Responding to strong growth in the local IT market, Microsoft Ireland and KPMG Consulting have announced a local alliance to advance KPMG's business computing services in the Irish market.
The move, which follows a similar global alliance announced six months ago, means KPMG becomes the latest Microsoft partner in Ireland, following similar alliances with Cara Computing, BIC Systems in Belfast and Digital. It means KPMG will utilise trained Microsoft developers and consultants to assist business customers, concentrating in the areas of electronic commerce and data warehousing.
Ms Mary-Ruth McDaid, corporate business manager at Microsoft Ireland, said further Irish alliances were planned with Siemens-Nixdorf, Memorex Telex, PFH in Cork and CK Business in Galway.
Mr Bob McDowell, Microsoft's vice-president of enterprise business computing, said that the alliances here reflected the growth of the Irish market, which he put at 50 to 60 per cent annually. He said this was increasing demand for sales, consulting and marketing people.
He also stressed the importance of such partnerships to the world's largest operating systems provider, saying that, through them, Microsoft intends to offer every application available worldwide on its Windows NT server platform.
Microsoft Ireland said yesterday that the rate of software piracy in Ireland has dropped significantly.
Ms Mary-Ruth McDaid said that the rate of software piracy in the Irish corporate market has fallen from above 70 per cent some 18 months ago to around 55 per cent now. She said the figure was hard to estimate, and was based on comparisons of the number of PCs and licences in the Irish market.
