IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 1 November
01-11-2007
by Sylvia Leatham
Ireland maintains competitiveness ranking | IBM to unveil new data security products
The Irish Times reports that Ireland has maintained a position of 22nd in an annual World Economic Forum (WEF) survey of competitive nations. However, the country dropped two places in a key sub-index that focuses on the sustainability of competitiveness. WEF's Global Competitiveness Index ranks 127 nations according to 12 "competitiveness pillars", with the Republic faring worst in infrastructure, where it came 49th. Overall, Ireland scored 5.03 out of a possible seven but ranked poorly for innovation (4.8), infrastructure (4.03) and technological readiness (4.65).
The paper also says that Silicon and Software Systems (S3) has acquired Acacia Semiconductor, as noted by ENN on Wednesday.
The Irish Independent says that more Irish people are going online to book holidays than ever before, with 62 percent of all overseas trips now booked on the internet. Latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that around 1.3 million people used the internet to book trips abroad in the second quarter of 2007, up by 19 percent on the same period of 2006, and more than twice as many as the half a million who went the traditional route of booking through a travel agent.
The Irish Examiner reports that the IEDR has relaxed the rules for the registration of personal dot-ie (.ie) domain names for individuals. Read the full story on ENN.
According to the Financial Times, memory chipmaker Samsung Electronics has bought an Israeli non-memory chip developer, the South Korean company's first cross-border acquisition for a decade. Samsung said it took over TransChip, a fabless chip designer in Israel with about 60 researchers, to strengthen its development capability in the image sensor business. It declined to give the value of the deal but local business newspaper Korea Economic Daily estimated the deal was worth USD70 million.
The Wall Street Journal reports that IBM is launching a "major initiative" to boost sales in the fast-growing data-security market, including USD1.5 billion in spending next year on marketing and product development. That sum "is much more than we've ever spent," said Val Rahmani, a general manager in IBM's services unit. IBM is expected to announce that it will roll out a number of new products as part of the security push, including software that can automatically recognise and track confidential information in a company's computers and block it from going to unauthorised sites.
The paper also says that networking-equipment giant Cisco Systems has said it would almost double its investments in China over five years and create at least two joint ventures there. Cisco said the investments would bring its commitments in China to USD16 billion, from the current USD8.5 billion. The ventures include a partnership with Alibaba Group, China's biggest e-commerce firm, to develop business services for small and midsize companies.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 