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• Business podcast: April 7th

  April 7, 2011 @ 7:30 am | by John Collins

  This week with ECB rates on the rise we look at what it might mean for already cash-strapped consumers; how to make your wardrobe make you money and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley are still flashing the cash.

   

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• Putting the green into greenbacks

  May 22, 2009 @ 9:13 pm | by Barry O'Halloran

  The green economy is getting almost as much coverage as the green shoots of recovery these days.

  This week, the Government “unveiled” a new green energy taskforce whose job it will be to advise on how best Ireland Inc can cash in on this growing phenomenon, which Tanaiste Mary Coughlan says - though she cites no sources – will be worth 950 billion euro globally next year.

  This is not the only political green energy wheeze. There is also a sub-committee of the Oireachtas trade and enterprise committee dedicated to – wait for it – “Job Creation Through use of Renewable Energy Resources”. This was ultimately a Government idea as well, although its membership is drawn from all parties. It’s particularly interested in a project in an obscure Austrian town, Gussing, which produces all its own energy needs from wood – which is in some way linked to the fact that it’s surrounded by forest. (more…)

• Norwegian firm gets customers working for them

  May 14, 2009 @ 12:32 pm | by John Collins

  

  As strategies to beat the recession, getting your customers to do the work for you, sounds like an ideal, if unattainable one. Not so according to this story on technology news site Ars Technica, which caught our eye.

  Lyse, a small electricity provider, has become Norway’s leading provider of high-speed fibre optic-based services by providing faster service at the same price as its competitors but also by getting customers dig their own trenches to lay the cables. The company now has 130,000 subscribers for its broadband, TV and telephony services with many of them availing of a discount on installation by digging a trench to the side of the road where they can connect to Lyse’s network.

  Somehow I can’t see debt-laden Eircom adopting this approach but some of the other telco providers could do worse than have a look.

  Photo credit: CH/Innovation Norway