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For the record 30 May
Thursday, May 30 2002
by Sylvia Leatham


World Cup office pools go on-line | European Parliament agrees new rules on junk
e-mail 

Windmill Lane Interactive has launched a "Boys in Green" Office Pool
for the World Cup that enables workers to organise their office pool on-line.
Instead of pulling names out of a hat, World Cup fans can use the Windmill Lane
Web site to run the
pool. The site will automatically update scores, group places, results and
finalists.





IT skills shortages in the UK are half that of 2001, according to a new
report. Although UK employers are continuing to experience a shortage of key
technical skills, the number of firms reporting shortages has fallen from 16
percent in 2001 to 8 percent in 2002, according to a quarterly review of the
Information and Computer Technology (ICT) labour market by E-skills UK. 



VeriSign, a US-based Internet domain registry and security provider, is
forcing staff to take at least three paid holidays this quarter and next, while
Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems in the US are to shut for a
week in July. VeriSign, who implemented the measure to reduce future liabilities,
is also considering closing down during the Labor Day or Thanksgiving holidays.
HP and Sun have said they will close for the first week of July, in a repeat of
the extended 4th of July holiday declared in many Silicon Valley firms last year.




WorldCom's new chief executive officer and president has denied the
company is facing bankruptcy. John Sidgmore insisted that reports of the
company's spiralling finances and customer attrition rates were wildly
misleading, saying, "Right now the public perception of WorldCom and the
private perception are at odds." Sidgmore claimed WorldCom was worth around
USD32 billion in annual revenue and had 25 million customers. 



The European Parliament has agreed new rules on junk e-mail and text
messages. The European Parliament decided on a so-called "soft opt-in" policy,
whereby users must agree in advance to receive e-mails and text messages in order
for a company to send them. A controversial amendment on cookies was removed at
the last minute. On-line publishers had feared new legislation would force users
to agree every time a cookie was served, but instead users will have to actively
opt-out of receiving cookies. 

 

IBM said it has sold workstations to the New Zealand company that does the
special effects for the Lord of the Rings movies. IBM will provide more than 150
6580-WEA Intellistation workstations to Oscar-winning Weta Digital, in a deal
valued at about USD10 million.