Weekly Digest
Weekly Digest Issue No. 481
03-09-2009
by Emmet Cole
Nokia phones get more social | Gmail suffers another outage
Smart Telecom goes into examinership
Telecoms provider Smart Telecom filed for examinership with the High Court this week, with court-appointed examiner John McStay (of McStay Luby examiners) taking charge of company affairs. In a statement, Smart Telecom -- which has 14,000 residential customers and 600 business customers -- said that it is "currently in advanced discussions with a small number of third parties who have expressed interest in acquiring the entire customer base and assets of the company." According to reports, those parties are believed to be Dublin-based Magnet Networks, a fully owned subsidiary of US-based private equity investment company Columbia Ventures Corporation, and Irish telecoms and internet services provider Digiweb. Magnet Networks would not comment on reports that it is preparing a bid for Smart. Similarly, Digiweb declined to comment "at this stage". Smart owes its lenders around EUR52.2 million. Mark Kellett, CEO of Magnet Networks, commented that ComReg had to take some responsibility for Smart Telecom's situation due to the slow pace of regulation reform.
eBay offloads Skype
eBay has sold most of internet telephony firm Skype to a group of private investors in a deal worth USD1.9 billion. The sale -- first hinted at in April -- sees eBay retain 35 percent of Skype and values the firm at USD2.75 billion, a notable decrease on the USD3.1 billion eBay paid for Skype in 2005. The investors are led by Silver Lake Partners and include venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures. Skype remains a candidate for the initial public offering mooted earlier this year, but investors are expected to focus first on internal investment to expand Skype's reach. eBay sold recommendation site StumbleUpon in April, citing a lack of synergy between it and eBay's core business -- the same problem that afflicted Skype. The Skype deal comes with some risk for the new investors, however, since eBay has only been licensing Skype's peer-to-peer software from Skype's original founders. eBay and Skype's founders are currently engaged in a legal dispute over the use of this software. eBay and Silver Lake have so far declined to comment on how the terms of the deal address the ongoing litigation.
Is recession nearing an end?
There have been tentative signs that the recession may be coming to an end from the tech sector, with good news from bellwether chip firm Intel and leading PC maker Dell. Intel raised its third quarter revenue guidance, citing strong demand for its products. The company now expects sales to be between USD8.8 billion and USD9.2 billion, an increase on the USD8.1 billion to USD8.9 billion predicted in July. It's still less than the USD10.2 billion in sales Intel registered in Q3 2008, but the signs are good. Meanwhile, executives at Dell spoke of signs of a recovery, despite posting a quarterly profit, down 23 percent on the same period last year. Sales rose slightly compared to earlier this year, although the manufacturer suffered its fourth consecutive quarterly drop. Meanwhile, market analyst IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker found that factory revenue in the worldwide server market declined 30.1 percent year-over-year to USD9.8 billion in Q2 09. However, IDC is predicting that market conditions will stabilise over the coming months as companies start investing in upgrading their server technology.
Nokia phones get more social
Nokia took the opportunity presented by the Nokia World conference in Stuttgart, Germany, this week to reveal new mobile phone models and a deal with Facebook to bring social networking functionality to Nokia mobiles. Available on the new N97 phone, Nokia's "lifecasting" service will let users update their location and status directly to Facebook through a Nokia Ovi account. The N97 will retail for EUR450 when it starts shipping in October. A new, music-centred X6 phone will feature 32 gigabytes of memory, play up to 35 hours of music, a 3.2-inch touch-screen and is expected to retail for EUR450. Meanwhile, the compact X3 (EUR115) provides direct access to Nokia's music store and features a built-in FM radio and 3.2 megapixel camera. The company also offered more details about the forthcoming Nokia Booklet 3G netbook -- Nokia's first attempt to diversify into the growing netbook market -- which will ship in the fourth quarter of 2009. The device will retail for EUR575 and will come with a 10-inch screen, 1GB of memory, a 120GB hard drive, and a built-in GPS navigation chip coupled to Nokia's Ovi Maps software.
Gmail suffers another outage
Google's cloud computing message has been weakened following a two-hour Gmail outage on Tuesday. The problem occurred when some Gmail servers were taken offline for maintenance and the replacements could not handle the extra traffic. "We know how many people rely on Gmail for personal and professional communications, and we take it very seriously when there's a problem with the service," wrote Ben Treynor, vice president of engineering for Gmail, in a blog post. Gmail was also hit with a four-hour outage in February and a 20-minute outage in May. The free version of Gmail is the world's third most popular e-mail program, with an estimated 150 million users. Meanwhile, the results of a new global survey by market analysts Spiceworks show that while more than half of small and midsize companies use at least one cloud service -- with web hosting (25 percent), e-mail (21 percent) and online backup (16 percent) leading the way -- they're still showing caution about fully embracing the technology.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 