Work needed to promote Dublin as e-business hub

Although the infrastructure and the incentives are there, Dublin has a weak reputation as an ebusiness hub compared to London, according to research conducted by US technology firm Inflow.

Inflow, which recently opened a $12 million (€14.1 million) co-location facility in Dublin, conducted a survey of its US customers as well as some industry peers to ascertain what their priorities would be in deciding to establish a European presence.

The company interviewed 28 senior executives responsible for data centre operations in companies with large e-commerce elements. The majority of those surveyed said they were planning to establish or had already established facilities in a European location.

When asked where in Europe firms preferred to locate, London came first with 12 mentions, compared to Dublin and the German cities of Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt, which all merited four mentions each.

Others either gave no particular preference or just mentioned various EU countries, such as Germany, France, and Italy, instead of particular cities.

Mr Joe O'Keeffe, managing director of Inflow in Ireland, said although London was "way ahead" in terms of its perceived attractions as a data centre location, the reality is that Dublin meets all the main requirements and priorities that companies would have in deciding on a European base.

These priorities were: quality of bandwidth/infrastructure, strong support staff and processes, and state-of-the-art facilities.

"Another way of putting this would be to say that only two out of the 22 companies that responded to this question said "no" to Dublin," said Mr O'Keeffe. However, he acknowledged that some respondants expressed concerns about the quality of bandwidth and, particularly, peering capability in Dublin.

Indeed, one survey respondant said: "The downside of Dublin is that not very many overseas providers and pops [point of presence] terminate there. You have to hop over to London, then Europe. Dublin is okay but not the best."

Mr O'Keeffe said that, while we do not have a good peering infrastructure, the hop to London was only a short one. "It is not a weakness in performance terms but a weakness in perception."

He acknowledged the Government's role in helping to facilitate the infrastructure and provide tax incentives to outside companies but said that more work was needed to publicise Dublin as a data centre location.

Since opening its co-location centre in Dublin in March, Inflow have won three US customers and "a lot of interest". Mr O'Keeffe said that it was initially envisaged that 70 per cent of its business would come from US customers with the remaining 30 per cent from local customers. However, the reverse has proved to be the case.