Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 26 April 2012
43 Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the steps taken to ensure that microbusinesses and small and medium enterprises can fully develop innovative practises using cloud computing. [20892/12]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Government's Action Plan for Jobs outlines a number of actions to ensure that Ireland can reap substantial benefits in terms of jobs and growth from the global expansion of cloud computing. It recognises the opportunity for Ireland to promote the growth of cloud computing by supporting the emergence of start-up companies providing technology solutions and services in cloud computing and by simulating its take up and use by small businesses.
Earlier this month I announced details of the €1.2 million industry led Cloud Computing Research Centre which is being funded by Government on foot of a commitment in the Action Plan. This centre brings together a team of researchers from DCU, UCC and Athlone Institute of Technology with a cohort of IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland companies to establish ways to generate business from cloud computing. One of the priority objectives for the team is to conduct research on maintaining and managing cloud based applications for businesses of all sizes.
A number of other actions, which will assist micro enterprise and SMEs provide cloud computing services and avail of the opportunities offered by cloud computing, are being progressed this year in accordance with the Action Plan. These include:
To support industry groups, such as the Irish Software Association, to develop and deliver a practical tool kit to assist SMEs in assessing the adoption of Cloud Computing for their business;
To examine the potential for demonstration projects in cloud computing to promote Ireland as a centre of excellence for this technology, provide a reference site for Irish companies, while potentially lowering costs and improving services;
To develop a Cloud Computing Procurement Standard with Industry experts through an NSAI Standards group; and,
To support research groups in areas of relevance to exploitation of cloud computing, such as semantic web and financial stock analysis, through, for example, support for the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI). In other areas, such as middleware, information security, distributed computing, researchers are furthering research in this area with direct application in the cloud computing context.
Progress reports on all of these actions will be provided on a quarterly basis throughout the year.
