Tech Shorts

A round-up of today's other technology stories in brief

€600k seed fund for Limerick firm

The Bank of Ireland Seed and Early Stage Equity Fund has led to a €600,000 investment in Limerick energy cost control specialist Resourcekraft.

The fund, which is managed Kernel Capital, committed €500,000 and the remainder of the funds were raised through Enterprise Ireland.

Resourcekraft, founded by University of Limerick post graduate Liam Relihan and Frank Casey in 2007, provides energy management software that enables customers to maximise efficient usage of electricity and other energy resources.

The software is already in use at more than 40 customers sites.

Applicants sought for Propel start-up initiative

Enterprise Ireland is seeking applicants for its Propel initiative which will support 12 start-up firms in the technology or life sciences sector who have the potential to generate revenues of at least €1 million and to create 10 jobs within three years. The selected companies will received training from PA Consulting, support of up to €150,000 from Enterprise Ireland, office space, as well as advise and networking support to get their business off the ground. Applications will close on April 23rd.

Internet association produces paper on cloud computing for Irish firms

The Irish Internet Association has produced a white paper on cloud computing called Cloud Business which is written specifically for the needs of Irish businesses and identifies the opportunities around the new model of computing.

The paper was produced following research by the association last year which showed that 54 per cent of respondents did not have a clear understanding of cloud computing. The paper includes an industry-standard definition of cloud computing which has been accepted and endorsed Enterprise Ireland, the IDA, the Irish Software Association, ICT Ireland and the Irish Internet Association.

The paper was produced by an internal association working group which included representatives of companies both selling and using cloud computing services.

It had 19 members from software vendors such as Google, IBM, Salesforce and Microsoft and enterprise customers. including McCormick MacNaughton, Elan, Jones Engineering and Kepak.

Second Interxion data centre

Interxion, the European data centre operated, formally opened its second Dublin data centre, DUB2, in the city’s Park West business park yesterday.

The new data centre will provide an additional 2,455m2 of gross space, increasing Interxion’s overall capacity to 4,755m2.

The new centre has a redundant 4 MVA connection to the electricity grid and supports the latest high-density power configuration requirements, as well as advanced alarm and monitoring systems.

Tanya Duncan, managing director if Interxion Ireland, said the new centre was already 50 per cent full following a rapid uptake by customers.