Weekly Digest
Weekly Digest Issue No. 515
13-05-2010
by Deirdre McArdle
Irish firms get lucky Down Under | Nokia v Apple: patent spat continues
Fewer students taking honours maths
It's that time of year again as the Leaving Certificate looms large ahead of thousands of students around the country. And again it's time for the thorny issue of higher level maths to take centre stage. Official figures reveal that only 19.5 percent, or 10,101 students, have indicated they will choose to sit the higher level maths paper next month. This is down from 19.9 percent at this point last year, and 21 percent in 2008.
Encouraging more students to take the higher maths paper is seen as critical to the Government's so-called 'smart economy' plans. Shortly after taking up her new post as Education Minister, Tanaiste Mary Coughlan expressed her support for awarding bonus points for college entry to students taking maths at honours level. However, this week Coughlan said she would not have the final say on this issue and that it would be up to each university or institute of technology to decide if they wish to award bonus points. If this were to happen though, the necessary arrangements would not be finalised before next September, meaning it would be students sitting the Leaving Cert in 2013, at the earliest, who would benefit.
University presidents reacted positively to Minister Coughlan's proposals for bonus CAO points for honours maths with Dr John Hughes, president of NUI Maynooth, suggesting universities would respond in a favourable way to the proposal. Dr Hughes is the current chair of the Irish Universities Association (IUA), the group which represents the seven university presidents. In the meantime, Minister Coughlan has also asked college presidents to accept students who achieve a grade "E" (fail) in higher level maths.
Irish firms get lucky Down Under
Irish firms on a trade mission to Australia with Billy Kelleher, Minister for Trade and Commerce, enjoyed a successful trip last week. In all, contracts worth around EUR15 million were signed, representing deals in a variety of sectors including software and e-learning.
Among those who signed contracts was Folamh, a Dublin-based recycling company, which signed a EUR3.5 million deal with Sony Australia to reduce the number of mobile handsets ending up in landfills.
Louth e-learning company Learnosity also struck it lucky, securing a EUR100,000 contract with Queensland's Association of Independent Schools, which will see Learnosity roll out its voice assessment and learning solution. Making the announcement, Minister Kelleher said Learnosity was "a prime example of the technology-led, export focussed companies that are leading Ireland's smart economy".
Meanwhile, Irish financial software giants Norkom and Trintech both scored significant contracts: Norkom with National Australia Bank and Trintech with ANZ Bank. Financial details of those deals were not disclosed. And Dublin-based Fineos, which has had a presence in Australia since 2003, announced several new contracts for the installation of its claims processing platform with a number of clients.
Finally, Dublin start-up Currency Fair, an internet-based platform that creates a new marketplace for currency exchange, made its global launch in Sydney during the trade mission. According to Enterprise Ireland, Australia is the ninth largest export market in the world for Irish companies, with EUR200 million worth of our exports going to the country each year.
O2 sees bill-pay growth
O2 Ireland posted its first-quarter key performance indicators (KPIs) on Thursday, with the mobile operator reporting a significant increase in bill-pay customers. In all, O2 added 10,068 bill-pay customers during the first three months of the year, bringing its bill-pay customer tally to 701,833, its highest level ever. Meanwhile, O2's pre-pay base declined by 18,730 customers during the quarter.
The trend of falling average revenue per user (ARPU) continued with monthly ARPU for bill-pay customers coming in at EUR60.12, up from EUR58.85 in the previous quarter but down from EUR64.51 for the same period last year. Monthly ARPU for pre-pay customers was EUR21.75, down from EUR26.49 in the fourth quarter, and down from EUR24.19 for the same period last year.
O2 also said it had upgraded its mobile broadband speeds and will be rolling out the faster service later this summer. It said it will offer speeds of up to 21Mbps firstly in Dublin, followed by Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. The operator said it currently has over 142,000 mobile broadband customers on its network. Overall, O2 Ireland had a total customer base at the end of March 2010 of 1,705,617.
Nokia v Apple: patent spat continues
The patent spat between Nokia and Apple continued last week with the Finnish mobile phone maker filing another suit, claiming a further five infringements by Apple. These patents cover speech codecs, data transmission, the use of location information in applications, and compact-antenna designs, all of which Nokia claims are infringed by the iPhone and iPad 3G.
The spat started last October when Nokia first sued Apple. Apple then countersued Nokia in December, and later that month Nokia added more patents to its list, and claimed that "virtually all" of Apple's products violated its patents. In March of this year a US judge told both Apple and Nokia to take a time out on the suing and countersuing. This latest suit was filed in Wisconsin.
It's not clear yet what Nokia is hoping to achieve by slapping Apple with a patent suit. True, the Finnish firm is struggling with the lack of a killer smartphone device that could challenge the iPhone. In fact, this week Nokia announced a sweeping overhaul of its business as it faced increasingly unhappy investors. It will now combine its smartphone and mobile services businesses into a single unit as it searches for an iPhone killer. The reorganisation was accompanied by a wide-ranging management shake-up, which included Anssi Vanjoki, former head of the firm's markets division, taking charge of the new mobile solutions unit. Analysts commenting on the changes at Nokia said it was noteworthy that no new talent had been brought in. This is the second major restructuring at Nokia in the past seven months.
E-reader market heats up
The past year has seen the e-reader market explode, with devices being launched on a regular basis by booksellers and tech firms. A survey released this week by the Boston Consulting Group gave an indication of how this burgeoning market may develop. The study found that 28 percent of the 13,000 internet users globally that it surveyed said they intended to buy either a tablet device or an e-reader in the next year, while 49 percent said they would buy one within three years.
The one sticking point that emerged in the survey was price, however. The report suggests that mass adoption would depend on the price of dedicated e-readers like the Kindle or Sony Reader falling to USD100-USD150, and the price of multi-purpose devices like the iPad dropping to USD130-USD200.
It seems that bookseller Borders got the message on pricing; it launched an e-reader, the Kobo (see what they did there?) this week at a price point of USD149.99. Amazon and Barnes & Noble's devices, the Kindle and the Nook, sell for USD259. Borders is a latecomer to the e-reader market and as such the low price point was probably necessary if it's to make any impact. Analysts are now watching to see what effect the cut-price device will have on the other players in the market, and whether it will force them to lower their asking price.
Sales of e-reading devices in the US are expected to grow to 5 million this year from 2.2 million in 2009, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. On top of that number, Apple has already sold over 1 million iPads, a figure that's likely to soar as it launches worldwide later this month.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 