IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 6 May
06-05-2010
by Deirdre McArdle
EasyTV given time to consider DTT contract | Facebook bug affects private chats
The Irish Independent reports that the Broadcasting Authority is understood to have given the EasyTV, a joint bid by RTE and UPC owner Liberty Global, until mid-May to indicate "in principle" whether they're prepared to step into One Vision's shoes and deliver Digital Terrestrial Television in Ireland. EasyTV was the last-placed applicant in the original DTT contest back in May 2008. The first-placed applicant, Boxer DTT, debated the contract for almost a year before handing it back, with second-placed One Vision doing the same thing just last week.
The paper also reports on the launch of a new price comparison site called bonkers.ie. The site features comparison services for electricity, savings accounts, current accounts, credit cards and personal loans.
The Wall Street Journal says that social network Facebook temporarily shut down its instant-messaging function on Wednesday in order to fix a software flaw that gave users unintended access to their friends' private instant messages. Facebook said the bug was caused by an update to its software and was in effect "for a limited period of time," which a spokesman described as "hours". The spokesman said the company was still investigating how many users had chats exposed and believes the number is small.
According to the same paper security software firm Symantec posted fiscal fourth quarter profit of USD184 million, or USD0.23 a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of USD264 million, or USD0.32 a share. Revenue climbed 4.3 percent, to USD1.53 billion. Symantec said it now projects first-quarter earnings of USD0.35 to USD0.36 a share on revenue of USD1.48 billion to USD1.5 billion. Last week, Symantec announced it would buy two privately held e-mail and data encryption companies -- PGP Group and GuardianEdge -- for a total of USD370 million.
The paper also reports that Hewlett-Packard has announced the appointment of Bill Veghte, a key player in Microsoft's launch of its Windows 7 operating system, as the new leader of its software and solutions division. The appointment will be effective from 17 May. Veghte worked at Microsoft for 20 years, most recently as vice president for the Windows business.
The Financial Times writes that the Federal Communications Commission will seek to regulate broadband service providers such as Comcast and AT&T under a more rigorous legal framework. The move would open the door for the FCC to implement so-called net neutrality regulations that would bar the companies from favouring some content and discriminating against other traffic over their networks. The FCC decision comes in the wake of an appeals court ruling last month that, in effect, stripped the FCC of its authority to regulate broadband companies. Google, Amazon and other content groups strongly support net neutrality rules.
The paper also reports that business software firm Sage said pre-tax profits for the six months to end of March rose 15 percent to STG159.6 million and earnings per share increased from STG0.0743 to STG0.086 as the firm made significant cost cuts. The UK firm said turnover from subscriptions continued to offset declines in new sales as revenue for the six months fell 4 percent to STG718.9 million.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 