An overview of the week in deals in the local and global technology sector.
Digital Reach Group acquired – 20 new jobs to be created
App creation firm Digital Reach Group, headed by internet industry veteran Colm Grealy, has been acquired by Florida company Take 5 Solutions. 20 new jobs will be created to support the company’s business drive into the US.
Take 5, which is backed by New York-based private equity firm Kinderhook Industries, will work with DRG to offer clients in the US a range of mobile services including apps, mobile websites, location-based services, mobile couponing, QR codes and a host of mobile strategies.
In order to support expansion into the US market, the deal is expected to create 20 new high tech jobs in Ireland, adding to the 16 existing employees in DRG’s Dublin offices.
Backed from an early stage by private investment company Pageant Holdings, which has interests in a number of Irish and European businesses, Digital Reach Group (DRG) has had strong success in the Irish market to date winning significant deals with RTE, BBC, Communicorp and a range of other high profile companies.
Cisco acquires collaboration software firm Versly
Networking technology giant Cisco has acquired San Francisco-based collaboration software company Versly for an undisclosed sum. Versly enables more effective collaboration through Microsoft Office applications.
“Collaboration is a top priority at Cisco,” said Murali Sitaram, vice president and general manager, Collaboration Software Group (CSG), Cisco.
“With this acquisition we’re enhancing our collaboration offerings and improving the user experience by integrating social technologies within the business applications individuals and teams use at work.
“Furthermore, the integration with Versly will drive productivity improvements for organizations and their knowledge workers, many of whom are among the 600 million Microsoft Office users.”
AdaptiveMobile expand parental control to mobile devices
Dublin-headquartered AdaptiveMobile has forged a partnership with SMS firewall firm Tekelec to extend the reach of Adaptive’s SMS filter and parental control technology.
The partnership provides mobile operators the ability to augment Tekelec’s SMS Firewall with AdaptiveMobile’s security products to improve subscriber protection from SMS spam, fraud and inappropriate content.
AdaptiveMobile’s threat detection software automates the SMS Firewall’s filters so operators can more rapidly combat new malicious SMS spam.
Facebook pays out US$40k bounties for spotting security bugs
Social networking giant Facebook has so far paid out US$40,000 in rewards to outside experts who successfully pinpointed holes and bugs on its site. One researcher has received a single payout of US$7,000.
Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, said that despite hiring the best and brightest and investing heavily in various protocols, bugs slip through. Facebook has entire teams dedicated to searching and disabling the bugs and it also hires outside auditors to test its code.
“Our all night ‘bug-a-thons’ are also successful in locating and fixing issues. We realise, though, that there are many talented and well-intentioned security experts around the world who don’t work for Facebook. Over the years, we have received excellent support from independent researchers who have let us know about bugs they have found,” Sullivan said in the company’s blog.
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