A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
70 start-up companies at IBM meeting
IBM has kicked off its European Innovation and Venture Capital Centre at an event in Dublin attended by more than 70 start-up companies.
Although IBM does not invest directly in new technology firms, it is eager to foster relationships with start-ups working in areas that complement its own products and services.
According to Martin Kelly who heads up the centre at IBM's Technology Campus in Dublin, IBM instead provides technology and marketing resources to support emerging companies.
His team also meet venture capitalists around Europe to see if their portfolio companies are working in areas of interest to IBM.
Yesterday's event was held in association with Enterprise Ireland. The State development agency has established a innovative customer solutions unit to help its client companies build relationships with large multinational organisations like IBM.
Senior IBM executives briefed the assembled companies on IBM's work and the opportunities it perceives in the areas of telecommunications, healthcare and digital media.
Deborah Magid, director of software strategy with IBM's Venture Capital Group, also discussed how Irish firms could become IBM partners and benefit from its global sales reach. The possibility of licensing intellectual property that IBM has developed was also discussed.
Juniors likely liable for IT breaches
Junior sales staff are most likely to be responsible for technological security breaches at work, according to a survey.
The poll of 942 of IT managers found that salesmen aged between 26 and 35 are most at risk from computer viruses and other online attacks.
Internet security firm MessageLabs, which commissioned the survey, said sales staff were too busy to worry about protecting themselves and their company from fraud.
"Four out of 10 companies surveyed said they gave staff no training on internet security," it said. "Half said they had been affected by a virus or malicious software."
The British home office says three-quarters of British businesses have suffered a virus attack. - (Reuters)
DoubleClick considers sale
Online advertising firm DoubleClick is exploring a sale and is in talks with Microsoft and other potential suitors, according to people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal has reported on its website.
The New York-based company is using investment bank Morgan Stanley to help sound out its options, including a possible stock market listing, the Journal reported.
The company is majority- owned by San Francisco private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, which is seeking at least $2 billion for DoubleClick, one person briefed on the situation said in the Journal. - (Reuters)
Order to explain Net phone limits
Britain's telecoms regulator has ordered internet telephone service providers to explain to customers up front the limitations of their services, as it unveiled a new set of rules to regulate the fast-growing sector.
Ofcom said suppliers of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services would at the point of sale have to detail limitations such as the phone going dead during power cuts and the inability to call emergency services numbers.
The regulator plans to launch a consultation this year on how internet telephony providers could offer access to emergency services, after a similar previous exercise concluded that a lack of access to such services was bad for customers. - (Reuters)
