The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke, has called for greater innovation within the IT sector and an increase in competition which would lead to "cheaper prices and better services" for the public. Speaking at the Comms 99 exhibition at the RDS, Mrs O'Rourke said that visitors to the show would be astounded by the pace of growth in the technology sector in Ireland, illustrated by the number of stands, and called for even "more innovation, more creativity and more good ideas" within the industry. An estimated 10,000 visitors went to this year's exhibition.
The next computing event at the RDS is also expected to attract huge crowds: organisers of the Computing Solutions Show, Windows World 1999, say that 9,500 businesses have already registered to attend. Over 100 companies are involved and as many as 40 new products are due to be launched.
Info - www.infolive.ie/winworld
IRELAND IN LINE: Ireland is perfectly placed to benefit from the widely predicted take-off in the use of information technology and e-commerce, says a report published at Comms 99 last week. The report, by Dr Neil Barrett of Bull Cara Group, also suggests that smaller, faster, cheaper computers will be most desirable and that more intelligent interfaces will enable even the most technophobic to take advantage of the IT revolution.
LAND OF THE PRIVATE: The US is realising that is data protection policies are beginning to trail those of the rest of the world, the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference was told. Concern about the future of US Net supremacy has been sparked by news that the majority of European Union member-states have passed the EU's privacy directive, which threatens to cut off data transfers to countries that don't adequately protect consumer information, including the US.
COPYRIGHT-ON: The Business Software Alliance has welcomed the new Copyright Reform Bill. Its chairman in Ireland, Austin McCabe, said that "this new bill will give us the powers of enforcement needed to protect our software industry."
ESAT GOES GLOBAL: Esat has become the official partner in Ireland of the international communications giant Global One. This gives Esat access to Global One's ATM-based network and adds several large corporate accounts to its books.
ORACLE'S PEAKS: Oracle is outrunning Microsoft in the Windows NT database market with the announcement of 55 per cent growth in its Windows NT market in 1998. This compares with 12 per cent growth for Microsoft in the same period, according to a new Dataquest report. Oracle now commands 46 per cent of the market, with Microsoft on 30 per cent.
CARBON COPY COCKUP: There were red faces at AT&T after it sent almost 2,000 customer email addresses into the public domain. In a mail-out about new call rates AT&T left the addresses of all recipients in the message instead of sending blind carbon copies. However, this pales in comparison with Nissan's mass-mailing last week, in which the car company revealed the addresses of 24,000 potential customers.
OAK OK: Bandwidth Telecommunications has introduced a phone management system for medium to large companies. The Windows-based Oak Advance system is intended to show where calls are being lost and to control costs.
IN BRIEF... Profits at Apple have climbed to $135 million for the latest quarter, an increase of almost 30 per cent on the same period last year. . . Iona has reported a net loss of £400,000 for the first quarter of 1999, with revenue of $21 million. . . Hewlett-Packard has introduced the HP 9000 N-Class Enterprise Server, a new mid-range server aimed at electronic commerce. . . Compaq has unveiled a new storage area network (SAN) package. . . Compaq has also launched European Y2K and Euro information centres for customers, accessible by telephone, fax, email and post. . . Telecom Eireann has bought network and systems integration company LAN Communications. . .