NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 12 December
12-12-2008
by Deirdre McArdle
Vodafone Ireland to cut jobs | Google removes beta label from Chrome
Vodafone Ireland has announced it is to cut 10 percent of its 1,500-strong workforce. The mobile operator is seeking 150 redundancies and says it hopes to achieve this through a voluntary redundancy programme. The move comes as Vodafone Ireland tries to "compete effectively in an increasingly challenging economic environment". In mid-November Vodafone Group's incoming CEO, Vittorio Colao, said he aimed to cut costs by STG1 billion by 2011. At the time he did not indicate if this cost-cutting programme would involve redundancies.
ComReg has published a consultation on the release of additional spectrum in the 3.4 GHz – 3.8 GHz band for fixed wireless broadband (FWALA) services for residential and business consumers. ComReg is proposing to make additional spectrum available for FWALA licensing in the 3.6 GHz to 3.8 GHz part of the band as well as releasing Channel E in the 3.5 GHz band; a total of 118 MHz of spectrum in all. There are currently over 121,000 fixed wireless broadband customers in Ireland, and ComReg believes the proposal will enable existing and potential FWALA operators to expand their networks to offer increased availability and choice in broadband services.
By the end of 2013 the number of mobile subscribers around the world will increase to 5.3 billion, representing growth of 56 percent from the end of 2007. That's according to research group Informa Telecoms, which said the market will at that stage be generating revenues of USD1.03 trillion per year. The group predicts that 78 percent of global net additions between 2007 and 2013 will come from markets in Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America. Interestingly, nearly half (47 percent) of the new subscribers will come from just five markets -- India, China, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. There will be 4 billion mobile subscribers around the world by the end of 2008, according to Informa.
As interest in cloud computing continues to grow, IBM has introduced a cloud service for web conferencing called Lotus Sametime Unyte 8.2. The technology allows companies of any size to access web conferencing technology online without the need to download additional software. With Lotus Sametime Unyte IBM has added support for open document formats, such as Lotus Symphony. Other features include a participant "waiting room" to gather attendees before the call; improved alerts for meeting organisers; support for the FireFox 3.0 browser; and the ability to share or publish PDF and ODF files, in addition to PPT, DOC and XLS files.
Google has taken its web browser out of beta, releasing the first non-beta version of Chrome on Thursday. This latest release will be the 15th update to Chrome since it first hit the market in early September. "In just 100 days, we have reached more than 10 million active users around the world (on all seven continents, no less) and released 14 updates to the product. We're excited to announce that with today's 15th release we are taking off the 'beta' label," said product management vice president Sundar Pichai and engineering director Linus Upson. The updated version of the browser includes faster JavaScript loading speeds and improvements to the bookmarking features.
Some two years after its release in December 2006, the Nintendo Wii is still proving to be the console to beat. According to research group NPD, the Wii outsold the Xbox by almost 3-to-1 in November in the US. Wii shipments in the month came to 2.04 million, while Xbox shipments came in at 836,000. Meanwhile, Sony's PlayStation 3 ranked a distant third, with shipments of just 378,000 units. At the end of October Nintendo projected that Wii sales globally would climb 48 percent to 27.5 million machines this fiscal year, raising the figure from the 26.5 million it had estimated in August.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 