Entrepreneurs setting up new Internet-based companies in the Shannon region can apply for a new package of supports, AcceleratePLUS.com, from Shannon Development.
Most fledgling dotcoms have demanding infrastructural requirements, in addition to the type of financial and managerial support that Shannon Development has been providing for decades.
These requirements include access to high bandwidth on the telecommunications side to enable them to send and receive large amounts of data and images over the Internet.
They also need Internet technologies that can grow with the company, linkages to venture capital and access to market intelligence.
Shannon Development is taking a multi-pronged approach, running AcceleratePLUS.com with five partners - three multinationals and two Irish companies.
Sun Microsystems, Oracle and Cisco are world leaders in Internet traffic, databases and equipment and the new companies will have access to a Sun/Oracle/Cisco test environment.
The two Irish companies, the Wolfe Group and e-BCS, are suppliers of Internet business support services.
Initial help is free. Applications can only be made through the partners' website, www.accelerateplus.com.
Companies in the Innovation Centre in the National Technological Park in Limerick will have access to two megabits per second capacity in the next couple of weeks, according to Ken Stockil of Shannon Development.
Later on, the physical facilities will be available at centres around the region, called Technology Nodes. These are bricks-and-mortar centres where the services of the Innovation Centre will be replicated for start-up companies in order to spread entrepreneurship more evenly around the region. The centres will be in Birr, Ennis, Thurles and Tralee.
First off are Tralee, at the Kerry Technology Park, where the first building is on stream, and Thurles, where the node is operating from temporary premises while building takes place.
Planning permission has been granted for Birr and the Ennis node is in the process of applying.