NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 4 December
04-12-2008
by Deirdre McArdle
Option Wireless creates jobs in Cork | AT&T to slash 12,000 staff
Option Wireless, a manufacturer of devices for wireless internet access, has announced it is to create 145 high-quality jobs as it expands its facility in Cork. The company currently employs 300 people in Cork and counts telecoms giant like AT&T, Orange and T-Mobile as customers. From its Cork operations, the firm manages the manufacturing process of the wireless internet devices. Option Wireless is a subsidiary of a Belgian company and has been located in Cork for the past 10 years. The expansion is being supported by the IDA.
Over three quarters (77 percent) of Irish businesses consider the humble telephone the best means of communication. That's according to a survey conducted by BT, which revealed that 78 percent of respondents believe communication by e-mail doesn't allow you to engage with your customers at the level telephone communication does. Some 44 percent of respondents said they spend at least half their day on the telephone liaising with clients and brokering deals, while a mere 10 percent favoured e-mail to conduct their business. In addition, over half (57 percent) of those surveyed felt that companies that communicate less by telephone are losing out on vital business opportunities. "Whilst e-mail plays a critical role in the exchange of information, when it comes to real inter-personal communication, the telephone allows businesses a real time approach to client interaction and the ability to gauge a true pulse of what the customer needs," said Liam O'Brien, managing director, BT Business.
US telecoms giant AT&T has announced it is to cut 12,000 jobs through the end of next year, citing economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined structure for the decision. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the firm expects to take a fourth-quarter severance-related charge of about USD600 million. Earlier this year AT&T cut 4,600 jobs as part of a reorganisation of its declining landline business.
Bernie Ebbers, former CEO of WorldCom, has filed a petition asking President George W. Bush to commute his 25-year prison sentence for his part in the USD11 billion accounting fraud that saw the collapse of the long-distance phone company. Sixty-six-year-old Ebbers was convicted of conspiracy and fraud in 2005 and has been serving time in a Louisiana federal prison since September 2006.
Professor Orla Feely, a Science Foundation Ireland-funded researcher based in University College Dublin's School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Prof Feely is the first Irish female recipient of this Fellowship. Funded under SFI's Principal Investigator (P.I.) programme, Prof Feely's research delivers a new understanding of complex non-linear behaviour in electronic circuits used throughout day-to-day applications such as mobile phones and CD players. "Less than 3 percent of IEEE Fellows are female, and I commend SFI for their efforts in encouraging more young women to choose engineering as a career path. I look forward to making a valuable contribution to the IEEE Fellowship nationally and internationally," said Prof Feely.
Microsoft has launched legal actions against online auctioneers around the world, who Microsoft alleges orchestrated fraudulent marketing schemes, such as "Blue Edition", and sold counterfeit software to customers. The so-called Blue Edition scheme fools unsuspecting consumers into purchasing counterfeit software burned onto a CD. The 63 legal actions are taking place in 12 countries, including 16 in the United States, 12 in Germany, 12 in France and seven in the UK, as well as proceedings in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand. The majority of the cases announced involve counterfeit Windows XP software or components.
Spam accounted for 85 percent of all e-mails heading for Irish inboxes during the month of November, according to the latest figures from IT Force. The company analysed 757,818 e-mails received by its clients and established that 641,239 of them were unsolicited. The most prevalent viruses during the month were: Worm.SomeFool.N, Worm.SomeFool.P, Worm.BugBear.B, W32.Virut.Gen.C-50 and Trojan.Agent-61609.
In more security news, in its latest Global Threat Trends report, security firm Eset has identified a rising trend of malware piggy-backing on legitimate files to run malicious code tagged as Win32/Patched.BU. Eset explains that because these programs piggyback legitimate files they're harder to identify by filename alone.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 