NEWS IN BRIEF
For the record 25 February
25-02-2008
by Emmet Ryan
Sony games software chief steps down | Novell acquires PlateSpin
The Minister for Innovation Policy, Michael Ahern, will open a conference on promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and industry-academia collaboration, which is being held in Kerry on Wednesday. Going under the moniker of How to Speak the Same Language, the conference is taking place in Killarney and is hosted by the South West Regional Authority.
Irish IT security firm Top Security has appointed Derek O'Beirne as operations manager in its IT security division Topsec Technology. In his new role O'Beirne will be overseeing the nationwide delivery of Blockmail, the company's managed e-mail filtering service. He will also be responsible for the continued development of Topsec's suite of managed services. He has 20 years' experience in the field of electronic information products and joins Topsec Technology from Business World where he was operations manager since 2001.
Odyssey Financial Technologies, a provider of private wealth and asset management software, has secured a multimillion euro deal with Irish financial services group Davy. The deal will see Davy adopt Odyssey's WealthManager as its wealth management platform, becoming the first company in Europe to do so.
Phil Harrison, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, the game software development arm of Sony's videogame division, is to step down on 29 February after 15 years with the firm. Kazuo Hirai, chief executive of Sony's game operations, Sony Computer Entertainment, will assume the responsibilities in addition to his current role.
Networking software firm Novell is to acquire PlateSpin, a virtualisation provider specialising in data centres. Novell hopes the purchase of PlateSpin will strengthen its position in the next-generation data centre market by enabling it to provide business critical services across both physical and virtual infrastructures. A value of the deal was not disclosed.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 