IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 27 November
27-11-2009
by Sylvia Leatham
Cork Option Wireless jobs to go | Tiscali call centre to close
The Irish Times reports that Cork firm Option Wireless is to make 150 people redundant, less than a year after Tanaiste Mary Coughlan announced the company was going to recruit 145 extra staff. The company said it was going to significantly downsize, with the 150 job cuts bringing losses at the plant in the past year to more than 200 staff. The Cork plant is the company's primary customisation, logistics and fulfilment site.
The paper also says that the Tiscali contact centre in Sligo is to close in six months with the loss of 160 jobs. The call centre, which was taken over by new owners just five months ago, is part of the TalkTalk group, a UK supplier of phone and broadband services. "As processes improve and fewer customers call us, we have taken the decision to consolidate and create centres of excellence enabling us to serve our customers better. The result is that work currently undertaken in Sligo will be moved to other locations, including Waterford," the company said.
The paper also says that DSG International, which operates in Ireland as Currys and PC World, has gained market share and seen sales rise in recent weeks. In an interim trading statement, the group said the environment remained "very challenging" in Ireland but that the business had taken a more aggressive trading position in recent weeks, which had led to improved sales. The group, which does not break out figures for Ireland, said total sales in Britain and Ireland were down 11 percent to STG1.63 billion in the six-month period to 31 October, compared to STG1.83 billion a year earlier. Underlying operating losses were STG16 million compared to losses of STG10.6 million in 2008.
The paper also reports that the internet poses a "huge threat" to the traditional structure and financing of the newspaper industry, according to Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy. She was speaking at a public discourse on press freedom at NUI Galway's Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies. "While the internet represents freedom in many ways, it does not necessarily represent the freedom of the press that is important to democracy and communal and individual freedom in society," she said. "Who is that blogger, what is their agenda, who is paying for it, who or what is behind that glossy site extolling some virtue or vice?"
The same paper says that teaching cultural diversity has become more innovative with a new program that can be delivered directly to your mobile phone, iPod or PC. The multimedia training programme 'Managing Workplace Diversity' is a partnership between Dublin City University and Dublin-based learning and communications company Channel Content. The video-based project, which can be tailored for individual users, was originally devised as part of a collaborative effort between a number of universities in a pan-European project. DCU was the co-ordinator of the project.
The paper also says that HeyStaks, a UCD-based start-up, will unveil Version 1 of its groundbreaking search tool over the next few weeks. The company has developed a browser plug-in that is meant to complement popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. HeyStaks works by adding key organisational and collaborative tools on top of these search engines that enable users to organise and build on search results on a particular subject.
The Irish Examiner says that a survey by Convergys Corp shows that a negative review or comment on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube can lose companies as many as 30 customers. A customer review on one of the sites reaches an average audience of 45 people, two-thirds of whom would avoid or completely stop doing business with a company they heard bad things about, Convergys said.
The paper also says that systems to help give more accurate warnings about rising water levels are being developed by DCU researchers testing technology on the River Lee in Cork. While the sensors giving depth measurements at two points on the river every 15 minutes might not prevent the volume of water flowing downstream, the project manager said real-time updates could help with making decisions in the aftermath of the kind of rainfalls which led to devastation in Cork and other parts of the country in the past week. Dr Fiona Regan of DCU's National Centre for Sensor Research said the DEPLOY project will have collected a year of data at the end of March.
The paper also says that mobile operator Three has launched MiFi, a small device that acts as a wireless modem. Read more on this story on ENN.
According to the Financial Times, the recent acquisition of Tiscali boosted first-half revenues at Carphone Warehouse. For the six months ending in September, Carphone Warehouse made a pre-tax profit of STG30 million, compared to a loss of STG23 million in the year-ago period, on revenues that rose 13 percent to STG789 million. Earnings per share from continuing operations were STG0.022 compared to a loss per share of STG0.018 last year. However, in spite of the boost from Tiscali, which was bought for STG236 million in March, the group saw a continued fall in organic revenues at TalkTalk due to a decline in fixed-line customers.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony expects new 3D compatible televisions to account for up to half the TVs it sells in roughly three years. Sony plans to introduce a 3D compatible television next year, and those types of sets will account for between 30 percent and 50 percent of all televisions sold by the fiscal year ending in 2013. Hiroshi Yoshioka, Sony's executive deputy president, also said the company is holding talks with several carmakers to enter into the market for lithium-ion car batteries. He did not name the automakers.
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