IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 18 February
18-02-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
HP profit beats expectations | BBC to launch free mobile apps
The Irish Times reports that PC maker Hewlett-Packard posted profit and sales exceeding analysts' expectations for the first quarter. Excluding some costs, profit for the period came in at USD1.10 a share, while sales rose to USD31.2 billion. Analysts had predicted a profit of USD1.06 a share and sales of USD30 billion, according to a Bloomberg survey. The company is benefiting from a rebound in demand for PCs, especially low-cost notebooks. HP forecast that second-quarter sales will be around USD29.4 billion to USD29.7 billion and profit, minus some expenses, will reach USD1.03 to USD1.05 a share.
The Irish Examiner reports on the launch of 'Your Country, Your Call'. The initiative invites ideas from people that will create jobs in Ireland and boost the economy. The people or groups behind the two winning ideas will receive EUR100,000 each. The ideas will then be backed by a fund of EUR500,000 so they can be implemented. Ideas can be submitted at www.yourcountryyourcall.ie.
The Wall Street Journal says that hackers in Europe and China successfully broke into computers at nearly 2,500 companies and government agencies over the last 18 months, according to a new report. Security company NetWitness says the attacks were a coordinated global effort that exposed vast amounts of personal and corporate secrets to theft. The hacking operation is still up and running and it is not clear to what extent it has been contained, NetWitness said. Also unclear is the full amount of data stolen and how it was used. Evidence suggests an Eastern European criminal group is behind the operation.
The paper also notes that Google is giving USD2 million to support online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, owner of Wikipedia, said Google has donated USD2 million to further develop the popular site and other projects. The funds will be used to help Wikipedia handle its increasing bandwidth and multimedia needs. In a statement Google co-founder Sergey Brin called Wikipedia "one of the greatest triumphs of the internet… this vast repository of community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is online."
The same paper says that chip-making equipment firm Applied Materials has reported a quarterly profit and a 39 percent jump in revenue. Net income for the first quarter came to USD83 million, or USD0.06 a share, compared with a loss in the year-earlier period of USD133 million, or USD0.10 a share. Revenue climbed to USD1.85 billion from USD1.33 billion. The company said it benefited from chipmakers returning to a boost in production following the downturn.
According to the Financial Times, the BBC is to launch a set of free mobile apps. BBC news and sport apps will first be available for the iPhone, with more coming later in the year for Blackberry, Android and Nokia devices. All the apps will be available free of charge to BBC licence-fee payers, and with advertising for smartphone owners abroad.
The paper also says that France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have offered concessions to the European Commission in order to get regulatory approval for a merger of their mobile units in the UK. The two telcos have told the EU that the combined Orange/T-Mobile entity would be prepared to relinquish up to 25 percent of the spectrum it will hold in the 1800 MHz bandwidth. However, sources said O2 UK and Vodafone's British business did not believe that Orange and T-Mobile were proposing to give up enough spectrum. France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are also open to their new entity entering into an infrastructure-sharing agreement with Three.
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