In short

Today's other technology stories in brief

Hertz to use Damovo's call answer system

Communications specialists Damovo have supplied a speech recognition system to car rental firm Hertz which will enable 100,000 telephone queries from customers to be handled automatically in its first year of operation.

Based at Hertz's European Service Centre in Swords, Co Dublin, the multilingual "virtual agents" that the system can support will enable reservations agents to spend more time on sales calls and generate additional revenues, the company said.

Windows Small Business launched

Microsoft has launched the latest versions of its server products designed for small businesses - Windows Small Business Server 2008 (SBS 2008) and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS 2008). The new products support features such as mobile e-mail and remote collaboration but are designed to be usable by firms who do not have a lot of IT resources.

Free @ireland.com e-mail addresses

Ireland.com, the lifestyle portal being developed on the former home of The Irish Times, is now making @ireland.com e-mail addresses available for free.

The web-based e-mail service provides 5GB of storage, a built-in Irish Times breaking news feed, the ability to add RSS feeds from other sites, a search function, calendar capability and a dedicated mobile address.

Swoop on illegal medicine suppliers

Authorities in nine countries have raided businesses suspected of supplying medicines illegally over the internet.

The operation, code-named Pangea, involved locations in Ireland, Britain, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Canada and the US.

Illicit sales of medicines via the web are a growing problem, since many of the products are counterfeits of dubious quality and potentially dangerous. - (Reuters)