IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 27 October
27-10-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
US firm to create 50 Galway jobs | MySpace relaunches as social entertainment hub
The Irish Times reports that PC maker Dell's manufacturing plant in Limerick made a profit of USD9.2 million in the year ended 30 January 2010, according to recently filed accounts. This compares to a USD50.5 million loss made by Dell Products Manufacturing Ltd in 2008, primarily due to an exceptional cost of USD76 million related to the winding down of its operations. Dell Products, which operated the Limerick plant, ceased manufacturing operations in Limerick on 15 December 2009.
The Irish Independent notes that a US company that develops devices to allow hardware and software to talk to each other is creating 50 new jobs in Galway. Synchronoss, which is largely involved in the telecoms industry, is opening its international operations and research and development centre in the Parkmore business park.
The Irish Examiner notes that industry in Europe cut spending on research and development by 2.6 percent last year. Ireland was one of 16 countries surveyed where spending increased, but so did the number of industries included in the results. Despite having factories owned by some of the world's biggest producers of high-tech, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, very few spent money on R&D here.
According to the Financial Times, MySpace will on Wednesday launch a fully revamped version of its website. Site owner News Corp has been considering its options for MySpace, including a sale, according to sources, but it has been holding off on making a decision until the site's relaunch as a social entertainment hub. The revamped MySpace will be a "drastic change" and a significant departure from the site's past, MySpace chief Mike Jones told the newspaper. The new site will encourage users to share and recommend music, film and television content, rewarding the most prolific trendsetters with "virtual tastemaker badges".
The Wall Street Journal reports that file-sharing website LimeWire has been ordered to permanently shut down, six months after a federal judge found it liable for copyright infringement on a "massive scale". On Tuesday, US District Judge Kimba Wood issued a permanent injunction, ordering the service to disable the searching, downloading, uploading or file trading of its software and to block the sharing of unauthorised music files. The lawsuit was brought in 2006 on behalf of major record labels by the Recording Industry Association of America.
The paper also says that business software firm SAP has posted a 12 percent rise in third-quarter net profit to EUR500 million. The results missed analysts' expectations of EUR560 million due to an increased provision for its upcoming lawsuit with competitor Oracle. Costs related to its USD5.8 billion acquisition of Sybase also weighed on profit. Revenue grew 20 percent to EUR3 billion. Oracle has alleged in a lawsuit that a now-defunct SAP subsidiary, TomorrowNow, infringed on Oracle's intellectual property.
The same paper notes that Apple has launched an online store and a simplified Chinese version of its App Store for customers in China. Chinese customers can now order Apple products, including the iPhone 4 and the iPad, online and have the products delivered. Prior to this, iPhone buyers had to order the devices on Apple's Chinese website and pick them up at one of Apple's stores in Beijing or Shanghai.
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Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 