Today's other stories in brief
Vodafone to enter 3G trial with Dell
Vodafone Ireland has joined Dell to complete Ireland's first commercial trial of 3G broadband technology, also known as high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA).
The technology will initially be rolled out to groups of Dell employees, based at Dell's EMEA Business campus at Cherrywood, Dublin, over the summer.
The commencement of the country's first commercial HSDPA trials marks the first step in a wider rollout of 3G broadband technology, which will make it possible for Vodafone customers to access e-mail, the internet and other online services at speeds of up to four times faster than they can with today's 3G technology.
Ebay, Yahoo form advert partnership
Ebay, the online auction site, and internet company Yahoo yesterday unveiled a web advertising partnership as part of efforts to compete with Google in online search and advertising.
Yahoo and eBay said that they intended to roll out the initiatives, including a co-branded toolbar and online payments, this year, with plans for its full implementation in 2007.
The announcement of the partnership follows widespread speculation of a tie-up between Yahoo and eBay as the internet giants position themselves for the next stage of internet advertising growth. - (Financial Times service)
Data firm teams up with IBM
Irish IT and data management company Qualcom Systems has teamed up with IBM to target the fast-growing data storage market in Ireland.
Qualcom said its decision to link up with IBM was prompted by research showing that Irish businesses were facing huge data storage issues. Consultants IDC estimate that the storage market in Ireland was worth €135 million in 2004 and that the global demand for such facilities grew by 18 per cent last year.
"One of the keys to turning the information challenge into competitive advantage is to employ an end-to-end storage management strategy and IBM is one of the few vendors with the breadth of software and hardware to meet this need," said Qualcom managing director Ken Breen.
Payments group names sales chief
Valista, the payments and merchandising software group headed by Raomul Perera, has appointed Arlene Adams as vice-president of international sales and business development.
The former Sun Microsystems executive will be based in the UK, building the organisation necessary to serve the group's global markets.
Lenovo offers 3G on notebooks
Lenovo has announced that Vodafone's high-speed 3G broadband connectivity will now be available on selected ThinkPad T60 and X60 notebooks.
Customers will have the benefits of high-speed mobile data networking without the need to use external datacards.
ThinkPad customers will be able to upgrade notebooks to take advantage of the introduction of 3G broadband (HSDPA), which should boost download speeds fourfold.
