In The Papers 5 September

05-09-2008

by Sylvia Leatham

Intel warns against tax policy change | Boylesports to expand into Spain

The Irish Times reports that any major alteration to Irish tax policy could instigate a change in big US corporations establishing bases in Ireland, according to Intel's Nanci Palmintere, the executive charged with finding suitable sites for Intel plants around the world. Palmintere said that the tax system was a key driver in deciding to locate in a particular country. She said Intel had invested heavily in Ireland because of a variety of factors which made it favourable, but warned that a change to tax policy could have an impact on large corporations coming here.

The paper also reports that bookmaker Boylesports is to spend EUR3 million on expanding its internet business into Spain and a number of other European countries over the next year. The group has hired John Overett, a former executive with Austrian online sports betting specialist Bwin, to lead a team of 20 people who will develop websites and gambling products for European markets. Chief executive Daniel O'Mahoney said Boylesports plans to have its Spanish language site running within two months.

The paper also reports on the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. This year EUR3 billion in orders were placed for new products at the show, which attracted 220,000 people. One of the busiest stands was that of South Korea's Samsung. It showcased the X360 laptop, which Samsung claims is about 90g lighter than its rival, Apple's MacBook Air. The laptop comes with an Intel Centrino 2 low-voltage processor, a 128GB solid-state hard drive, three USB ports and 1GB of memory. Samsung claims six hours of battery life and promises delivery in Europe in late September.

The same paper says that bank details and in some cases PPS numbers and addresses of up to 10,000 public servants were contained on laptops stolen from the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG). A briefing note to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) from the C&AG outlines new details relating to three of 16 laptops stolen from C&AG employees since 1999. It discloses that two laptops contained payroll data with employees' names and PPS numbers, and bank account details in some cases. "One laptop contained the PPS numbers of staff from five entities, ranging from a sample of eight for one entity to approximately 6,700 from another," the brief said.

Reporting on the same story, the Irish Examiner says the Comptroller & Auditor General admitted that it failed to adequately identify the risk posed by officials keeping confidential data on laptops. C&AG John Buckley acknowledged that risk identification procedures within his office regarding the safety of personal data held on laptops had failed to identify the scale of the problem. "It is acknowledged that the office should have moved faster to identify the material contained on the stolen laptops," Buckley told the Public Accounts Committee. He said procedures have been changed to ensure that any further losses of such data would be immediately reported to senior management.

The paper also reports that the tiny number of teachers who are sacked for poor performance is a factor in the low standards and high failure rate in Leaving Certificate maths, the chief executive of Havok has suggested. David O'Meara, head of the gaming software firm, said the difficulty finding Irish graduates with suitable levels of maths and physics is a significant problem for his company. Around one-third of the company's 100 employees work in Ireland, but further development work could be done here with more suitably qualified staff. "The Government can ensure that schools and teachers are held accountable at second level for the quality of teaching these subjects," said O'Meara.

The Irish Independent reports that 100 jobs are to be created in Dublin by online freight firm Freightquote. Read more on this story on ENN.

The same paper notes that Australian investment firm Babcock & Brown has told shareholders that it will shift its core focus to just three areas: infrastructure, property and operating leasing. The company owns 8 percent of Eircom, while its listed fund owns 57 percent of the Irish telco.

The paper also reports that directory enquiries firm Conduit has transferred night-time services for its 11850 line to a low-cost call centre in the Philippines. The move has affected 10 positions in Dublin. A similar system will apply to the company's 11860 international call assistance line from the middle of this month, according to sources.

The same paper says that Google's new Chrome web browser has two security flaws, including one that could enable hackers to trick users into downloading and running a malicious program, according to security researchers. Aviv Raff, who previously discovered flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, demonstrated the glitch on his blog by offering a file that downloads and runs without warning the user. Rishi Narang, another researcher, described a bug that causes Google's browser to crash. Read more on the launch of Chrome on ENN.

The paper also notes that a new survey has found that ringtones are the most popular downloads among Irish mobile phone users. The Landsdowne Tracking Report found that almost one-third of all mobile users aged over 15 downloaded a ringtone. Munster people are the biggest ringtone downloaders, with almost two in five claiming to have downloaded a ringtone at least once.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung Electronics has said it is looking at various ways of tying up with SanDisk, including a possible acquisition of the flash-memory card maker. Analysts said an acquisition, if it happens, could help Samsung cut the amount of royalties it pays to SanDisk and could further tighten its control of the global flash memory market.

The Financial Times says that a widely expected break-up of telecoms group Cable & Wireless is most likely to take the shape of a classic de-merger. Analysts said that although it could not be ruled out that part or all of the group could be bought in the coming months, the most probable format for the expected break-up was a de-merger that would take effect next year. C&W declined to comment.

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