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In the papers 8 May
Thursday, May 08 2008
by Sheila M. Averbuch


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 href="http://www.enn.ie/article/10124334.html">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.