Nearly 400,000 people are now connected to the Internet in Ireland; a new user comes online every three and a half minutes. But many remain reluctant to avail of online shopping facilities, according to a survey by Amarach Consulting. Details of the survey were released at last week's Irish Internet Association (IIA) meeting. Home access has overtaken office access with 158,000 users now surfing the Web from home compared to 120,000 in the workplace.
The survey also revealed that, despite the hype surrounding e-commerce, nearly 50 per cent of users remain reluctant to use their credit cards online. The growth in Internet usage remains fastest among young people - one third of people between 18 and 24 and 50 per cent of third-level students use the Net. Meanwhile, the IIA has launched its own fourth online survey, which you can complete at www.iia.ie.
PIMS IN NAVAN: Plaut International Management Consulting is to establish an office and data centre facility at the IDA Business Park in Navan, creating 45 jobs. The company is an integrated management consulting practice (as distinct from an unintegrated one) and its new technology competence centre, Syntacom, will service customers across Europe.
GOING UNDER GRAND: Intel has hastened its sub$1,000 PC strategy by releasing a 433MHz Celeron chip nearly three months earlier than expected. With the latest chip, Intel now offers Celeron processors at 433, 400, 366 and 333 MHz speeds.
BIG BLUE'S BLUES: IBM lost nearly $1 billion selling PCs last year and Wall Street analysts believe that the company will leave the PC business entirely and focus on selling corporate machines and software. IBM has not previously disclosed its PC losses but must under new accounting rules.
OCEAN VOICES: Ocean has signed a contract with Ericsson to formalise the supply and maintenance of Ocean's voice switches in Ireland. The deal will be worth Ir£15 million over a five-year period. Under the terms of the agreement Ericsson has installed AXE10 digital switches into Ocean's systems.
VIKING DEALS: EMC Corporation's Cork-based Irish operation has announced its first international customer for its newly-created Internet server farm. Viking Office Products, which is to create 25 jobs in Ireland with its Viking Internet Ireland site, has selected EMC to host and manage its European Net presence. TInet has been chosen by EMC to provide the telecommunications infrastructure and support facilities for the new Web farm service.
MICROSOFT DEALS: Microsoft has submitted a formal offer for settling its antitrust case. The Justice Department declined to comment on Microsoft's proposal, which was sent to both the federal government and the 19 states involved in the trial. Bill Gates said there were "ongoing discussions" but declined to speculate about the outcome (see also Textbites below).
COMCAST'S CONQUEST: Comcast, the fourth largest US cable provider, has agreed to acquire MediaOne in a $60 billion stock deal. The new company will have a capitalisation of almost $97 billion and will hold global telecommunications, programming and Internet interests.
MP THREATS: Frustrated over Lycos's use of MP3, the US recording industry has said it is considering a lawsuit against the portal company. Last Wednesday Lycos's Norwegian joint venture partner was sued over alleged copyright infringement by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. In February Lycos launched a service using the technology and database of Norway's FAST Search & Transfer ASA to offer links to more than half a million online tunes.
IT'S THE EBIZNESS: A new Irish-owned international business Internet services company, e-BizToday.com promises to provide "jargon-free" business Internet services to small-to-medium-sized enterprises which, the company claims, have been largely ignored by ISPs.
NAME GAMES: A federal court in the US has ruled that domain names are property and are subject to different legal protection than previously thought. The ruling stems from a trademark infringement suit filed by Umbro International against a Canadian corporation, claiming the defendant infringed upon its trademark when it registered umbro.com in 1997. When the defendant failed to show up in court, the judge issued a default judgment, turning over umbro.com to the football kit manufacturers.
IN BRIEF...Compaq has announced a new 18.2 GB HotPluggable Wide-Ultra SCSI low-profile hard disk drive (no less) for use with ProLiant servers and storage systems. . . 3Com maintained its lead in the remote access market in 1998 with 29 per cent of worldwide sales. . . Iona Technologies has been named Irish Company of the Year by Business and Finance magazine. . .
