NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 20 March
20-03-2009
by Deirdre McArdle
Jobs blow for Dell workers | 'Undo send' feature added to Gmail
Workers in Dell's Dublin and Limerick facilities received a blow on Friday morning when the PC manufacturer announced it was to cut jobs at each location. Though exact figures haven't been released, reports indicate that 230 jobs in total will be cut. In Limerick, the non-manufacturing sector, including research and development, is to be affected with around 100 jobs being lost. From its Cherrywood, Dublin facility Dell provides sales services to Ireland and the UK and technical support to Europe, Middle East and Africa; roughly 130 jobs are to go there. A 30-day consultation process with staff will take place before cuts are made over the following six months. In early January Dell announced it was to close its manufacturing facility in Limerick with the loss of 1,900 jobs.
Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson has issued a profit warning for its first quarter results. The slowdown in global demand has hit the firm hard with sales and earnings taking a battering. In the fourth quarter of 2008 Sony Ericsson saw sales plummet 23 percent year-on-year to USD3.84 billion, while earnings dropped from a profit of USD494.3 million in 2007 to a loss of USD245 million in 2008. The firm is expected to release its first-quarter figures on 17 April.
Another firm to bear the brunt of the economic downturn is Xerox, which has warned that its first-quarter earnings will fall far short of its earlier forecast. Xerox has said that revenue in January and February was 18 percent down on the same period a year earlier. It forecast first-quarter earnings of USD0.03 to USD0.05 per share, compared with an earlier outlook of USD0.16 to USD0.20. As its revenue drops Xerox said it would look to cut around USD300 million in costs, on top of the USD250 million in savings it previously planned.
Google has outlined details of a new Gmail feature that gives users five second to 'unsend' a message. This panic-button style feature means that whenever you send a message an 'undo' link will appear on the send mail confirmation. If you click on the link the message will return to the composition stage. While the feature does offer that little bit of time to users it has its limitations: "This feature can't pull back an e-mail that's already gone; it just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the panic button," Michael Leggett, user experience designer for Google, wrote on the official Gmail blog. Last October Google released a Gmail feature called Mail Goggles, which aims to prevent users from sending a late night mail they may regret.
Carol Bartz, chief executive officer with Yahoo, has stepped down from her position on the Intel board. John Donahoe, president and chief executive of eBay, and Frank Yeary, vice chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley will replace Bartz on the board. Donahoe was appointed chief executive of eBay last year, while Yeary is an adviser to the chancellor and his senior staff at UC Berkeley. Stepping down from the Intel board will free up more of Bartz's time as she settles into her new role at Yahoo and tackles the continuing prospect of a search deal with Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has said that satellite navigation firm TomTom is countersuing the software giant for an alleged patent breach. Microsoft had filed a patent case against TomTom in February saying the sat-nav firm infringed on eight of its patents, and now TomTom has launched a legal action of its own, claiming that Microsoft's Streets and Trips program infringes on four of its patents. TomTom is requesting damages for wilful infringement, as the firm claims it had previously contacted Microsoft about the program's alleged infringement.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 