NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 27 January
27-01-2009
by Bryan Collins
Ryanair to continue fight against screenscrapers | Siemens bullish about profit predictions
Some 140 manufacturing and engineering professionals are set to lose their jobs in Cork and Tyrone over the next 12 months. Staff at GE Healthcare, in Cork, were informed Monday that the company is seeking 50 redundancies after demand for its medical diagnostic products levelled off. However, GE said less than half of the necessary lay-offs would be forced redundancies. In Dungannon, engineering firm Powerscreen is to make 90 people redundant after a fall in orders. The company, which manufactures mobile screening equipment used in the construction, mining and recycling industries, already made 70 workers redundant at the end of last year, and the announcement follows a review of global operations by US parent company, Terex.
Ryanair has vowed to continue its legal fight against screenscraper and ticket tout websites. And the company said it will appeal last week's decision by a Spanish court in favour of the website Atrapalo, and any further rulings in favour of similar websites. According to the low-cost airline, sites like E-Dreams are downloading information from Ryanair's website and selling flights on to consumers with huge mark-ups. Ryanair likened the behaviour of these sites to those providing unauthorised free downloads of music and video. It also called on the courts to protect consumers against the hidden fare increases and handling charges by third party websites, whom Ryanair says double the cost of airfares without customers' knowledge.
Electronics firm Siemens maintains it will meet an operating profit projection of EUR8 billion to EUR8.5 billion for the year despite the global economic slowdown. The German firm believes it will meet its annual forecast across all its energy, healthcare and industrial divisions as long as there are no order cancellations or delays, and once prices hold up. Siemens had reported an 81 percent fall in its first quarter net profit, for October to December 2008, to EUR1.23 billion. However, the firm said this figure is skewed somewhat by the profits it earned from the sale of its auto parts unit, VDO, a year ago. Sales in the last quarter rose 7 percent to EUR19.63 billion while orders fell 8 percent to EUR22.2 billion.
Irish marketing company ICAP has launched a discount service for mobiles. The service is available to mobile phone users who log on to Ocode.ie and download the discount application to their device. For a fee of less than EUR0.99 per month, mobile phone users receive offers and discounts from companies. These offers cover a range of products and services from lunch deals to beauty treatments and are redeemable when the mobile user displays the offer code on their phone to the relevant retailer. The firm said that users can opt out of the service whenever they wish. ICAP is also launching the service in Britain within the next six months and plans to embark on a second funding drive.
Market intelligence firm IDC has increased its software as a service (SaaS) market growth projection for 2009 to 42 percent, from 36 percent in 2008. The firm also said new contracts from customers in Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) look particularly positive, and by the end of 2009, nearly 35 percent of worldwide SaaS revenue will be earned outside of the US. IDC noted the harsh economic climate will accelerate SaaS growth prospects as vendors position offerings as "right-sized, zero-CAPEX alternatives to on-premise applications". It concluded that buyers will opt for easy-to-use subscription services which meter current use, not future capacity, and vendors and partners will look for new products and recurring revenue streams.
Colt Telecom Ireland, a provider of business communications services, has officially opened its new Irish headquarters, located in the newly-built Gateway development behind the IFSC in Dublin. The new office will provide sales, marketing, finance, legal and administrative support to the firm's overall business in Ireland. "We are delighted that Colt has chosen to invest futher in the development of its business in Ireland. The future growth of the Irish economy is dependent on the development of a knowledge-economy based on a foundation of state-of-the-art communications services," said Eamon Ryan, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, who formally opened the new office.
Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, has ranked 55th on Fortune's 12th annual "100 Best Companies to Work For" list. Fortune' magazine's survey polled more than 81,000 employees in 353 US companies, evaluating criteria such as pay, benefit programs, hiring practices, internal communications, training, recognition programs and diversity efforts. Fortune said that employees at Saleforce.com were particularly proud of the company's "1/1/1" approach to philanthropy. This sees Salesfoce.com contribute 1 percent of profits, 1 percent of equity, and 1 percent of employee hours back to the community.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 