IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 8 October
08-10-2007
by Stephen Errity
Vodafone expands in Spain and Italy | IBM and Google fund cloud research
The Irish Examiner reports that consulting firm Deloitte is to create 230 graduate positions for the coming year, a rise of over 25 percent on last year. Positions will be available in Dublin, Cork and Limerick across all departments of the firm, including audit, tax, consulting and financial advisory services.
The paper also says that Irish consumers are being targeted in a worldwide EUR1.4 billion fake cheque scam. Police in Nigeria seized counterfeit Dublin EBS and Bank of Ireland cheques during a global operation against internet and mass-marketing fraud. The operation, led by Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency, involved raids across three continents that were the result of a police operation sparked by email-based fraud, bogus lotteries and losses suffered by buyers and sellers on auction websites.
The Wall Street Journal says that IBM and Google are starting a programme on college campuses to promote computer-programming techniques for clusters of processors known as "clouds". IBM chief Samuel Palmisano and Google CEO Eric Schmidt said each company will spend between USD20 million and USD25 million on hardware, software and services that can be used by computer-science professors and students. So-called cloud computing allows computers in remote data centres to run in parallel, increasing their processing power.
According to the Financial Times, Atos Origin could be back in play after the struggling French IT services group's two largest shareholders formed a shareholder pact that controls almost 20 percent of the company's capital. Centaurus Capital, the UK activist hedge fund which holds a 10 percent stake, has teamed up with Pardus Capital Management, a US activist investment fund that has close to a 9.5 percent stake in the firm. According to a source, the two funds are expected to press for one or more seats on Atos' management board. "Both funds want Atos to participate in the consolidation of the IT services sector," said the source. "Either as a buyer or an acquisition target."
The paper also reports that mobile giant Vodafone has purchased Tele2's Italian and Spanish operations for EUR775 million in cash. The purchase from the Swedish telecommunications group will allow Vodafone to offer broadband in the two countries. Tele2 Italy has more than 2.6 million customers, including 400,000 broadband customers, while Tele2 Spain has 550,000 customers, including more than 240,000 broadband subscribers. Vodafone said the transaction was not expected to have a material impact on its 2007/2008 outlook and that it would not have an impact on dividend growth expectations in the near term.
The Sunday Business Post reports that retail giant Tesco is set to launch its own mobile phone service in Ireland next month. Tesco mobile phones will be offered with the 089 number prefix, with network time purchased in bulk from O2 and resold to customers by Tesco. The service is expected to be launched in time for the Christmas market, with a prepaid service being offered initially.
The paper also reports on RTE's announcement that around 3 percent of its online audience is accessing content via mobile phones. The paper notes that although the proportion is small, it still represents a significant number of hits, given that RTE.ie gets in excess of 43 million page impressions per month.
The same paper says that newspapers in the US are beginning to integrate estimated online audience figures into their audited circulation figures. The US Audit Bureau of Circulation approved a new initiative, known as 'Audience-FAX', in July, which allows newspapers to included online readership figures drawn from several sources, including Scarborough Research and Nielsen/NetRatings.
The paper also reports that Galway-based gaming firm Nephin Technologies is hoping to raise EUR1.25 million from the Business Expansion Scheme (BES) to fund the development of a new online gaming community. The company has changed its focus to online gaming recently, previously having worked on games for mobile phones and bespoke branded titles for entertainment multinationals such as Disney and Warner Brothers.
The same paper says that Kevin O'Loughlin, founder of Dublin-based technology services company Nostra Systems, has been nominated for the 2007 Shell Livewire Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, which will be presented at a ceremony in Dublin on 23 October. Nostra is expected to register a turnover of EUR2 million for its first year, exceeding O'Loughlin's initial expectations. The company provides IT products and services to SMEs and also has a partnership agreement with VMWare to offer virtualisation solutions.
The paper also reports that the owners of Dublin firm Cape Technologies have retained control of one division of the company, after it was sold to WeDo Consulting, a subsidiary of Portuguese telecoms company Sonaecom. Cape develops 'revenue assurance' software for the mobile industry which identifies revenue lost due to incorrect call and billing information. Control of the company's telecoms management division is set to be retained by co-founder Richard Sharpe and other original shareholders.
The paper also reports that citizens of Northern Ireland are to have their text messages and mobile phone calls "retained" by telecoms operators, as part of new legislation brought in by the UK government to comply with an EU directive. This law requires the content of text messages and phone calls to be kept for one year and for them to be shared when necessary with the government, the emergency services and semi-state bodies. The change brings the UK in line with the rest of Europe, with similar stipulations already in force in the Republic.
The Sunday Tribune reports that Denis O'Brien's Digicel is facing competition in the Caribbean market from America Movil, the South American telecoms giant owned by Carlos Slim Helu, the world's richest man. America Movil recently made a bid for a controlling stake in Jamaica's MiPhone, one of the 22 Caribbean markets Digicel has entered in the past six years.
The same paper reports that several European firms are among the favourites to buy Eircom's retail division, with Switzerland's Swisscom, France's France Telecom and Germany's Deutsche Telekom all thought to be considering a bid for the business. Eircom owner Babcock & Brown has submitted preliminary proposals to the communications regulator ComReg for splitting the company into retail and wholesale divisions.
The Sunday Times reports on a new method of credit and debit card security that involves the use of 'pass shapes'. Instead of memorising a fixed four-digit PIN, customers instead need to recall the fixed positions of four squares on a grid of randomly generated numbers. To authorise payment, the customer enters the four numbers appearing in the correct squares. The system, known as Gridsure, has been developed by journalist and web designer Jonathan Craymer and Stephen Howes, an IT director and software engineer.
The paper also says that Irish banks have been warned by the government to prepare for a "devastating" attack by hackers, similar to that which happened in Estonia earlier this year, when a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, thought to have been perpetrated by Russian hackers, infected the computers of government agencies, banks and large corporations. Representatives of Irish banks and government agencies attended meetings with the Department of Communications during the week, where the full extent of the Estonian attack was described to them.
Finally, the paper reports on the new social phenomenon known as "lifecasting", which involves people broadcasting their entire lives online through webcams positioned around their home and on their person. Approximately 10,000 Americans are said to engage in the practice, which has so far failed to catch on in other countries.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 