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Eircom's ADSL service could be delayed by the telecoms regulator | Lucent sees return to profitability in 2002
The Irish Times reports that Eircom's introduction of its ADSL broadband Internet service faces a delay as the telecom regulator's office is seeking further information on the wholesale charges it plans to levy on other service providers buying access to the "local loop". The regulator has given Eircom until September 5th to reply. The regulator's move was welcomed by Esat/BT, which is understood to be the only potential buyer of the wholesale service.
The same paper reports that an electronics firm SMTC Manufacturing Corporation in Gweedore, Co. Donegal is making 69 people redundant and putting most of its remaining 110 employees on a three-day week. It manufactures network equipment and said the job losses were due to the general downturn in the sector.
The paper also reports that nearly twice as many jobs have been lost as created in IDA Ireland-backed high-tech companies since the start of 2001. Around 4,500 redundancies have been announced as a direct result of the present global restructuring, while it is estimated that about 2,500 jobs have been created, according to the IDA. This compares to last year when employment in the industry increased by more than 6,000 jobs. The 4,500 job losses in IDA-sponsored companies were roughly matched by the number of losses in indigenous Irish companies, an IDA spokesman said.
The Irish Times also reports that RTE has asked the telecoms regulator to make broadcasting, satellite and cable companies adopt common technical standards to enable consumers to access a wider range of content. The proposals, which are opposed by most cable and satellite firms, include the adoption of a single set-top box that would enable consumers to change television programme suppliers more easily. RTE supports the use of an open architecture for multimedia information called Multimedia Home Platform, which is based on Java software. This platform is expected to form the basis of a type of third-generation digital set-top box that would be capable of decoding signals from all television programme suppliers.
The same paper also reports that according to Sergio Giacoletto, executive vice-president of Oracle in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), there are still opportunities for IT growth. The company has announced that it will operate a new Internet "one-stop shop" from its Dublin offices beginning next month. The iStore service will allow customers to purchase complex software and solutions via the Internet. The decision to locate the service in Dublin is, according to Giacoletto, a vote of confidence in the Internet as a business channel and the Republic as a location for technology investment.
The Irish Independent reports that shares in Iona Technologies rose EUR1 to EUR16 on the Irish Stock Exchange on Thursday after an upgrade from stockbrokers West LB Panmure. The rating was raised to "outperform" from "neutral" on valuation grounds. Analysts said they believed that Iona was a winner in the middleware technology sector which had been excessively impacted by the technology slump.
The same paper reports that shares in Baltimore Technologies finished over 5 percent down on Thursday at STG0.225 in London, and were trading off 8.2 percent at USD0.56 on Nasdaq when the UK market closed after analysts encouraged investors to bail out of the company.
The paper also reports that Lucent Technologies said it expects to return to profitability and positive cash flow in 2002 and attain industry-standard growth rates in 2003. Shares in the company added USD0.2 to USD6.70 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the news.
Finally the paper reports that the salary of Conduit managing director Liam Young doubled to EUR76,184 in 2001, however, he was not paid a bonus during the year. The previous year he was paid a bonus of EUR45,706, according to the company's annual report for 2001. The non-executive director fee paid to co-founder Eddie Kerr was EUR50,769, unchanged compared with 2000.
The Financial Times reports that Microsoft is likely to forego a last-minute request to the Supreme Court to further delay its landmark antitrust case, clearing the last hurdle for the lawsuit to head back to a trial court on Friday. People familiar with Microsoft's legal strategy said on Thursday that while the company had not made a final decision on seeking a delay from the Supreme Court, company lawyers were leaning against such a move. Microsoft has asked the Supreme Court to take up the case, saying that rulings by the original trial judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, should be thrown out because of ethical breaches he made when discussing the case with newspapers.
The same paper reports that in separate announcements, Sonera, the dominant Finnish operator, and France Telecom, which is still partly owned by the French state, said they planned a total of 4,000 redundancies. France Telecom said on Thursday the 3,000 job cuts at its Equant subsidiary were not a direct response to the downturn but represented inevitable savings following its EUR3.5 billion takeover of the Amsterdam-registered telecoms network service provider.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Cisco Systems set its biggest management shake-up in more than four years, aimed primarily at streamlining engineering and marketing efforts. The changes include one high-level departure. Kevin Kennedy, a senior vice president who ran the Cisco division making products for telecommunications carriers, resigned. Sales to telecom carriers have fallen more sharply than other parts of Cisco's business, and the sales and marketing heads of the telecom unit went on extended leaves of absence earlier this year.
In the new structure, the company is eliminating its three units focused on different types of customers: big business, small business and telecoms. In their place will be centralized engineering and marketing units focused on technologies, such as wireless networks, or carrying telephone calls on computer networks.
The same paper reports that NTT DoCoMo has agreed to provide three major European carriers, Germany's E-Plus, KPN Mobile N.V. of the Netherlands and Belgium's KPN Orange, with the company's high-speed data transmission technology, a company official said Friday.
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