Tech business week: Eircom becomes Eir and Grainstore opens

21 Sep 2015

In tech business news this week, Eircom undergoes a massive rebrand to become Eir, and The Digital Hub expands with the opening of The Grainstore.

Eircom rebrands as Eir

In a huge rebranding, Eircom last week relaunched as Eir.

Speaking about the change, Eir CEO Richard Moat said: “We have changed and our customer focus is changing… The new Eir identity is dynamic and modern. It reflects our real ambition to become just that, a dynamic and progressive Irish organisation providing the high-quality infrastructure and services the country needs and deserves.”

The launch coincided with Eir’s rollout of Ireland’s fastest broadband, with speeds of up to 1,000Mb per second – enough to load a high-definition video in seven seconds, according to Moat.

The Grainstore opens as The Digital Hub continues to grow

The Digital Hub’s newly renovated Grainstore officially opened last week following a €4m refurbishment of the historic Dublin 8 building.

Now consisting of seven new offices (on the back of five new businesses joining the fold recently) The Grainstore was previously, well, a grainstore for Roe’s Distillery back in the day, and brings The Digital Hub’s total number of buildings to nine.

The Grainstore building is already partly occupied by existing Digital Hub company TIBCO (formerly Jaspersoft).

Irish tech firms raise €307m in funding in first half of 2015

Irish tech companies had a rather successful first six months of 2015, with a new survey revealing €307m was raised by start-ups and SMEs in that period.

The VenturePulse survey of Irish tech companies was undertaken by the Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) and also marks a significant jump of 45pc on the same period in 2014 when €211.9m was raised, and in 2013 when €164.9m was raised.

Among the findings, the survey of Irish tech companies found that a total of €187.1m was raised during the second quarter of 2015 alone.

Sligo to be first Connacht town to get SIRO broadband

As part of its fibre-optic broadband rollout, SIRO has confirmed that Sligo will be the first town in Connacht to get the service when it eventually launches.

The rollout of SIRO’s networks has already begun in the county, and once completed it will give those signed up to the ESB and Vodafone Ireland partnership access to a 1Gbps connection speed.

Putting this into perspective, SIRO says that its service will allow a 4Gb file to be downloaded in around 30 seconds.

In terms of when the high-speed internet service is expected to be operational in the town, SIRO has said that broadband retailers will begin offering it towards the end of this year.

Irish Fintech and Payments Association of Ireland launched

The Fintech and Payments Association of Ireland (FPAI), was launched last week by the Minister of State for International Financial Services Simon Harris. It will act as a trade association for all stakeholders who are involved in financial technology and payments in Ireland.

Open to all fintech and payments companies from start-up level to fully-fledged multinationals, the first board will contain some of Ireland’s largest players in the sector, including its chairman Colm Lyon, formerly of Realex Payments and now Pay with Fire; Anna Scally of KPMG; Morgan Lynch of Senddr and Colm Rafferty of Maples and Calder.

In its announcement, the FPAI said it will also be looking to encourage software and app developers as well as established institutions involved in the financial sector such as banks, legal firms and governmental departments.

HP set to cut 30,000 jobs

HP will cut its workforce by as many as 30,000 people as it undergoes its split into two separate companies.

The job cuts will come in a restructuring bid aimed at saving the company US$2.7bn in annual operating costs, said Tim Stonsifer, incoming CFO of HP Enterprise.

While these cuts represent almost 10pc of HP Enterprise’s workforce, many of the losses will be offset by new hires, with many of the jobs moving to low-cost countries.

Want stories like this and more direct to your inbox? Sign up for Tech Trends, Silicon Republic’s weekly digest of need-to-know tech news.

Main image via Shutterstock

Brigid O Gorman is a former sub-editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com