IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 27 May
27-05-2009
by Sylvia Leatham
Nokia's new Ovi Store hits glitch | Senator's election rap song is net hit
The Irish Times reports that handset maker Nokia ran into problems with the launch of its new online store selling apps for its phones. Customers had problems accessing the Ovi Store almost as soon as it went live. In a blog post, Eric John, Nokia's head of marketing for the project, said that shortly after launching "we began experiencing extraordinarily high spikes of traffic that resulted in some performance issues for users accessing" the service. Nokia began adding additional computers to support Ovi Store, which John said "resulted in intermittent performance improvements". Nokia said users accessing the store through their mobile handsets did not have any issues.
The Irish Independent reports that software giant Microsoft has said more than 3 million customers are currently trying out its Windows 7 operating system, as reported by ENN on Tuesday.
The Irish Examiner notes that "Ireland's first election rap song" has become an internet sensation. Labour's European election candidate in Ireland South, Senator Alan Kelly, is the subject of a four-minute rap entitled 'Don't Make The Wrong Choice'. The song is available on Facebook, YouTube and on Kelly's own election website, www.alankelly.ie, and contains lyrics such as "Where's the money, the jobs and the tiger? We need a politician with a mind like MacGyver." Word.
The Wall Street Journal reports that chip giant Intel has revealed plans to take its Xeon chip line into bigger servers. The move will pose tougher competition for its own Itanium product line, as well as for chips offered by competitors. The company outlined details of forthcoming Xeon models that pack more electronic brains onto each piece of silicon and can be used in servers that use more chips. Intel, whose chips dominate low-end servers, hopes to take a much bigger share of larger systems. The new chips, dubbed the Nehalem-EX, are expected to be available in servers early next year.
The paper also says that Accenture is seeking to become the latest US company to switch tax-haven locales by moving its place of incorporation from Bermuda to Ireland. "There are continued questions about companies incorporated in Bermuda," said Jim McAvoy, an Accenture spokesman. In its regulatory filing announcing the planned move, the company said it was motivated by legislative proposals that could increase the company's taxes, negative publicity about companies incorporated in Bermuda, and by other factors such as the growing importance of the company's European business. The move comes amid a crackdown on tax havens by the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, who are targeting companies with substantial US operations that are incorporated in tax havens like Bermuda in order to lower their overall tax burden.
According to the Financial Times, Facebook says it has accepted a USD200 million investment from Digital Sky Technologies, a private Russian internet investment group. The investment values the social network's preferred stock at USD10 billion and represents a 1.96 percent equity stake. A year and a half ago, Microsoft invested USD240 million on similar terms but valued Facebook's preferred stock at USD15 billion. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, acknowledged on Tuesday that the Microsoft investment came at the "absolute peak of the market".
The paper also reports that online music services have received a much-needed boost after the UK royalty collection agency cut the charges they must pay artists for playing a track. PRS for Music announced it was lowering the prices for streaming music online by almost two-thirds -- a move that will benefit sites such as Last.fm, We7 and Spotify, which have found it hard to get enough advertising revenue to cover their streaming costs. Each time a song is played online -- rather than downloaded -- the PRS will receive STG0.085, down from STG0.22. Andrew Shaw, managing director of broadcast and online at PRS, said he hoped the new rates would stimulate growth in the market as well as combat rampant piracy.
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