IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 28 January
28-01-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Nintendo profit falls | Oracle to invest in R&D
The Irish Times reports that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has unveiled the iPad, a new class of tablet computer, at a press conference in San Francisco. Look out for news and analysis on the iPad in our Weekly Digest on Thursday.
The paper also says that Japanese online games firm Gala is to expand its Dublin-based European headquarters, creating 103 jobs. Read more on this story on ENN.
The Irish Independent reports that TV3's website, tv3.ie recorded 535,400 unique users in December, up more than four times on the site's performance the month it launched, October 2008. Catch-up TV has been a major driver of the site growth. TV3 has secured web rights for 93 shows and monthly views of the service run to almost 1.1 million. TV3 said short ad clips ahead of its catch-up shows have helped to drive a 400 percent increase in the site's revenue between October 2008 and December 2009.
The Irish Examiner reports that talks are taking place that would see Irish banks offer technology allowing mobile users to pay for small purchases with their phones. Representatives from Visa Europe are in Dublin this week to meet with Irish banks with a view to bringing this technology to Ireland. It is hoping the plans will be finalised by 2011. Wireless technology called Near Field Communication will be integrated into mobile phones to enable owners to make purchases.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Nintendo's net profit fell 9.4 percent in the first nine months of the fiscal year from the year-earlier period. Nintendo posted group net income of JPY192.6 billion for the period, compared to a profit of JPY212.52 billion the previous year. Revenue fell 23 percent to JPY1.182 trillion, while operating profit fell 41 percent to JPY296.66 billion. Nintendo cut the price of its Wii games console by 20 percent before Christmas. Revenue also suffered due to a strengthening of the yen against the euro and US dollar.
The paper also says that Oracle is to grow its research and development spending by USD1.5 billion as a result of its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Oracle spent USD2.8 billion on R&D in the fiscal year ended in May. Charles Phillips, company co-president, said that figure will jump to USD4.3 billion, as Oracle upgrades some of Sun's product lines. Sun spent USD1.6 billion on R&D in its fiscal year ended in June. Oracle also said it would maintain a separate sales force and development team for the MySQL database software.
According to the Financial Times, electronics group Canon posted a sharp rise in profits for the crucial Christmas period. Fourth-quarter net profit rose more than fivefold from the previous year to JPY62 billion (USD692 million), thanks in part to healthy camera sales. Sales came in at JPY954 billion, up 4.1 percent on the year-ago period. Canon also forecast a strong recovery in 2010, saying it expects net profit to rise by more than half to JPY200 billion, up from JPY132 billion in 2009.
Free! "In the papers" email newsletter -- get the full text to your in-box every business day. Email itp@enn.ie with 'subscribe' in the subject line.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 