IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 22 September
22-09-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Trintech receives takeover attention | Tyndall and Intel sign research agreement
The Irish Times reports that financial software firm Trintech has received approaches from a "number of parties" that may lead to a takeover bid for the company. The directors said "discussions are at a very preliminary stage and that there can be no certainty that they will lead to any definitive agreement regarding any transaction". In a statement, Trintech said further announcements would be made as appropriate. Trintech maintains a Dublin headquarters but is largely run out of Dallas, Texas.
The paper also says that a Europe-wide 'trustmark' that would guarantee the quality of products sold on the internet is among the proposals backed by MEPs to encourage e-commerce across the EU. The European Commission would supervise the 'trustmark' displayed on websites and it would be based on EU law, according to the recommendations in a European Parliament report to make internet sales safer. The report was adopted by the parliament after it revealed that 60 percent of customer attempts to buy items across EU borders fail.
The same paper says that forecasts of activity on the Sun that can disrupt telecommunications systems on Earth are set to improve, thanks to research carried out at Trinity College Dublin. Using data from twin satellites that offer three-dimensional views of the Sun, scientists tracked how streams of energy from solar storms travel from the Sun's atmosphere to Earth. Solar storms' magnetic properties can interfere with satellites, GPS and telecoms systems. Dr Peter Gallagher and colleagues at Trinity's school of physics and the Trinity Centre for High Performance Computing have been analysing images streaming back to Earth from cameras aboard Nasa's twin satellites.
The paper also notes that Leitrim County Council is to hold a special meeting to consider whether to mount a legal challenge to An Bord Pleanala's decision to allow the erection of two broadband masts. Local residents are furious at the decisions in relation to the masts at Aughacashel and Carrigallen, which they say are in breach of the county development plan, which prohibits the construction of such telecoms structures within 500 metres of residential dwellings. The company involved, Hutchison 3G Ireland, said it was working on behalf of the Government, having won a tender in December 2008 to bring broadband to rural areas.
The paper also reports that shared services centres in Ireland have the potential to create significant new employment, as research from Accenture says that management at 48 percent of them expect to increase their number of employees next year. The research, carried out in association with IDA Ireland and the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, found there were now 140 such centres in Ireland, employing 35,000 staff. Shared services centres typically provide functions such as technical support, finance and accounting, human resources and payroll to their parent organisation in a number of countries.
The Irish Examiner says that a Cork-based firm specialising in business process services has said that it cannot fill job vacancies because not enough people are applying to work there. SouthWestern chief executive Stephen Hegarty said the company had a range of positions to fill but that they were not receiving enough CVs from interested jobseekers. "We currently have 40 vacancies… and we are looking for people from entry level right up to network administrators. We are one of the biggest employers in West Cork but we are not getting enough CVs sent into us to fill the positions," he said.
The paper also reports that the Tyndall National Institute and chip giant Intel are to embark on a EUR1.14 million collaboration. The deal will put researchers at the Cork centre in direct and regular contact with Intel's research headquarters in Oregon, working on materials and technology to further improve the company's chips, which are used in around 80 percent of the world's computers.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle have agreed to settle a legal dispute over the hiring of Mark Hurd. HP had sued Hurd after its former chief executive joined Oracle as co-president earlier this month. HP alleged Hurd was breaching his severance agreement. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but in a regulatory filing, HP said Hurd had agreed to give back about 345,000 restricted HP shares that he had been given as part of his exit package.
The Financial Times says that Twitter is testing targeting technology that aims to generate more income from its paid advertisements by allowing advertisers to show promoted tweets to users based on the people and brands they follow. One in five of Twitter's 160 million registered members follow brands or product-related users. Twitter plans to use this information to allow advertisers to display what it hopes will be more relevant messages. Separately, Twitter had to patch a security flaw on Tuesday that affected thousands of users. Users rolling their mouse over certain links would see pop-up messages and in some cases links to pornography. The virus could then access users' accounts and post links without their knowledge. Twitter said the problem had been "fully patched" by early morning.
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