IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 23 December
23-12-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Skype suffers global outage | Sony launches music-streaming in Ireland
The Irish Times reports that an Irish subsidiary of Google forwards multi-million investments to data centres in locations such as Vienna, Kuala Lumpur, Cairo and Bermuda, according to company filings. Raiden Ltd, with an address in Dublin, had financial assets of EUR415.3 million at the end of 2009, an increase from EUR170 million at the end of 2008. The company is owned by Google Ireland Holdings, which funds the investments in the data centres by way of share issues from Raiden. During 2009 the company received EUR239.5 million by way of capital contributions from its parent, which it used to invest in its data centre subsidiaries. The accounts list 12 subsidiaries in Europe, Malaysia, Egypt and Bermuda. A spokeswoman for Google said it complies fully with relevant tax legislation in the countries it operates in, including Ireland.
The Irish Examiner says that Eircom Wholesale and managed network services firm Interfusion have secured five new customer wins, including Bord na Mona and SIAC Construction, using Eircom Wholesale's NGN fibre-optic platform. In June, Eircom Wholesale launched NGN Ethernet, a wholesale telecom service that enables operators such as Interfusion to deliver services at speeds of up to 1 Gbps to business customers.
The paper also notes that Skype Technologies chief Tony Bates has said he plans to fuel growth at the company by adding corporate partnerships and hiring engineers to build new products, as the company readies for an IPO. Bates, who joined Skype in October from Cisco Systems, said in an interview that agreements with other companies will be an increasingly important part of Skype's development. He plans to hire as many as 500 people next year.
In other news of Skype, the Financial Times says that the internet calling service suffered a global outage on Wednesday. Skype said some users were having problems signing in. Users in the US, Asia and Europe complained of the outage on social network site Twitter. In its Twitter feed, the company apologised for the disruption and said it was investigating the cause. Around 3.30pm EST, it said the service was returning to normal, but that it may take several hours for everyone to be able to use it again. No explanation has been given so far for the outage.
The paper also says that Sony has begun a global rollout of its cloud-based music streaming service, with an initial launch in the UK and Ireland. Sony's Music Unlimited service offers access to 6 million songs through the Japanese company's internet-linked televisions, Blu-ray video players, PlayStation games consoles and Vaio personal computers. Kazuo Hirai, executive vice-president in charge of Sony's network business, said the service would be offered only on Sony hardware for the first several years, though the company might make it compatible with products from other manufacturers in the future. In the UK, Sony will charge Music Unlimited users STG3.99 a month to listen to a selection of music channels and STG9.99 a month for the ability to choose individual tracks on demand.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg met with some of China's top technology executives on a visit to Beijing this week that was billed as a vacation. The trip has fuelled speculation about the company's ambitions to enter a market where it is blocked by censors. Zuckerberg on Wednesday visited the offices of Sina Corp, a leading Chinese web portal, and met with its CEO, Charles Chao. That followed a meeting on Tuesday with Wang Jianzhou, chairman of state-owned telecoms operator China Mobile, and a visit on Monday with Robin Li, CEO of search engine Baidu. The trip appeared to be an effort by Zuckerberg to learn more about the Chinese market, rather than discuss any specific business proposals.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 