IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 18 October
18-10-2007
by Sylvia Leatham
Cisco execs arrested in Brazil | Nintendo faces Wii price pressure
The Irish Independent says that Eircom owner Babcock & Brown Capital has disclosed for the first time just how valuable the company's network could be if it is run as a standalone business after the proposed sale of its retail arm. Speaking at a telecoms conference in Brussels, Babcock director Robert Topfer said that the network business could be valued at 12 times EBITDA -- double that of the six-times multiple currently applied by the market to incumbents like Eircom.
The paper also says that the wrong people could be prosecuted because of the limitations of the Garda PULSE computer system, a district court judge has warned. Judge Desmond Zaidan made his comments at Donegal Circuit Court before dismissing a charge of failure to display a tax disc against a truck driver. When the judge asked Gardai why the driver and not the company in question was being prosecuted, Garda Ignatius McCready told the court that there was a problem with the PULSE system which meant that limited companies could not be summonsed. Judge Zaidan said that a private citizen should not have to pay a fine for a company and warned that the system was open to abuse.
The same paper says a nationwide hunt is under way for a gang responsible for a series of scams at ATMs around the country. The gang, comprised of Eastern European fraudsters, is also believed to be operating in Northern Ireland and moving regularly between the two jurisdictions. Their latest hit was on an ATM outside the Bank of Ireland branch in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, where the gang operated a "skimming" scam. It is estimated they got away with at least EUR50,000. Skimming involves electronically copying account details from an ATM card's magnetic strip onto a blank plastic card.
The paper also claims the Digital Hub "jinx" has struck again, with plans for a EUR150 million revamp of the historic Windmill site at Thomas Street in Dublin axed by An Bord Pleanala. The planning appeals board has refused planning permission to developer P Elliott & Co for a massive 45,785 square metre redevelopment of the 3.2 acre site. The decision reverses an earlier green light for the same project by Dublin City Council.
According to the same paper, the Government has been accused of "lunacy" over its decision to take out 25-year rental leases for storage of the country's mothballed e-voting machines. Fine Gael TD Sean Barrett accused ministers of "wasting more taxpayers' money" on the "sorry saga" of e-voting. "The stubborn decision to cling to the possibility of using the machines in the future ignored all concerns expressed about fraud and hacking into the system," he said.
The Financial Times says that Apple has moved to placate restless software developers by announcing plans to allow software makers to create programs for its iPhone mobile handset. The announcement marks a change of tack for Apple, which has long resisted opening its products to outsiders in favour of closed systems in which it controls the features loaded on its hardware. It is likely to spark a flurry of software development as programmers rush to build applications that take advantage of the iPhone's touch-screen interface and its ability to make calls, browse the internet, and store photos and music.
The paper also says that Brazilian police have arrested 40 people, including three acting senior executives and one former president of the Brazilian subsidiary of Cisco Systems. The arrests concern allegations of tax fraud and other offences involving non-payments of up to USD830 million in duties. The operation followed a two-year investigation and involved 650 officials from the police, tax authorities and public prosecutors. Network equipment maker Cisco confirmed that a "small number" of employees had been detained. "We understand there have been no formal charges," said a spokesman at Cisco's head office in San Jose, California.
According to the same paper, Sony has announced a USD399 PlayStation 3 for the US market, while Microsoft has confirmed it would launch a new USD279 version of the Xbox 360. The moves increase price competition with the Nintendo Wii in time for the crucial Christmas holiday season sales period. The Wii remains the cheapest of the next-generation consoles at USD250.
The Wall Street Journal says that SAP's third quarter net profit increased by 10 percent amid strong revenue growth from software and software-related services. The German software giant's net profit rose to EUR408 million from EUR370 million a year earlier, slightly ahead of analysts' expectations of EUR405 million. SAP's operating margin, a widely watched indicator of the software maker's operational strength, was at 24.8 percent in the third quarter, in line with a year ago. Revenue rose to EUR2.42 billion from EUR2.21 billion a year earlier, slightly below analysts' expectations of EUR2.44 billion.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 