In The Papers 7 October

07-10-2008

by Sylvia Leatham

eBay to cut 10pc of global workforce | AMD to spin off manufacturing

The Irish Times reports that new research into identity fraud has found that eight in every 10 Irish people routinely throw personal information into the bin. Read more on this story on ENN.

The Irish Independent says that online auction site eBay, which employs up to 1,600 staff in Ireland, has announced it is to cut about 1,000 jobs, or 10 percent of its global workforce. However, a spokesman said the impact among Irish employees will be minimal, affecting about 10 people in total. About half of those are sub-contractors. eBay has had a presence based in Ireland since 2003.

According to the Financial Times, chipmaker AMD plans to spin off its chip plants and receive a lifeline of up to USD8.43 billion from Abu Dhabi, as it struggles to compete with its larger rival Intel. AMD is expected to announce on Tuesday a long-awaited "asset-light" strategy that will relieve it of the burden of trying to maintain manufacturing parity with its Silicon Valley neighbour, according to sources. AMD plans to create a new enterprise, initially called The Foundry Company, with Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Company. The new company would absorb AMD's existing manufacturing fabs, expand a facility in Dresden, Germany, and spend USD3.2 billion on a new plant in New York, creating more than 1,400 jobs.

The paper also reports that Japanese electronics firm Sharp has slashed its earnings forecast because of a slump in its domestic mobile phone business. The company cut its operating profit forecast for the year to March 2009 by 33 percent to JPY130 billion (USD1.26 billion), well below last year's earnings, and said that the economic environment had deteriorated suddenly in the last couple of months. "The severe business environment should continue from the third quarter onward, especially for mobile phones and relevant electronic components," Sharp said.

The Wall Street Journal says that German software giant SAP has warned its third-quarter revenue would come in lower than expected, blaming the global financial turmoil for a sudden drop in orders. SAP chief Henning Kagermann said he saw a major shift in the last two weeks of September as concerns over the global financial crisis mounted. "The situation had a strong impact on our ability to sign contracts," he said. "Many customers have put IT spending on hold… especially at midsize companies where liquidity and financing are a big issue." SAP said it now expects global software revenue for the quarter ended 30 September to be between EUR740 million and EUR750 million, a rise of 4 percent to 5 percent from a year earlier. Analysts had been forecasting 20 percent growth.

The paper also notes that telco Verizon Communications has lost its patent-infringement case against Cox Communications, signaling that Verizon may have a difficult time extracting royalties from cable providers for internet-based telephony. A federal jury in the Eastern District of Virginia found that Cox did not infringe on six Verizon patents related to internet telephony. Cox, which has more than 3 million residential and business phone customers, said in a statement it would "look forward to competing vigorously with Verizon in the marketplace, not the courtroom." Verizon has been aggressively asserting its patents in VoIP technology, despite not promoting the service to its own customers.

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