IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 27 July
27-07-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Government plans rural broadband scheme | O2 apologises for BlackBerry outage
The Irish Times reports that the Government plans to invest EUR2.4 billion in scientific research up to 2016 and another EUR1.2 billion in Ireland's enterprise base. With other programmes, this means a combined EUR3.8 billion will be spent in pursuit of the Government's smart economy agenda. The funds will be channelled through programmes run by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, including IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions.
The Irish Independent says that rural home-owners will have to wait until 2012 for fast broadband access. A rural broadband scheme will be launched later this year on top of the National Broadband Scheme, as part of the Government's capital investment review. Despite the timeline, news of the scheme was welcomed as a boost to Government plans to sell Ireland as a smart economy. "Essentially, this is about directing funds to where maximum return is provided for Ireland," said John Power, director general of Engineers Ireland.
The paper also notes that a senior credit market analyst believes the majority of debt investors in Eircom are waiting for the company to deliver its quarterly results in August before forming an opinion on whether the telco is likely to breach debt covenants. One group of bondholders has hired US investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin to advise them on their options in relation to their debt holdings in Eircom, which is now controlled by STT. Speaking anonymously, the market analyst said one of the issues facing Eircom's debt holders is that STT's intentions have not been made clear.
The paper also says that thousands of people were left without access to email and the internet on Monday after O2's BlackBerry service failed. The outage, which began before noon and lasted until after 6pm, only affected O2 customers using a BlackBerry. Users were not informed of the issue unless they contacted O2 directly, and O2 did not publish any notification on its website. "Due to a technical issue which affected connectivity between O2 Ireland and Research In Motion… O2's BlackBerry customers were unable to send and receive emails. Voice and text services were unaffected. O2 apologises to affected customers for any inconvenience caused," said a spokesman.
The Wall Street Journal reports that EU antitrust authorities have opened formal investigations into IBM's conduct in the market for mainframe computers. One of the probes was spurred by complaints from two small tech firms that IBM improperly blocks customers from using the mainframe's operating system without IBM's own expensive hardware. The other probe is examining whether IBM is crushing third-party providers of spare mainframe parts.
The paper also says that Apple's control over its iPhone and other devices via its iTunes store was undercut on Monday by a federal ruling that legalises 'jailbreaking', or altering the devices to install unapproved software. The Library of Congress, which helps oversee copyright law, removed a legal cloud over the altering of iPhones, iPads and iPods to install and run software not purchased from Apple. Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at Electronic Freedom Foundation, the digital-rights organisation that pushed for the change, said the ruling could open the door for third-party app stores.
According to the Financial Times, UK chip design firm ARM Holdings has beaten market expectations with its interim results. Revenue for the second quarter soared 54 percent to STG100 million, boosted by an unexpected one-off royalty catch-up payment. Pre-tax profits rose 167 percent to STG43.5 million, while the interim dividend rose 20 percent. Analysts had been expecting pre-tax profits of STG33 million on revenues of STG90 million.
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