Thursday 16th February saw the inaugural meeting of the IT Events Network Belfast at The Merchant Hotel. Brightwater, the leading recruitment specialists, hosted the event in association with BCS and SyncNI, which saw two of the province’s most innovative and successful technologists addressing an audience of over 100 local IT professionals, with demand for places on the evening exceeding capacity.

Celebrating Our Engineering Traditions

“This series of networking events has been a response to the overwhelming demand in the local technology community to provide an open networking forum amongst like-minded professionals”, commented Michelle Kearns, Commercial Director of Brightwater NI.

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SpeechStorm®, a leader in software for automating customer service over the phone, is pleased to announce that British Sky Broadcasting Group plc (BSkyB) has deployed its advanced customer care applications to deliver highly personalised self-service to its 10.5 million Sky customers. As the UK's leading satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company, Sky deals with over 52 million calls a year.

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Andor Technology plc (Andor), a world leader in scientific imaging, spectroscopy solutions and confocal systems, announced that they have come together with Molecular Devices to combine the latest in confocal imaging technology and software platforms, for the ultimate user experience.

Andor’s Revolution DSD is a simple confocal imaging unit that can be fitted to most microscopes.Metamorph, from Molecular Devices, is an internationally renowned imaging software solution used by researchers in thousands of laboratories.

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NIE, Northern Ireland’s Electricity Network Company has launched a brand new website and for the very first time a mobile site for 2012. The sites, designed, developed and hosted by Tibus were constructed with the end user very much at the forefront of the project. NIE wanted to ensure their new site was customer focused.

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The leading Belfast based IT and Communications company, Leaf, has been appointed as Apple Network Consultants for Northern Ireland. Leaf is now registered and certified as part of the UK Apple Consultants Network and will work in conjunction with the Apple store, Channel and other Resellers to assist its Northern Ireland business customers.

The Apple Consultants Network features a community of professional service providers and consultants that specialise in Apple and third-party solutions.

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We partnered with Weavers Court business park to design, build and manage the first ever 10G business park. This was a ground-breaking 50:50 venture agreed in July 2011, delivered in November and officially launched by the US Consol Kevin Roland this month, February 2012.

Weavers Court is a campus-style business park situated in the heart of Belfast.

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In response to the growing consumerisation of the enterprise and in particular the trend towards Bring your own Device (BYOD), Consilium have announced today the release of TotalMobile™ 5, the only Enterprise Mobility Solution to support all major platforms and deliver a truly consumer grade native experience on all major platforms and devices including iOS (iPhone and iPad), BlackBerry, Android and Windows.

Consilium’s Chief Technology Officer, Gareth Tolerton said “Consumerisation is at the heart of TotalMobile™ 5. It is designed so that users enjoy using the app and require minimal training.

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Tascomi has today launched an innovative new system with Craigavon Borough Council designed to deliver web-based stock requisition and ordering linked to the Council's finance system.

The Te-Store system, is bringing excellent time and substantial cost efficiency savings to the Council. The Mayor of Craigavon, Councilor Alan Carson comments: "In these days of reducing budgets and pressure on services, the Tascomi software allows Council to be more efficient and to save money that can be better spent on front-line services for citizens.

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Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster has expressed her disappointment at the large number of potential job losses at HCL-BPO Services (NI) Limited.

HCL-BPO Services has been based in Northern Ireland since 2002.

Arlene Foster said: "This is a dreadful blow to those affected and my thoughts are with them and their families.

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For the last three and a half years, Lorna Mooney has been studying for a degree and feels Read&Write GOLD, Texthelp’s text-to-speech software, has enhanced this experience. Lorna states “Read&Write GOLD has played an important part in my ability to study.

I have dyslexia, optical sensitivities and eye tracking difficulties.

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Northern Ireland’s technology elite gathered at the recent Deloitte Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions Dinner to hear from experts in the field about the prospects for the sector. Hosted at the Northern Ireland Science Park, over 80 attendees discussed a range of topics including the growth of increasing demand for consumer technology, social gaming and connectivity.

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Tina Wright, ICT Teacher at Slated Row School, Milton Keynes, feels that Read&Write GOLD, Texthelp’s literacy support software, has benefited pupils with dyslexia by enabling them to work independently.

Slated Row is a special school, catering for 160 pupils who mainly have moderate learning difficulties, although some have more complex special educational needs. Tina states “Our pupils have a range of special needs, some so severe that they cannot use Read&Write; however, students in Year Eight and older who have specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia benefit from using the software, especially those who have not mastered their reading skills.

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Lestas Consulting Ltd, a management consultancy in Coleraine, is being assisted by Invest Northern Ireland to explore business opportunities in international markets.

The company is now reaching out internationally for business by means of a fully interactive website developed with support from Invest NI.

Invest NI’s assistance to Lestas Consulting to develop its IT export-focused technology was announced by Des Gartland, Manager of Invest NI’s North West Regional Office.

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Yes, Facebook is a fantastic platform for promoting your business and for those smaller businesses just starting out it is a more attractive and economical solution enabling them to have an online presence. However is it enough to totally replace your company website?

In this article Can Facebook Replace Traditional Business Websites, Peter Kim from Dachis Group makes an excellent point that needs to be kept in mind- you do not own your Facebook page, in his words “your page is a real estate and you have to play by their rules”.

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Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, the regions’ premier business representative organisation, is delighted to announce Lisburn ICT company Xperience, as their newest patron.

Xperience’s patronage is expected to further bolster its brand exposure amongst the business community in Northern Ireland, whilst underlining Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce’s commitment to the advancement of business and enterprise in the region.

Having been in the Northern Ireland marketplace since 1969, Xperience is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and has also been awarded Platinum status by accounting software provider Pegasus, one of only four companies in the UK to achieve this.

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Export Technologies, an ecommerce software provider based at the Northern Ireland Science Park, is providing local businesses with a platform for global success after transacting over £500 million worth of online sales through its International Retail Platform (IRP) which has been recently upgraded to operate in multiple languages, currencies and pricing capabilities. This customer growth is underpinning the planned expansion of the company with a move to larger premises within the Science Park and the recruitment of 4 new software developers.

Ranking 12th in this year’s Deloitte Technology Fast 50, Export Technologies provides a world class ‘on demand’ ecommerce platform which is operated by Northern Ireland’s largest ecommerce site and top 100 UK online retailers Chain Reaction and local jewellers Argento who have expanded from a NI start-up to a successful nationwide company with over 40 stores across the UK and Ireland.

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Andor Technology has teamed up with the Irish Rugby Union Players Association (IRUPA) and the Grafton Employment Group to mentor Ulster and Ireland Rugby players, Andrew Trimble and Chris Henry, who are taking part in the ‘Ulster Rugby Mean Business’ mentoring programme.

The ‘Ulster Rugby Mean Business’ programme, which was launched at Ravenhill in January 2011 by IRUPA and Grafton, was devised to support IRUPA rugby players in their bid to secure a future career when their rugby playing days end. The programme helps them develop an alternative skill-set whilst actively playing to ensure they have a viable and secure future in later years.

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Technology is only part of the reason why the cloud is taking off. Ed Hoppitt, global principal architect in BT, described the circumstances that have made it happen as a “perfect storm”, with the recession playing a big part.

“If the global economic crisis had not happened around the same time that virtualisation took off, I don’t think we would see the landscape that we see today” he said, singling out VMware’s pioneering virtual machines as a major factor.

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BT Business today announced a new 1p broadband and phone deal to help small and medium businesses in Northern Ireland get more value from their communications spend. In the competitive communications marketplace, BT Business is committed to supporting local businesses growth and expansion with business broadband, phone and mobile packages for just 1p each month* for the first three months.

Business broadband from BT features speeds of up to 40Mbps with our fibre option (dependent on line and location) and unlimited Wi-Fi minutes giving access to over 142,000 Northern Ireland hotspots.

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CEM Systems, part of Tyco Security Products, today announced that the Oman India Fertiliser Company S.A.O.

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MetaCompliance, the user awareness and policy management software company in Londonderry has won a major global award from Hypatia Research, the Boston-based research company, for its innovative software.

Based at the North West Business Complex, MetaCompliance was one of just five companies, the only one in Northern Ireland, to gain Hypatia’s endorsement for its leading-edge technology.

MetaCompliance provides its clients with cost-effective ‘commercial off-the-shelf’ compliance software.

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Local IT & creative industry businesses are signing up for the Addiction NI 10K Run to compete against each other for the “Fastest Workplace Award”. The IT and technology sectors have signed up more than any other and there seems to be some serious competition going on!

Addiction NI, a local alcohol and drug treatment charity is daring even more local businesses to take up their 10K Corporate Challenge on March 11 2012 and join in on the friendly competition.

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Belfast IT Company, CMI has today announced plans to launch its own cloud offering to the market place. The new cloud offering will work alongside the companies traditional IT services to provide businesses with a choice of on premise, in cloud or Hybrid IT Infrastructure.

Speaking on the launch of the new offering, CMI Managing Director Ken Roulston says:

“We have been looking at the impact of Cloud Computing on the provision of IT infrastructure for our customers for quite some time.

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We’re delighted to announce we have launched not one but two of our own websites  – www.tibushost.com and www.

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Northern Ireland’s first ever financial trading room is set to open at Queen’s University Belfast. The First Derivatives Trading Room, supported by Invest NI, will provide a dynamic learning environment for students hoping to embark in a career in financial services or technology.

Based at Queen’s University Management School, Riddel Hall, Stranmillis, the facility, which will replicate New York and London trading rooms, will give students a real-life experience of a busy stock exchange with the capacity to deal in equities, bonds, foreign exchange and derivative instruments.

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