NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 11 November
11-11-2008
by Deirdre McArdle
Subscribers up, ARPU drops at Vodafone | NCB offers stock updates to mobile users
Vodafone Ireland saw mobile subscriber figures increase by 0.6 percent year-on-year to reach 2.23 million (including 94,000 mobile broadband subscribers) by the end of the third quarter. Separately, the operator's DSL and fixed-line phone business added 76,621 customers during the three months to the end of September. Despite its increase in subscribers, Vodafone said its blended ARPU (average revenue per user) dropped by 5.7 percent from EUR45.10 in the third quarter of 2007 to EUR42.50. The operator says this decrease is largely due to the "increased value" it now offers customers. Vodafone also announced the appointment of Paul Woods to the position of general manager of total communications. In this role Woods will oversee the expansion of Vodafone services across the mobile and home broadband areas. He will also be responsible for the integration of the Perlico business into Vodafone.
NCB Stockbrokers has linked up with O2 and Zamano to launch a free 3G mobile phone video mail service to its clients. The bulk of the video content will focus on stock market commentary compiled by NCB. The firm also plans to offer information on share prices quoted on the ISEQ, as well as UK share prices. As part of the partnership O2 is providing high download speeds via its secure broadband and EDGE networks, while Zamano is responsible for transmitting the video messages to clients' handsets.
Irish financial software firm Norkom has posted a 37 percent year-on year jump in revenue for the six months up to the end of September, from EUR17.6 million in 2007 to EUR24.2 million. EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) increased by 30 percent to EUR4 million, up from EUR3.1 million in 2007, while adjusted diluted earnings per share grew 18 percent to EUR0.0395. Despite the positive results, Norkom is being cautious with its forecast; Paul Kerley, CEO of Norkom, said the firm "anticipates managing our business to deliver growth in revenues and EBITDA in the region of 20 percent for the full year to March 2009."
Oriflame Cosmetics, a Swedish cosmetics company, has officially opened a state-of-the research and development centre in Bray, Co Wicklow. The firm has invested EUR2.4 million in the centre, which will create 35 new high-tech jobs over the next five years. The expansion will bring the number of scientists employed at the centre from 92 currently to 127 by 2013. The new facility will be Oriflame's centre-of-excellence for product research and development and will include regulatory affairs and product safety activities.
A recent update from antivirus firm AVG has caused problems among some Windows XP users as it incorrectly identified a critical file in Windows XP as a virus and deleted it. AVG 7.5 and AVG 8.0 users reported seeing a warning that the Windows system file 'user32.dll' was infected with the PSW.Banker4.APSA or Generic9TBN Trojans, with a recommendation that the file be moved to the program's vault and deleted. This action rendered their PCs useless as they were not able to boot their computers without the system file. AVG has since published a workaround under Hot Topics 1574 False Positive user32.dll, and has also released another update to correct the problem.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 