In The Papers 14 November

14-11-2008

by Sylvia Leatham

Magnet aims to attract youth with TV channel | Intel refuses to rule out Irish job losses

The Irish Times reports that BT Ireland said its revenue grew 5.4 percent to STG392.4 million for the six months to the end of September, as parent BT Group announced plans to cut staff by 10,000. Read more on this story on ENN.

The paper also says that Ireland's tech sector should reposition itself as a location for 'near-shore' services for European companies that do not want to outsource to India or China. That's according to Jim Champy, a best-selling author on management and outsourcing who is also chairman of consulting with US IT services firm Perot Systems. Given Ireland's strength in the technology sector, he suggests there is a massive opportunity for Irish service providers to win business in Europe. Champy says that much of this work is going to Romania, but by focusing on higher value services such as architecture, design and engineering, Irish firms can win business over locations whose main advantage is the availability of low-cost programmers.

The paper also reports that broadband supplier Magnet Entertainment has launched a new online TV channel aimed at the youth market. MagnetInfinityTV will be available for free to anybody in Ireland with a broadband connection from 19 November on www.mitv.ie, and over the firm's own fibre-optic network, where it can be watched on a normal television set. The content for the channel will be produced by Dublin-based Intermission Studio, and will focus on music, movie news and reviews. Initially, viewers will be able to watch two hours of fresh content per day on a continuous loop, with the option of video on demand.

The paper also says that Damovo has supplied a speech recognition system to car rental firm Hertz, as noted by ENN on Thursday.

The same paper notes that Microsoft has launched the latest versions of its server products for small businesses, Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008, as reported by ENN.

In other news of Microsoft, the Irish Independent notes that the firm is offering internet start-ups free software under a programme called BizSpark.

The paper also reports that chipmaker Intel would not rule out job losses at its Irish division on Thursday night after the company slashed its sales forecast by over USD1 billion. "We may have to take pragmatic decisions," warned Intel's Leixlip plant spokesman, Colin McHale. He would not discount the possibility of job cuts at the site, which is Intel's European manufacturing centre and employs around 5,000 staff. McHale said there would be no further statement until its next set of results in January but that "we will have to see what the future will bring us".

The Irish Examiner says that over 22,500 people have visited a website set up by the Limerick Leader newspaper to allow the public to express their feelings about the murder of rugby captain Shane Geoghegan. Editor Alan English said more than 11,000 people had lit virtual candles on the site to express their grief and another 2,000 had left messages from all over the world. The site was launched on Monday.

According to the Financial Times, the head of a UK lobby group on internet connections has criticised Project Kangaroo, the online video joint venture between ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide. Kip Meek, chairman of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, said the project could potentially benefit from the next generation of broadband without bearing any of the costs. "Imagine a commercial version of the BBC's iPlayer. Let's give it a code name -- say, Kangaroo. Imagine underlying demand for it is fantastically high, requiring BT and ISPs to invest heavily to maintain service levels. In this environment, Kangaroo would have benefited from next generation access but borne none of the risk," said Meek.

The Wall Street Journal says that Microsoft has announced a zero percent financing promotion for some of its business software, in an effort to jump-start sales at a time when many firms are looking to cut expenditures. The promo, aimed at small and medium-size businesses, is being offered to new customers who spend USD20,000 to USD1 million on Microsoft's customer-management and accounting software.

The paper also notes that Vivendi's third-quarter net profit more than quadrupled, boosted by a EUR2.32 billion gain related to its videogames division. Profit increased to EUR2.76 billion from EUR578 million a year earlier. The gain came from the way in which Vivendi's stake in its games division was accounted for after a merger to create Activision Blizzard. Chief Financial Officer Philippe Capron said that while the environment isn't "very buoyant", the French company isn't planning "for a global slowdown of our activities."

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