In The Papers 27 August

27-08-2008

by Deirdre McArdle

Better pay needed for tech roles, warns SIPTU | Schools get wired for broadband, no PCs

The Irish Times reports that 100 of Ireland's best video gamers will take part in the Irish finals of the World Cyber Games, which will take place in the Digital Hub in Dublin on 6 and 7 September. Competitors will take part in four separate computer games: Halo, FIFA 08, World of Warcraft on PC and Project Gotham Racing 4. Seven people will be chosen to represent Ireland at the games, which will take place in Cologne in November.

The paper also says that ComReg has reversed a decision it made in June of this year to direct Eircom to cut the wholesale price of its LLU line share after the telecoms group challenged it in the High Court. Read more on this story on ENN.

The Irish Independent writes that trade union SIPTU has warned that students will not take up science and engineering degrees unless offered the prospect of better pay. SIPTU official Maurice Hearne has said that employers in both the public and private sectors were not willing to provide the level of pay and conditions needed to attract young people to these demanding disciplines. SIPTU's warning comes after employers in the science and engineering sectors reported thousands of jobs which cannot be filled by Irish graduates.

According to the same paper, due to government cuts thousands of primary school pupils will start the school year in new, state-of-the-art buildings fully wired for broadband, but missing computers. The grant for computer equipment has remained unchanged at EUR6,348.69 since 2000, despite rising costs and inflation. The multidenominational schools group Educate Together, which is getting the majority of the new schools, is delighted with the buildings but annoyed at the low level of the start-up grant. "The grant is now worth 30 percent less than it was in 2000. Even to keep pace with inflation, it should be now EUR8,200," said chief executive Paul Rowe. He said that it costs about EUR40,000 to equip a new school with computer equipment.

The Examiner says that Ryanair has written to the European Commission telling it that screenscraper websites have inflated the price of its flights by as much as 300 percent on their sites. The airline made the claim in defending its decision to cancel bookings made on the third-party websites. Read more on this story on ENN.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Immersion will pay Microsoft USD20.8 million to settle a lawsuit over a payment Immersion received from a unit of Sony. Microsoft sued Immersion -- which makes technology to simulate the vibration of an explosion or other event through a videogame joystick or controller -- in the US District Court in Washington state in June 2007. Microsoft was seeking a percentage of the USD121 million that Sony Computer Entertainment agreed to pay Immersion to settle its appeal of a patent-infringement verdict.

The Financial Times says that BT is considering selling its 31 percent stake in Tech Mahindra, the India-listed software services firm, having decided that the Indian firm does not fit its long-term strategy. The UK telecoms company is keen to sell all or a large part of its stake in the joint venture, which has a market capitalisation of about USD2.2 billion, according to people familiar with the situation.