ROUNDUPS
For the record 08 May
08-05-2002
by Ralph Averbuch
The Nasdaq rallies on the back of good news from Cisco | Most Europeans do not use computers, claims a new European Commission study
The Nasdaq rallied after Cisco Systems released better-than-expected quarterly figures. This also provided a fillip to the European bourses that enjoyed rapid gains on the back of the news from the US. In afternoon trading in New York the Nasdaq was up six percent at 1668.29.
The Eurobarometer Survey, carried out among 16,162 EU nationals by the European Commission, claims that 53 percent of Europeans do not use a computer. Yet, over one fifth of all Europeans use a computer every day. The computer is most frequently used at home as a hobby the survey said. Thirty-five percent of EU residents surf the Internet and 14 percent of them surf the Internet several times a week while nine percent surf every day. The Swedes (67 percent), the Danes (59 percent), the Dutch (54 percent) and the Finns (51 percent) use the Internet the most. In most cases, Europeans use the Internet to exchange e-mails with family, friends and colleagues (58 percent), to find information on a specific products (42 percent) or for work purposes (40 percent).
Irish e-mail marketing firm E-Search Ltd. is expanding, it was announced on Wednesday. The company projects a doubling of employment from six to 12 over the coming year. The firm also announced that it had launched its latest product, Newsweaver, a Web-based e-mail newsletter publishing service. The firm, headed by former Irish Internet Association chairman Andrew O'Shaughnessy, said sales will initially focus on Ireland followed in quick succession with the UK and other EU countries.
Post.Trust, the e-business security solutions division of An Post, has launched a new guide designed to teach CEOs and directors about the risks inherent in e-mail. "10 Dangers that CEOs Should Know About their Email" is available free and may be downloaded from the Post.Trust Web site.
The Institute of Technology, Carlow (ITC) is using Cisco's network solutions to develop its current campus infrastructure. This should enable students and staff to access live TV, video and audio learning materials, including lectures, from any desktop throughout the institute.
Companies transforming their supply management practices via e-procurement technology might get savings 13 times greater than their investments, claims management consulting firm AT Kearney after a study of 147 large companies representing 22 industries on six continents. AT Kearney is a subsidiary of EDS.
Skynet says it is to offer wireless connectivity services to Irish businesses from July 2002. Skynet, who received a licence last week from the ODTR to offer voice, data and wireless services will begin testing in metropolitan areas this week and are also understood to be signing a long-term deal with a wireless equipment supplier in the next few days. This is the start of an eighteen-month national rollout of wireless hubs.
BerlitzIT, an on-line translation service from Berlitz GlobalNET, increased revenues in 2001 by 300 percent to EUR1.5 million. Despite being in operation for just a few years the Web site has translated over 10 million words and generated over EUR3 million since 1999. The service can translate a single document into one language or maintain a thousand-page Web site in dozens of languages.
FosterBrook has announced the launch of Intelligent Email Response (IER) Software in Ireland. IER is meant to analyse incoming e-mails and suggest the correct response to them. Forrester Research predicts that customer contacts by e-mail will grow by more than 250 percent over the next three years. This is already creating a major burden on customer support services, which, FosterBrook hopes to alleviate. However, whether this will be helpful to the consumer on the receiving end of another automated non-human reply, is yet to be discovered.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 