OBJECTIONS RAISED OVER NEW TELCO PRODUCT
Eircom is due to make partial private circuits available from
3 October, but an industry group has already expressed
dissatisfaction with the process. Since partial private circuits
(PPC) -- a kind of leased line that uses part of Eircom's network
-- are designed to open up the leased line market to Eircom's
rivals, it is thought that PPCs will be sold for about 50 percent
of the price that leased lines go for. However, the pricing scheme
that has been proposed by Eircom has been deemed confusing by ALTO,
an organisation that lobbies for entrant telecoms in Ireland. ALTO
has said that its members have not been able to determine exactly
how the existing PPCs pricing scheme works, or whether the new
products are any cheaper than a new leased line.
FULL STORY
BROADBAND BRINGS KIDS ON-LINE
The introduction of broadband has resulted in more children going
on-line in the UK than in any other European country, according to
new research. A dramatic 58 percent surge in the number of
under-18s on-line in the UK is being driven by rising broadband
usage, according to a report from audience measurement and research
service Nielsen//NetRatings. Nielsen also said that the number of
children on-line in eight European countries has grown by 3 million
in the last 12 months. The research, which combined data from the
UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and the
Netherlands, says that there are now 13.1 million European kids
on-line. This breaks down to about 4 million under-12s and 9
million 12- to 17-year-olds.
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SKILLS CENTRAL TO ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Forfas has warned that an inadequate supply of skills across the
Irish workforce will hamper Ireland's future economic prosperity.
The fourth report of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs
(EGFSN) identifies the issues that need to be addressed in order
to ensure that Ireland benefits fully from an assumed world
economic upturn. It reviews seven key sectors of the Irish economy,
including ICT, biotechnology and financial services. Sectors as
diverse as biotech, engineering and logistics are primed for
significant growth from 2005 onwards, Forfas said, warning that if
current trends in the supply of skills by the education and
training sector are left unchecked, there will be a significant
shortfall in the skills needed to fuel this growth.
FULL STORY
JOBS TO GO AT ORACLE IRELAND
Business software company Oracle is expected to shed over 100 jobs
at its Irish facility over the next 10 months. According to
reports, the jobs will be lost in the firm's shared services centre
in Dublin, and the big software maker said it expects that most of
the positions will go through natural attrition. However, if an
insufficient number of workers have left by mid-2004, redundancies
could be implemented. Once the restructuring is complete, the firm
should have about 950 employees in Dublin, or about 25 fewer than
it had in January 2002, when it promised to hire another 200 Irish
workers. In fact, the IDA has said that Oracle has only ever
committed to employ 950 people in Ireland, with just 200 staff
allocated for the shared services centre.
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ROAMING AND DSL DOMINATE COMREG EVENT
Two controversial telecoms-related issues were tackled at a recent
ComReg conference: poor broadband uptake and the high cost of
mobile phone roaming. At the telecoms regulator's "Getting
Connected" event in Dublin, John Dunne, CEO of the Chambers of
Commerce of Ireland, launched an attack against the government and
the country's main fixed-line telecoms over the poor uptake of
broadband by SMEs. He said that small firms don't trust the
telecoms firms that are offering ADSL and added that the government
had done little to stimulate demand for the service. At the same
event, Communications Minister Dermot Ahern predicted the end of
roaming charges in the island of Ireland early next year, branding
such costs as a "rip off." Ahern also said he would raise the
issue with his Northern counterpart, Minister Ian Pearson.
FULL STORY
MICROSOFT SHIFTS JOBS TO DUBLIN
Close to 50 Microsoft jobs from around Europe are set to be shifted
to Ireland as the company further integrates the Navision business
it picked up last year. The company said that over the next several
months, 46 existing positions within Microsoft Corporation will be
shifted to the company's EMEA operations centre, Microsoft Ireland
Operations Limited. The re-organisation, part of a global
re-alignment following Microsoft's purchase of Denmark-based
Navision, will take place over the next few months. It's understood
that Microsoft will offer workers in existing EMEA sites the posts
in Ireland before seeking to fill the positions with new workers.
Of the 24 existing Navision operational sites in Europe, 17 are
affected by the re-organisation, a spokesperson said.
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FLEXTRONICS TO SHUT TULLAMORE PLANT
Contract electronics maker Flextronics is shutting its Tullamore
plant, with the loss of 80 jobs. The job cuts were blamed on the
loss of contracts, as well as the relative high cost of
manufacturing in Ireland compared to lower-cost economies in Asia
and elsewhere. The announcement came on the same day that storage
system maker Adaptec announced the closure of its Dublin plant,
citing similar reasons (see below). Last month, network equipment
maker 3Com announced the closure of its Blanchardstown plant,
with the loss of over 600 jobs, in favour of overseas
manufacturing. At its peak in Tullamore, Flextronics employed over
400 people, but last year around 320 permanent jobs and 50
temporary jobs were cut at the plant. Since 2001, Flextronics has
also slashed hundreds of jobs in Limerick and Cork.
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ADAPTEC CLOSES EUROLOGIC SITE, CUTS JOBS
After being acquired just six months ago by US storage company
Adaptec for USD30 million in cash, Eurologic is set to close its
Irish operations as work is shifted overseas. The company said that
about 40 jobs at its facility in the Clonshaugh Industrial Estate
in Dublin would go before the end of the year. Any remaining
Dublin-based staff working at the former Eurologic site will be
made redundant by March 2004, when the Dublin manufacturing
operation will be shut down. In total, 75 jobs will be lost in Ireland
as a result of the moves. It is understood that former Eurologic
workers in the company's overseas locations, most notably the US,
will be unaffected. A spokesperson for Adaptec said the firm is
moving Eurologic's network storage operations from Dublin
to Singapore.
FULL STORY
SINGLE TIP SMASHES CHILD PORN RING
Thanks to a single tip-off to a hotline a year ago, one of the
biggest child pornography rings has been smashed. Operation Marcey
kicked off in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt on 26 September,
involving 1,500 police officers who, over the course of a day,
confiscated 745 computers, over 35,000 CDs, 8,300 diskettes and
5,800 videos, all thought to contain illegal child pornography that
had been traded over the Internet. The operation saw police forces
identify 26,500 suspects in 166 countries around the world.
Irishman Cormac Callanan, secretary general of INHOPE, a
confederation of child pornography hotlines, said that a tip-off to
German police last year from Spanish hotline Protegeles began the
investigation that ballooned into what may be the largest ever
child porn raid by police.
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NTL TO RAISE USD1 BILLION TO PAY DEBT
UK cable company NTL has said that it will raise over USD1 billion
through a rights issue in order to cut debt. The company, which
operates in the UK and Ireland and only came out of bankruptcy
earlier this year, filed papers with the SEC which confirmed that
it was seeking the cash. The company said that the USD1.05 billion
raised through the scheme would be used to repay a loan it agreed
to under the terms of its bankruptcy proceedings. Some of the money
will also be paid to its USD650 million working capital facility,
and the remainder will go toward subsidiaries and general corporate
purposes. The filings also revealed that former NTL CEO Barclay
Knapp was paid USD2.1 million in severance fees after resigning in
August. Knapp is also understood to be collecting USD6,000 a day in
consulting fees.
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