging to require more empowering and liberating solutions that connect people to everything that matters most to them, wherever and whenever they want,” said Jim Balsillie, co-CEO, RIM.
“RIM, RBC and Thomson Reuters share the common belief that mobile applications and services will propel the industry forward and the BlackBerry Partners Fund is being formed to help fuel innovation and activity in the mobile ecosystem.”
Coinciding with the launch of the new fund was the unveiling of the much anticipated new BlackBerry device entitled ‘Bold’, the company’s first tri-band offering with HSDPA 3G connectivity.
It also represents the company’s most style-conscious outing yet, with the device featuring satin chrome and a leather-like backplate.
“The new BlackBerry Bold represents a tremendous step forward in business-grade smart phones and lives up to its name with incredible speed, power and functionality, all wrapped in a beautiful and confident design,” said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO, RIM.
The device will come with a 2-megapixel camera and a media player with an equalizer that features 11 preset filters from Jazz to Lounge to Hip Hop.. The device also features software that allows quick and easy synchronisation of users’ iTunes libraries.
The Bold will also come with a half-VGA colour LCD screen and a new display format for HTML web pages that allows users to choose between full desktop-style web content or the mobile version.
As well as tri-band and HSDPA, the Bold comes with a Wi-Fi radio as well as GPS mapping functionality. The company said the phone should be available worldwide from various carriers from this summer.
By John Kennedy

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
Calyx Group has appointed Tara Brady as chief operating officer. In this senior role, Brady takes responsibility for the management of operations within the group as a whole and will provide leadership and expertise to each Calyx division. Brady has extensive industry experience, with a particular focus on business development. Prior to his appointment, Brady was general manager of Getronics for the UK and Ireland where he also previously held the role of executive vice-president for business development and marketing worldwide. He has also held roles with LogicaCMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
Ryanair recently announced the appointment of Sinead Finn as director of commercial revenue. In this role, Finn will be responsible for the management and development of all ancillary revenue streams in Ryanair with the exception of in-flight catering. Finn graduated from University College Dublin with a BA in 1995. In December 1996, she completed a postgraduate diploma in tourism. In 1997, she was appointed as marketing executive for the Irish Tourist Board based in Norway and was responsible for significant tourism growth and development from Norway to Ireland. Finn joined Ryanair in June 1998 as sales manager for Italy. Under her management, Italy, then an entirely new market for Ryanair grew to 12 airports carrying over four million passengers. In June 2002, Finn was promoted to head of sales and marketing at Ryanair with responsibility for the company’s sales and marketing activities in Europe.

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
The crackdown against internet piracy in the US has got heavier as a judge ruled that portal site TorrentSpy must pay US$110 to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), following its failure to hand over logs of user activity.

While TorrentSpy did not in fact host or provide files containing copyright material, it did act as a gathering place to find other sites with this content as it tracked external sites and hosted a discussion forum on torrents or files that invariably contained copyright material.
As a result, the site was forced to shut down on 24 March 2008 following what the US court said was “widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence”. It also commented that TorrentSpy “provided false testimony under oath in an effort to hide evidence of such destruction”.
The hefty US$110m was arrived at after the court heard that 3,669 instances of copyright infringement could be proved. These infringements were estimated to be worth US$30,000 each in damages to the copyright holders.
One of the largest fines in the history of online copyright infringement, it is not known when the MPAA will receive the money as owners of TorrentSpy, Justin Bunnell and Wes Parker, have filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, Napster founder Shawn Fanning may not have fared well when selling off his first company after it was converted from peer-to-peer file sharing haven to legal music store, but he has just sold his third business, a social networking site for gamers called Rupture, for US$30m.
By Marie Boran

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
Lack of IT strategic planning and controls and zero risk management are being blamed by the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) for more embarrassing budget overruns in public sector bodies, including FÁS, Beaumont Hospital, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and Science Foundation Ireland.

In a hard-hitting report, the CAG pointed out that while many of these budget overruns are not to the same scale as the €140m PPARS debacle of two years ago, they point to a number of serious weaknesses when it comes to IT spending.
“IT projects may fail, may not deliver all the expected benefits or may incur unforeseen costs for a number of reasons, but among the causes identified in this report are inadequate specification of requirements; failure to ensure that proper consideration is given to the views of all users of the system; and inadequate evaluation of the concept and of the risks involved and failure to mange the risks in a rigorous way.”
In one example, an internal audit at employment agency FÁS revealed that the cost of developing, maintaining and hosting the Jobs Ireland website was €1.7m. “The internal audit suggested that FÁS paid at least €1m more than should have been the case. In addition, it found that FÁS spent a large proportion of its advertising budget promoting the website between 2000 and 2003.”
The CAG’s report also pointed to evidence of breach of ethics at FÁS in terms of conflicts of interest when it comes to procurement, with at least one FÁS employee intervening on occasions to recommend certain individuals for employment by a supplier. The CAG said that interventions of this kind are not appropriate and are open to abuse.
In the case of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, a blood banking control system called Progresa that began in 1998 with a budget of €4.2m ran to €9.3m by the time it was completed in 2003.
A subsequent upgrade of the system to a new platform called eProgresa because the old hardware platform was nearing the end of its life was meant to cost €1.8m. However, by 2006 difficulties implementing the system led to the chief executive of the IBTS suspending the eProgresa project and writing off €729,000.
The CAG said it was unclear to what extent the IBTS had evaluated alternatives to the eProgresa project and how it intended to mitigate risks caused by moving to a new and untried system.
In the case of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the CAG found that a software project to create a web-based Awards Management System (AMS) to control the distribution of funding that was budgeted to cost €168,746, more than doubled to €382,690.
The SFI said that because the scope of its awards system had evolved, it meant changing the system to meet the new needs.
The CAG said the SFI’s AMS project was undermined by weak project governance structures, exasperated by a high turnover of key personnel.
The lack of a formal IT strategy at Beaumont Hospital was the reason cited by the CAG as to why an IT upgrade at the hospital failed to deliver value for money.
In 2002, the hospital decided to deploy an open source software system that failed to be accepted by the software. Dissatisfaction with the system meant that users were deciding to move back to the proprietary software system the hospital previously used, as well as the older computers. “While open source software resulted in lower licence costs, these costs were only a fraction of the total cost of ownership, which included training, server hardware and support.”
In May 2006, the hospital decided to switch back to the proprietary desktop software and hopes to complete this changeover by mid-2008.
In 2006, the hospital also decided to deploy a patient administration system that ran counter to Department of Finance policy on IT integration, was inappropriate to the needs of a hospital of Beaumont’s size and led to losses as high as €311,000.
In another case at the hospital, the need to get new IT equipment meant a finance lease was entered into at the cost of €1.26m, which hadn’t been approved by the hospital’s IT steering committee.
The hospital cancelled the contracts and managed to get a refund of at least €295,000. An officer at the hospital is now on administrative leave and an investigation is under way. The hospital has agreed to pay the supplier €1.09m.
The CAG said: “It is clear the hospital’s IT governance prior to May 2006 was inadequate and that there was no formal IT strategy in place; the hospital lacked effective IT management oversight; there was no monetary spending limits set for managers in respect of individual transactions.”
By John Kennedy

[12.05.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
Last week the announcement that several UK retailers were collaborating on compiling a database of employees dismissed over suspicion of theft or fraud caused furore amongst the public, trade unions and civil liberties groups.

The database is the brainchild of Action Against Business Crime (AABC), the national organisation for Business Crime Reduction Partnerships in the UK, and is due to go live later this month.
Employees who are dismissed for dishonesty or who resign before they can be dismissed will be added to the National Staff Dismissal Register (NSDR), which can be searched by prospective employers when conducing a background check on a job candidate.
Acts that can get an ex-employee put on the register include theft or attempted theft of money, merchandise or property, falsification or forgery of documents, fraud, causing a loss to the company or causing damage to company property.
Controversially, people added to the register will not have had to have been convicted or even charged in court with the alleged acts – the suspicion of the former employer is enough to have somebody included. Critics have suggested a person’s career prospects could be devastated by unproven accusations as a result.
The contentious database appears to have state blessing as AABC is a partnership between the British Retail Consortium and the Home Office.
The UK privacy watchdog Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has no problem with the database, arguing that companies will not be allowed to use an entry on the register as the sole reason to deny a job applicant employment. It also said people must be informed when they are being added to the database and have a right to appeal.
The ICO said it has worked closely with business technology firm Hicom Business Solutions, which is managing the database.
Employers will be able to search for job candidates by name, address, date of birth, national insurance number and previous employer.
The British Trade Unions Congress (TUC) has criticised the database plan.
“While criminal activity in the workplace can never be condoned, the TUC is concerned that this register could lead to people being excluded from the job market by an employer who falsely accuses them of misconduct or sacks them because they bear them a grudge,” commented TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber.
“The Criminal Records Bureau was set up to assist employers to make safe appointments when recruiting staff to work with vulnerable groups and already provides appropriately targeted and effectively regulated protection for employers.”
Paul Kenny, general secretary of GMB, a major union for shop workers, commented: “The fact that the elite who run the companies that run the stores would even contemplate going down this road with the connivance of government shows how far public policy has drifted away from norms of fairness and due process. There will be an enormous kick back against this and as a major union for shop workers GMB will lead the charge.
“There is every scope for people to be stitched up and getting them on a register like this is tantamount to ensuring they’ll never work again,” he added. “Employers faced with employees stealing from them have the same recourse as everybody else to the courts. This lynch mob register should not be used by reputable employers.”
GMB threatened to take action against employers that used the NSDR.
The NSDR is supported by major UK retailers such as Harrods, HMV, Mothercare and Selfridges, as well as human resources company, Reed Managed Services.
AABC said the database is necessary to reduce the £497m sterling it estimates is lost to UK businesses each year due to employee theft and fraud.
Opinions voiced on British online publications and blogs last week overwhelmingly condemned the NSDR. Some commentators have suggested the database could end up with those companies that use it being sued for defamation.
By Niall Byrne