A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
Google, Sun align against Microsoft
Google will promote Sun Microsystems's word processing and office software products in an alliance announced on Tuesday that could mark a first step towards challenging Microsoft's dominance of the computer users' desktops.
Computer maker Sun and web search company Google gave few details, saying they would jointly promote OpenOffice, Sun's free office productivity software that competes with Microsoft's Office suite of software, and Sun's Java software platform, which runs thousands of PC programs.
Sun will include the Google toolbar for web searches as an option when consumers download Java for the desktop (http://java.com).
Spam and viruses keep circulating
Levels of spam and viruses circulating among Irish e-mail users increased last month, as many older viruses and worms failed to be eradicated from the network.
The rate of virus infection remained high last month at 15.72 per cent, according to e-mail hosting company IE Internet.
"The dominance of many older viruses, in particular the Netsky worm which has been around for 18 months, is an indication that many computers are remaining infected with no defence barriers in place to protect against future threats," said Ken O'Driscoll, IE Internet's technical manager.
The levels of spam affecting Irish email users rose to 43.8 per cent in September, from 38.6 per cent in August.
The US remains the largest producer of global spam accounting for 43.8 per cent of spam e-mails delivered last month.
TechNiche inks CA partnership
Irish technology group TechNiche was this week named as a premier partner to Computer Associates, one of the world's largest management software companies.
The partnership status, the first to be awarded to an Irish company, will allow TechNiche to deliver Computer Associates' software to end-users in the areas of storage management, security and information management technologies.
TechNiche currently provides network design, consultancy, and security and back-up services to companies across Ireland, including Radisson SAS, Cosgrave and several Government departments.
Ibec supporting science students
ICT Technology, a unit of employers group Ibec, yesterday launched a programme aimed at encouraging children to study science and technology subjects at school and engineering at university.
The programme, which is called ICT Champions, was developed in response to growing concerns within the technology industry of a potential shortage of suitably qualified candidates to work in the high-tech or information technology sectors in the future.
The programme was launched yesterday at Hewlett-Packard, one of the 50 companies across the country participating.
Microsoft ruling monitor selected
The European Commission has appointed a computer scientist to help ensure that Microsoft complies with a 2004 ruling on how its software is sold.
Neil Barrett was one of several candidates proposed by the US giant as a monitoring trustee and he was selected by competition authorities in Brussels to advise them.
Last year, Brussels ordered Microsoft to change the way it sells software in Europe and to pay a fine of nearly €500 million. The decision also foresaw the naming of a trustee to monitor compliance. Microsoft is seeking to overturn the decision in court.- (Reuters)
