Teknovis

Although I still have not found time to start using Twitter, it still fascinates me! It amazes me that there is so much hype around it, and yet it is based on a really simple idea that does not really have any significant technology behind it.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Twitter is the amount of money that the company has raised, especially since Twitter does not seem to have a business model that involves revenue! It reminds me of the dot-com days when investors concerned themselves with numbers of visitors rather than revenues ;)

However, this might change very soon! According to an article that I read today, Twitter is considering charging companies who use it. However, the exact details of the charging model are not clear yet. For more details about this see Twitter To Start Charging Companies For Having An Account?.

Tags: Twitter

The Irish economy is in a very bad condition at the moment, and significant numbers of job losses are being announced every day. Indeed, January was the worst month for job losses in the last 40 years according to Jobless rate could hit 400,000 – Cowen. In a frighteningly short time Ireland has gone from having one of the best economies in the EU to having one of the worst economies in the EU.

Initially the job losses were mainly in the property sector, and the associated sectors. This was mainly due to the Government inflated property bubble bursting. Job losses then quickly spread to associated sectors such as banking, construction supply, and household goods.

Next some of the companies involved in the information communication technology sector started announcing job losses. One of the main reasons behind these job losses was the loss of competitiveness due to the high cost of doing business in Ireland. The failure to adopt the Lisbon Treaty has also been quietly mentioned by some multinationals as a reason for losing confidence in the Irish economy. For example, Dell is moving 1,900 jobs to Poland (see 1,900 jobs lost at Dell in Limerick), and IBM is moving 120 jobs to Singapore (see IBM seeking 120 voluntary redundancies). Although these job losses are unfortunate, they are not surprising given that they appear to be very labour intensive.

Today Ericsson announced 300 job losses in Ireland. The truly shocking thing about this is that these jobs are all very skilled Research and Development jobs. Furthermore, Ericsson is moving these jobs to a country with a lower cost of business. For more details about this see 300 jobs to go at Ericsson.

This raises some very important questions. Why did this happen? How does this reflect on the Irish knowledge economy? How secure is the Irish knowledge economy?

Contrary to all of this bad news, I also read today that Irish companies raised more venture capital in 2008 than they did in any other year since 2002. The total amount raised was over 240€ million by 93 companies, and the most successful sectors were:

1. Drug delivery and medical device sector (16 companies raised 46€ million)
2. Telecoms sector (9 companies raised 38€ million)
3. Pharmaceutical and biotech sector (23 companies raised 42€ million)

For more details about this see Private funding for tech firms on the rise in 2008, survey shows.

Tags: Dell, Ericsson, IBM, Ireland, Poland

I just read about a company called OpenTable that has started its IPO. OpenTable is an Internet based company that enables customers to make restaurant reservations. The company is based in San Francisco, so it is mainly aimed at US cities. However, some EU countries are included.

What I find interesting about this IPO is the timing. A year or two ago it would have been perfect, but in the current economic climate I am less sure! I think that its strength must be in its market opertunity, because I am not aware of any technology that gives it a competitive advantage.

The full details about OpenTable’s IPO can be read in OpenTable files for first venture-backed IPO of 2009.

Tags: IPO, OpenTable

I have a few female family members and friends who have all recently bought cosmetics from Lily Lolo. They were all very happy with the web site, the value, and the goods! The positive comments regarding the web site are especially significant since some of these females are not very technology savvy!

So I thought that I would give Lily Lolo a positive review on their behalves :D

Tags: Lily Lolo

The publishers of the Irish Entrepreneur magazine have launched a competition for 250,000€. To be included you must subscribe to their magazine, as described in ‘You Can Do Anything’ Competition.

This competition is part of a wider campaign to encourage people to become more entrepreneurial during the current economic downturn. In order to promote this campaign the publishers invited The Naked Cowboy to Dublin. The Naked Cowboy’s story is perfect for this caimpaign, and he has given some really great advice such as:

Just do something you love and find a way to make money from it.

More details about the Naked Cowboy’s visit are described in Naked Cowboy here to give recession the boot and Nakedly optimistic star says we can do anything. He also did interviews on both the Tubridy Tonight show, and the Xposé show, both of which are available to view online :)

Tags: Irish Entrepreneur

Enterprise Ireland wrote an article that will be of interest to anybody who is seeking early stage investment in 2009. The full article is Angles Investors to the Rescue in 2009?

Tags: Enterprise Ireland

I heard this evening that Mastercard have bought Orbiscom for $100 million! That is great news, and I am sure that there must be lots of happy (and wealthy) people thanks to this ;)

More details about this can be read in the official press release MasterCard Worldwide Acquires Orbiscom to Accelerate Development of Innovative Payment Solutions.

I think that this shows that there is still confidence in the information communication technology sector!

Tags: Mastercard, Orbiscom

I did lots of reading during the Christmas holidays, so I will probably be writing about it here for a while!

During the weekend I read a magazine article about Steve Jobs, who is the CEO of Apple. Actually there were several articles about him in the magazine, and he wilfully collaborated with some of the authors, and refused to comment on the other articles about him.

The most surprising insight that I got from the article was that it does not seem like a lot of fun to work at the top levels in Apple, and this is mostly due to Steve Job’s personality. It seems that most people describe him negatively rather than positively! He really seems to have a strange relationship with his staff. One former Apple executive summarised him by saying

Democracies don’t make great products. You need a competent tyrant.

All of this really amazed me, since I consider that Apple is one of the most creative and innovate large technology companies.

Another interesting thing that I learned was that Steve Jobs was involved in Pixar. He bought it in 1986 for $10 million, and sold it in 2006 while remaining the largest shareholder. His shareholding is worth approximately $4.6 billion. Nice!

Tags: Apple, Pixar

I read a very positive article about Asos in an Irish womens’ lifestyle magazeen during the week. The article was brought to my attention by a female family member :o

As I described in Online Christmas Shopping 2008, I bought from Asos for my first time this year. So did my female family members. We were all extremely pleased with the experience, the prices, and the purchases.

The article also states that Asos is beating the current economic downturn. In particular, it experienced a 107% rise in sales, and a 68% rise in profit. I am sure that the week pound must also be helping!

Tags: Asos, UK

I hope that everybody has a good Christmas :)

It certainly seems that Amazon did! It has announced that it had record Christmas sales this year! I am sure that there will be many people who are delighted with this ;)

For more details about this see Amazon.com up 4.9% after best-ever holiday sales.

Tags: Amazon