NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 17 December
17-12-2008
by Emmet Cole
Euro mobile voice market faces tough 2009 | Motorola takes cost-cutting steps
Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, has announced Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) investment in science and technology totalling EUR45.7 million over five years. SFI's investment will provide funding to three existing Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology and will be supplemented by an additional contribution from industry of EUR14.5 million.
Meanwhile, the Irish Government's high level advisory group on science, technology and innovation policy, called for a strategic engagement with international science and technology (STI) networks, in a report published Wednesday. The Advisory Science Council report found that the Irish STI system has had a relatively strong inward flow of researchers, with more than 40 percent of researchers coming from outside Ireland. There are, however, indications of barriers to the outward mobility of Irish researchers, according to the report, which goes on to warn that this could have a significant negative impact on the Irish STI system. The full report and guidelines are available from the Science Council website.
Troubled mobile firm Motorola has announced changes to employee compensation, benefit programs and executive compensation in response to the economic downturn. Effective from 1 January 2009, Motorola will temporarily suspend all company matching contributions to the Motorola 401(k) plan. US employees may continue to contribute to the 401(k) plan but will not receive matching contributions from Motorola. Effective from 1 March 2009, Motorola will permanently freeze its US pension plans. The company also announced that employees in many of the markets in which it operates won't receive a salary increase in 2009. Motorola co-chief executive officers Greg Brown and Sanjay Jha will voluntarily take a 25 percent cut in their base salaries in 2009. These actions are expected to lead to cost savings in addition to the USD800 million that was previously announced in October.
The European mobile voice market is set for a challenging 2009, according to Phil Kendall, the author of "Recession Watch: Mobile Spend Weakens in Europe," a report published by Strategy Analytics. Although mobile data revenues grew by 20 percent globally in the third quarter of 2008, voice revenue growth came to an "abrupt halt" in the European market in the last quarter. The report found that mobile voice revenues have been falling by around 1 percent per annum over the last 18 months in Western Europe, and dropped by over 3 percent in the third quarter.
Meanwhile, the number of people sending text messages (SMS) across the EU is growing by 3.3 percent year on year and shows no sign of slowing, according to an independent study conducted by comScore M:Metrics on the use of mobile messaging across the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The study of 140 mobile operators found that (multimedia messaging) MMS use is growing by 9.2 percent each year. In the UK, over 25 million text messages are sent each day, while the French proved most keen to embrace picture messaging with 15.2 percent more people sending MMS than in 2007, the biggest increase across Europe.
Irish businesses can make substantial savings on variable costs by using unified communications as a managed service, according to Gavin McCarthy, business development manager at Siemens Enterprise Communications. Speaking at Siemens' Open Minds seminar in Dublin last week, McCarthy identified reductions in operating costs and greater communication cost predictability as the key benefits to organisations that adopt managed communication environments with unified communications delivered as an end-to-end service. A Siemens survey of 500 organisations' existing communications platforms found that they are typically losing four hours productive time per employee.
PC manufacturer Lenovo and Vodafone McLaren Mercedes have announced a partnership for the 2009 Formula 1 season. As part of the deal, Lenovo notebook and desktop PCs will provide Vodafone McLaren Mercedes with mobile wireless computing solutions, both at the race track and at the team's headquarters. The system is designed to supply UK-based statisticians and engineers with real-time race data from any track in the world.
Finally, online bank RaboDirect, has officially launched its blog, claiming a first for the Irish banking sector in the process. The blog features articles and topical news stories from RaboDirect staff, including General Manager Roel van Veggel. The bank invites customers and visitors to the RaboDirect website to comment on the blog's content and introduce additional subjects for discussion.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 