In the papers 8 May
08-05-2008
by Sylvia Leatham

Grand Theft Auto clocks up record sales | BT launches BlackBerry-style smartphone

The Irish Times reports that the Denis O'Brien-backed consortium bidding for the 12-year commercial digital terrestrial television (DTT) licences plans to invest more than EUR145 million in rolling out its service and expects to break even by the fifth year. The figure emerged in the executive summary of Boxer DTT Ltd's submission to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland. The consortium has forecast that it will attract 215,000 customers and deliver revenues of more than EUR50 million by 2013. The Boxer consortium consists of O'Brien's Communicorp media group and Swedish DTT operator Boxer TV-Access, with the support of telecoms provider BT Ireland.

The Irish Examiner reports that Publicis Group Media says that digital marketing agency Interactive Return has joined the group, with immediate effect. Clients of Interactive Return include Tourism Ireland, Autotrader, Crowne Plaza Hotels, ESB Independent Energy and IDA Ireland.

The paper also says that e-payments firm CyberSource Corporation is to open a development centre in Belfast, as noted by ENN on Wednesday.

The same paper reports that an expert witness has told the Moriarty Tribunal that the scoring system used by a team of civil servants made it impossible to determine a winner from applicants for the State's second mobile phone licence. Economic consultant Dr Peter Bacon claimed the marking system used to assess rival bids contained significant "margins of error". Dr Bacon said he also failed to understand why the group of senior civil servants had abandoned another "sound" element of the scoring system due to a lack of information. The licence was awarded in 1995 to the Esat consortium, led by Denis O'Brien. The tribunal is investigating whether there was any undue political interference in the process by former communications minister Michael Lowry.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft, under pressure to craft a strategy for competing online that does not involve Yahoo, informally approached social networking site Facebook to gauge its interest in selling itself to Microsoft, according to a source. Microsoft's investment bankers recently contacted Facebook as it looked likely the software giant might back away from buying Yahoo, the person said. There are no active discussions between the two, the person said, and it is unclear if Facebook would consider selling. Spokesmen for Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment.

The paper also says that sales of videogame 'Grand Theft Auto IV' have exceeded expectations, racking up more than USD500 million in first-week sales. Game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software said retailers sold more than 6 million copies of the game globally since it went on sale on 29 April, which it said was a record for first-week sales of a videogame. Analysts had widely expected the game to bring in sales of about USD400 million in the first week.

The Financial Times says that UK software firm Sage beat expectations with a 9 percent rise in half-year sales, despite a poor performance at its US healthcare business. The company, which provides accounting and other business software for small companies, said strong growth in Europe and areas such as South Africa and Australia had helped offset US problems. Overall revenues for Sage were STG640.4 million for the six months to the end of March, ahead of consensus estimates. Pre-tax profits rose nearly 13 percent to STG122.6 million.

The paper also notes that BT is trying to breathe new life into its faltering mobile phone strategy by unveiling a BlackBerry-style handset. It is the UK telecoms group's first smartphone, offering web surfing and music and video playback as well as basic functions such as phone calls and text messaging. But some analysts said the handset, to be called BT ToGo, was unlikely to have mass-market appeal, while others claimed the web surfing experience could be poor.