ROUNDUPS
For the record 29 April
29-04-2003
by Sylvia Leatham
Infineon said it plans to cut up to 900 jobs | Venture capital funding in the US slumped to a five-year low in the first quarter of 2003
Infineon Technologies, Europe's second-largest chipmaker, has said it plans to cut up to 900 jobs in the next few months and is threatening to move the company's headquarters outside Germany due to the country's onerous taxation laws. Last week, Infineon announced a net loss of EUR328 million for its most recent quarter but was unwilling to confirm at the time if job cuts would be made. The Munich-based firm said it had already decided to move the headquarters of its automotive chips unit to Austria and was considering sites in Asia, the US and Europe as possible corporate headquarters. However, Infineon chief executive Ulrich Schumacher said the company would still maintain a significant presence in Germany.
Venture capital funding in the US slumped to a five-year low in the first quarter of 2003, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' MoneyTree Survey, a quarterly study of venture capital investment activity in the US. Investments fell to USD3.8 billion for 623 deals during the three-month period, compared with USD6.5 billion for 816 deals in the same period of 2002, according to the study, which was conducted in collaboration with Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association. Venture capital investments have fallen for 12 consecutive quarters, since its peak in the first quarter of 2000, when USD28.6 billion was invested in 2,169 deals.
The UK, Germany and the Netherlands are the European leaders in terms of human language technologies (HLT), according to a new report. The study, entitled "Benchmarking HLT progress in Europe," was conducted by EUROMAP Language Technologies, a European Commission initiative dedicated to promoting increased awareness and faster take-up of HLT across Europe. Germany, the Netherlands and the UK have each shown strong commitment to HLT research. A second group of countries, classified as having 'Strong Potential' in HLT, included France, Belgium and Spain. A third group, flagged as 'Promising', included Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
Rococo Software and Ericsson Technology Licensing have announced the formation of a strategic alliance aimed at bringing Bluetooth applications to market more quickly. Ericsson will adapt Dublin-based Rococo's Java technology to work with the Ericsson Core Bluetooth Stack, and it will sell Bluetooth software with the Rococo Java API. "This solution enables equipment manufacturers to take advantage of Bluetooth in their platform by making the technology accessible through Java," said Maria Khorsand, president of Ericsson Technology Licensing.
Dublin-based Mapflow has announced the completion of a Web-based ASP application that provides mapping to Amatics, as part of its telematics solution for Transco PLC in the UK. The solution provides Amatics, a division of The Leasing Group, with mapping and address details for its Web-based software application, which in turn supports the management of more than 6,000 Transco vehicles across the UK. The Amatics application provides a full range of GPS-enabled telematics functionality, such as vehicle tracking, as well as a rich mapping service. Transco recently merged with the National Grid to form National Grid Transco and claims to be the largest investor-owned utility in the UK.
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