An overview of the week in deals in the Irish technology sector, including Facebook and Microsoft’s partnership to make search engine Bing more social.
Microsoft and Facebook team up for social search
Facebook and Microsoft have formed a partnership to make search engine Bing more social in order to get an edge over Google.
Bing will give users the ability to see data posted on the search engine from Facebook – such as users’ “likes” and preferences – in order to provide more relevant results.
Users can see relevant “liked” and shared items from friends for movies, places and products alongside search engine results.
The data from Facebook will determine how prominently these will appear.
Irish ad agency makes promotion deal with MTV
A prominent Irish digital sales agency has announced a partnership that will enable Irish advertisers to promote products on MTV online.
Ad2One Ireland and MTV Networks UK & Ireland has announced the partnership which will now enable Irish advertisers to advertise to Irish visitors across the entire MTV online platform.
The move will no doubt encourage Irish brands to advertise on the popular digital platform, with MTV UK & Ireland having reported a 63pc increase of Irish traffic year on year.
With Ad2One now looking after the network’s digital sales, it also will allow them exposure across all of the MTV owned websites – including MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, South Park and Game Trailers.
ISYS and Sybase announce collaboration
ISYS Search Software, specialists in embedded search and federated access solutions, has announced that Sybase has selected its ISYS Document Filters solution for text analytics in Sybase IQ.
At the recent The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) conference in San Diego, US, Sybase announced its intention to enter into an agreement with ISYS under which Sybase will resell ISYS Document Filters (an embeddable set of connectors for extracting text from a comprehensive library of file, container and email formats) as a key component for text analytics in Sybase IQ (a database management software server).
Combined with the new text analytics features in version 15.2 of Sybase IQ, ISYS Document Filters address the unique unstructured text extraction and information access needs of analytic applications, including e-discovery, fraud detection and forensic analysis.
Toyota and Tesla announce powertrain agreement
Tesla has entered into a $60m (around €43m) agreement to develop a powertrain system for the electrified Toyota RAV4.
The companies entered into an agreement to start developing the electric powertrain system, including a battery, power electronics module, motor, gearbox and associated software, which will be integrated into an electric vehicle version for the RAV4 in July.
The RAV4 will employ Tesla’s liquid cooled lithium ion battery configuration and it is planned to go on sale in 2012.
US firm acquires Irish chip company
Irish start-up company ChipSensors Ltd has been acquired by Silicon Laboratories Ltd.
The Limerick-based early stage technology company, that creates single-chip sensors designed to detect temperature, humidity and gasses, has been acquired by the Texas-based Silicon Laboratories for an undisclosed fee.
“Joining forces with Silicon Labs provides us with an exceptional opportunity to both collaborate with a team that has a reputation for the highest calibre mixed-signal engineering and potentially grow the design team in Ireland to take advantage of the strong local technical talent,” said Tim Cummins, CEO and founder of ChipSensors.
“In addition to a strong alignment with Silicon Labs’ existing sensor-related R&D efforts, ChipSensors’ technology also offers synergy with our existing MCU and wireless products, targeting similar end-market applications and therefore enabling more content per system and unique integration opportunities,” said Mark Downing, vice-president of corporate strategy and business development for Silicon Laboratories, US.
UPC signs €7m deal with Phonovation
Voice solutions company Phonovation has signed a three-year deal worth €7m with UPC businesses that will see Phonovation expand into Europe with voice and SMS services.
The agreement, which is said to be UPC Business’ largest this year, will see the company carry Phonovation’s voice traffic on a national and international basis, as well as host its switches.
