This is the business year in review from July to December.

High-tech companies in the West and the Mid-West are in "recruitment mode" and urgently seeking key talent from outside the regions, the IDA has said.

It is the company's second major lay-off in two years.

Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you start your day.

Businesses are struggling to combat the rise of cyber criminality which continues to grow increasingly sophisticated, according to a major new report.

Dublin ‘Internet of Things’ company Asavie has partnered with tech giant EMC and network operator Vodafone to provide connectivity for the duo’s state-of-the-art testbed facility in Cork.

The global investment landscape has been transformed since 2009.

Computer maker Dell has clinched a record $67bn (€59bn) technology deal to buy data storage company EMC.

One of the world’s leading cyber security experts has called on the Government to invest heavily in combatting cyber attacks as new research reveals that more than eight in 10 Irish businesses have been targeted in the past 12 months.

The lack of a coherent cyber security governance policy across the globe may be putting companies at greater risk of attack and jeopardising economic growth.

The world’s leading data insights platform is ramping up its operations across Europe from its EU headquarters in the heart of Dublin following stronger than expected growth over the past 18 months.

The weakest link in computer network security is not hackers but the people who legitimately use the internet, a study shows.

The Government has filed a formal briefing to a United States Court of Appeal outlining its position with regard to the ongoing legal dispute between the US and Microsoft over access to an email account held in the company’s Dublin data centre.

Is This the End of China’s Economic Miracle?

The RDS is open to relinquishing control over the provision of wifi at next year’s Web Summit but cannot guarantee that the event will remain in Ireland, according to the venue’s chief executive, Michael Duffy.

If anyone was in the slightest doubt how much technology touches all our lives, they only have to look to the success of the annual Web Summit in Dublin.

EMC, the maker of storage computers facing pressure from an activist shareholder to break up, said it will acquire most of Cisco Systems’ stake in joint venture VCE, which sells high-end data center equipment.

EMC, the maker of storage computers, facing the retirement of chief executive Joseph Tucci and activist pressure, is exploring strategic options that could include a full or partial sale, or a spinoff of VMware Inc.

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse named after a fabled, poor woodsman who discovers a thieves’ den full of treasures, is ready to strike it rich on Wall Street.

Thousands of employees at US tech firm Cisco are to lose their jobs in the latest round of cuts announced by the company, with no guarantee that workers at its Irish plant will not be affected.

Up to 100 jobs are to be created with the expansion of three companies in Dublin, Cork and Laois.

A management application used to generate sales, which now has more than 3,000 users and is quickly expanding to Britain, the US, and Australia, began its development on a tissue, writes Trish Dromey.

The future of wearable technology will see humans upgrade themselves using computers microscopic in size, according to an industry expert.

The enterprise minister announced 150 new IT jobs in Cork yesterday as the live register fell below 400,000 for the first time since May 2009.

A surgeon to the stars, a humanitarian, a business leader, and a pioneering dental researcher who has inspired a generation of dentists, are to be honoured by their university for making their mark on the world stage.

Perched in your drab little cubicle on a grey Monday morning, contemplating the abject misery of enduring yet another week among the drones, it’s tempting to daydream, just for a moment, of how good it might feel to work somewhere else.

It is unclear yet whether network equipment maker Cisco Systems’ decision to sack 4,000 people, or 5% of its global workforce, will affect its Irish operations.

The significant level of job vacancies in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector highlights a “severe” shortage of suitably skilled applicants in the Irish workforce, a new study has warned.

Signs of a slowing economy combined with comments from a Federal Reserve official helped pull the US stock market down yesterday.

Cork is hoping to create technology history this St Patrick’s weekend by using advanced video teleconferencing to allow a US mayor lead parades on both sides of the Atlantic.

The €300m funding for seven research centres by Government and 150 industry partners is a major step on our road to recovery, writes Seán Sherlock

Research into wave energy and how to screen babies for diseases are among the five projects from University College Cork chosen for a funding boost.

A two-day summit featuring some of the world’s most influential technology figures is set to position the Cork region as Ireland’s answer to Silicon Valley.

IDA Ireland has reported its second consecutive year of record job creation; largely driven by the lowest level of job losses among client firms in over a decade.

Oscar and Bafta-winning producer David Puttnam yesterday delivered the first of a series of lectures from his West Cork home to university students in Australia.

Banking group UBS claimed today that the botched stock market listing of social networking giant Facebook cost it 349 million Swiss francs (€290m).

The number of job opportunities in Ireland decreased slightly during the past month, according to the Morgan McKinley Irish Employment Monitor.

Senior decision-makers in multinational companies "are considering investing in Ireland but are concerned about the possible fallout of a No vote" in the upcoming EU fiscal treaty referendum, Jobs Minister Richard Bruton has claimed.