ROUNDUPS
For the record 04 September
04-09-2002
by Sylvia Leatham
A new Irish Web site has launched an attack on the country's lack of fast and affordable Internet access | IEwatch says Irish domain names are most expensive
Ireland has the highest wholesale charges for domain names in Europe, according to IEwatch, an interest group that monitors the administration of the .ie domain registry. The group says that in the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK, re-sellers pay approximately EUR7 or EUR8 in annual fees to maintain a domain name, whereas in Ireland and Spain, re-sellers can expect to pay around EUR50. IEWATCH has called on the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and the Internet governing body ICANN to take action regarding the pricing and administration of .ie domain names.
A new Irish Web site has launched an attack on the country's lack of fast and affordable Internet access. The satirical site, EircomTribunal.com, claims that in the future, "the sabotage of the development of the Internet in Ireland" will be the subject of a tribunal. The site is highly critical of Eircom, telecoms regulator ODTR and the government.
Debt-laden cable company Telewest is planning to cut another 1,000 jobs and reduce capital spending by one-third, as part of its restructuring. Earlier this year, the UK-based company announced 1,500 job losses, while cutting annual capital expenditure from STG600 million to STG450 million. The new job cuts are likely to happen by the end of 2003, reducing the total workforce to around 8,000, and capital expenditure will fall to about STG300 million. The company, which has received shareholder approval for the sale of its 17 percent stake in Glasgow media group SMG, is accelerating its cost-cutting efforts as it prepares for a large debt-for-equity swap.
Intel has announced that two investment firms have agreed to buy most of its division that makes software to manage personal computers. Vector Capital and vSpring Capital are buying some assets of Intel's software products and services division for an undisclosed sum of cash and stock, Intel spokesman Robert Manetta said. The semiconductor giant, which is attempting to focus more on its main chip products, will retain an undisclosed minority stake in the division.
Former WorldCom chief financial officer Scott Sullivan has pleaded not guilty to charges of orchestrating the multibillion dollar accounting fraud that drove the company into bankruptcy. Sullivan entered his plea in his first court appearance since a grand jury accused him last week of hiding losses at company. Buford Yates, WorldCom's former director of general accounting who was also named in the indictment, pleaded not guilty as well.
Although the European market for security services is exhibiting healthy growth, the new awareness of security issues has yet to be translated into exceptional levels of spending, according to research firm IDC. A new study by the company forecasts that the European security services market will increase from USD1.9 billion in 2001 to USD5.9 billion in 2006, a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent. IDC says that players in the security services market must build credibility through extensive consolidation and re-examining their positioning messages.
On-line budget reservations specialist Web Reservations International (WRI) has announced an increase in revenue and expansion plans for its booking system. In the first six months of 2002, WRI says its sales increased over 200 percent. WRI's expansion plan includes increasing product availability and marketing support for its hostelworld.com booking system and Web site.
PlayStation2 and Xbox prices could be cut again before Christmas, according to analysts. Last week, Sony and Microsoft cut the price of their flagship games consoles in Europe within hours of each other. Datamonitor analysts Frederic Diot and Adrian Drozd believe that further price cuts could come before the end of 2002, as console makers traditionally reduce prices in the run-up to Christmas. The analysts noted that Nintendo's GameCube could also get dragged into the price war.
UltraDNS Corporation, a directory infrastructure services provider, is to provide managed domain name services (DNS) to Afilias, a global provider of domain name registry services with headquarters in Dublin. UltraDNS will provide managed DNS for Afilias' global registry solutions for generic and country code top-level domains, including Afilias' flagship product .info. UltraDNS says its services will enhance the speed of registration of .info names to less than five minutes.
Creating successful email surveys: Denise Cox of email specialist Newsweaver argues that you can tap into your readers' likes or dislikes by surveying them.
