IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 27 June
27-06-2007
by Sylvia Leatham
Eircom to crack down on late payers | CNG Travel MBO likely go ahead
The Irish Independent says that Eircom is planning to crack down on business customers who do not pay their bills on time. The company confirmed it is "looking at processes around the way we manage debt". However, the telco denied it will be targeting residential customers who have not paid their bills and said it will be restructuring its operations internally to make its debt recovery more effective.
The paper also reports that a management buyout at Irish-based CNG Travel looks set to go ahead after the second of two potential rival bidders pulled out of talks to acquire the firm. Last month, CNG chief executive PJ King and Barry Liben, president of US subsidiary Tzell Travel, led a STG9.15 million offer for the beleaguered travel firm. CNG subsequently said it had received rival offers from two unnamed parties, the first of which decided to walk away earlier this month.
The paper also notes that travel chaos was averted at Dublin Airport on Tuesday after a computer glitch brought check-in systems to a halt. Around 5,000 passengers travelling between 1pm and 3pm were affected by the system failure. Airline staff had to resort to the old-fashioned method of checking in passengers manually.
According to the Financial Times, Microsoft scored a victory in its antitrust wrangles with Google on Tuesday as a federal court judge rejected the search firm's attempt to force an extension of government oversight of Microsoft's activities. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who oversees the terms of the four-year-old agreement that settled the US antitrust case against Microsoft, refused to consider a Google application to have the agreement extended beyond November, when large parts of it expire.
The paper also says that UK regulator Ofcom came under fire from British Sky Broadcasting on Tuesday after it said its verdict on the satellite broadcaster's digital terrestrial television plans would not be ready until next year. The regulator said it would begin its consultation this autumn into BSkyB's plans to replace its free-to-air Freeview channels with pay-TV services on the digital terrestrial TV platform, and would publish its conclusions "early next year". BSkyB said it was "regrettable that Ofcom feels unable to begin its consultation before the autumn".
The Wall Street Journal says that the European Union is supporting a standard based on Nokia technology for mobile television broadcasting in Europe, according to a draft document. The European Commission said Nokia's DVB-H standard is the "strongest contender" for future mobile TV broadcasts. Two other standards -- T-DMB, used in South Korea, and MediaFlo, a technology pioneered by Qualcomm -- are less prevalent, according to the Commission, which noted that using a single standard is necessary to avoid "market fragmentation."
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 