IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 30 November
30-11-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Trintech sale approved by shareholders | Vodafone to cut data roaming charges
The Irish Times reports that staff numbers and the management team at the Irish base of Trintech are expected to remain mostly unchanged following the company's sale to US firm Spectrum. After an extraordinary general meeting in Dublin, at which shareholders approved the sale, company founder Cyril McGuire said it would be "business as usual" following Spectrum's acquisition, which is expected to be finalised by the end of the year. While it was believed McGuire would remain with the company during the transition phase, he said he intended to pursue a number of projects in the technological field.
The Irish Examiner says that IT outsourcing firm Fexco has won three contact centre industry awards in Britain and Ireland. Working in partnership with Bord Gais Networks, Fexco won the Team of the Year award in Britain's Customer Contact Association (CCA) Excellence Awards 2010. The companies also collaborated to win this year's Complaints Team of the Year award. Separately, FEXCO won the Contact Centre of the Year award, together with Bord Gais Networks, in the Irish Contact Centre & Shared Services Awards 2010.
The paper also says that Pocket Anatomy, a Galway-based medical education software company, has won the Special Award for Media in Education at this year's European MEDEA 2010 Media in Education awards in Brussels. The aim of the awards is to encourage innovation and good practice in the use of media -- audio, video, graphics and animation -- in education. The awards also recognise and promote excellence in the production and pedagogical design of media-rich learning resources.
According to the Financial Times, US smartphone users have significantly increased the volume of product searches and sales made via mobile devices so far this Christmas season. Fiona Dias, head of strategy at GSI Commerce, which provides e-commerce services to retailers, said that a survey of retailers showed that sales from mobile devices accounted for almost 3 percent of online sales on the Friday and Saturday after the US Thanksgiving holiday last Thursday, compared with "practically zero" last year. "You are talking about a nine or 10 times increase in penetration... although there's still a way to go," she said.
The paper also says that Vodafone is cutting the cost of data roaming charges. The group announced on Monday that it was reducing the cost of customers' mobile data downloads when travelling in its European markets in the hope it would encourage more people to buy smartphones such as Apple's iPhone. One big barrier to smartphone take-up has been customers' fear of large bills if using handsets abroad. Vodafone's new data roaming charges will apply across its 12 European markets. The charges vary between countries.
The Wall Street Journal says that Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, is exploring ways to create a do-not-track mechanism that could offer internet users a way to avoid being monitored online. The effort comes just months after Mozilla killed a powerful new tool to limit tracking under pressure from an ad-industry executive, the paper says. Mozilla says it did not scrap the tool because of pressure, but rather out of concern it would force advertisers to use even sneakier techniques that could slow down the performance of some websites.
The paper also says that Gartner has cut its global PC shipments forecast for 2010 and 2011 as consumers rein in spending and interest grows in tablet devices. Tablet devices are expected to displace 10 percent of PC shipments by 2014, according to the research firm. The impact of tablets is already evident this year, when PC shipments are projected to total 352.4 million units, up 14.3 percent from last year. The group had earlier projected a growth rate of 17.9 percent for this year. Next year, PC unit sales are expected to reach 409 million units, up 15.9 percent year-over-year, slower than Gartner's earlier projection of 18.1 percent.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 