ElectricNews.net
Date: May 22 2006

The Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) has welcomed the announcement by Minister Micheal Martin that
Enterprise Ireland is to invest EUR175 million in start-up firms. In addition, the IVCA announced that it had started talks with the Irish Association of Pensions Funds (IAPF) and the National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF) about ways in which they can boost venture capital in Ireland. “Research by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies in UCD has found that venture capital investment has a key role to play in the development of a knowledge economy,” said Desmond
Fahey, chairman, IVCA. “To achieve this we have got to increase the number of knowledge-based start-ups with the
potential to become international companies from the current 70 or 80 a year to more like 250 to 500 a year. The Minister’s funding announcement will be a significant boost to this goal.”

Kilkenny native Majella Murphy has reportedly become the first music artist to launch an album exclusively on a mobile
phone. Singer-songwriter Murphy has preloaded her new album “Brave New World” onto the Sony Ericsson Z530i, which is available from O2 Ireland. The album, which includes three live acoustic tracks will not go on general digital release until July 2006.

Cicero Networks, a provider of wireless VoIP solutions for fixed mobile convergence, has announced that is has been
awarded the Best VoIP product at the 2006 Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards. The WBI Awards recognise leadership, innovation and excellence in wireless broadband industry and are known as “the Oscars of the wireless industry”. The firm, which has its headquarters in Dublin offers CiceroPhone, a dualmode softphone which supports all calls — fixed, cellular, PBX and VoIP — on a single handset be it a smartphone or a PDA.

Plantronics has announced the launch of Plantronics Voyager 510-USB, which the firm claims is the world’s first Bluetooth headset that provides seamless switching between PC-based softphones and mobile phone calls. The headset features a plug-and-play USB Bluetooth voice adapter, which allows it to be used on a PC without installing any Bluetooth software. Additionally, the Voyager headset has multipoint technology allowing the headset to be shared between a mobile phone and PC so a call can be taken from either. The new headset has a suggested retail price of EUR129 (ex VAT) and is available through Plantronics’ authorised resellers such as www.phones.ie, Calyx and CMS Peripherals.

BEA Systems, which provides enterprise infrastructure software, has announced the appointment of Michael Ellis as its
new sales manager for Ireland. Ellis joins BEA from supply chain management firm Zomax. In this new role Ellis will be
responsible for outlining the benefits of service orientend architecture (SOA) to BEA’s Irish customer base.

Novell has linked up with store automation solution vendor NCR to offer Novell Linux point of sale service on NCR RealPOS retail point of sale terminals. The firms say the deal will provide retailers with a secure, reliable software platform and hardware combination.

Carphone Warehouse Ireland has chosen Eposs Group, a provider of e-payment solutions for the mobile airtime top-up market, to provide a fully-integrated airtime top-up service in all of its 46 stores in the Republic. Under the terms of the agreement, Eposs will deliver e-vouchers to Carphone Warehouse customers through the retailers PIE till system.
Previously, Carphone Warehouse sold airtime vouchers through standalone terminals.

Mobile manufacturer Motorola has announced the launch of a bright red version of its popular Pebl handset. The red mobile phone is currently available on O2 Ireland’s online store for between EUR129 and EUR249 on a contract basis.

Social networking site MySpace has announced the launch of MyFestival Dublin, part of a series of concerts that will see 50 bands perform in five cities over five nights across Britain and Ireland during the summer. On 7 June Dublin will host three gigs that will run concurrently on the same night and showcase acts including Director, The Marshals, Republic of Loose and Humanzi.