A round-up of today's other business news in brief

Entrepreneur of the Year broadcast

The international category of the Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition will feature tonight on RTÉ 1 at 10.45pm. This category features a diversity of business interests from financial trading solutions to restaurant equipment systems. The eight finalists are John Flaherty, CF Group; Donal Ó Riain, Ecocem Materials; David Bobbett, HK International; Seán Keenan, Multis; Xavier McAuliff, Spectra; Danny Moore, Wombat Financial Software; Conor Foley, Worldspreads and Brendan O'Regan, Zenith Technologies.

Over the past two weeks RTÉ profiled the emerging and industry categories. The overall winner of the Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 will be named on October 23rd and broadcast that night.

Wall Street crisis helps firm's profits

Autonomy, the British maker of document search and management software, has reported net income of $33.4 million for the third quarter compared to $12.2 million a year earlier. Revenues at the Cambridge firm, which was founded by Irishman Mike Lynch, reached $127 million.

Mr Lynch said the crisis on Wall Street was helping Autonomy's business as its software can be used to help uncover corporate data required for lawsuits relating to the crisis.

Halifax withdraws tracker mortgages

Halifax, the retail division of Bank of Scotland (Ireland), has withdrawn tracker mortgage products, though Bank of Scotland (Ireland), which sells mortgages through brokers, is still reviewing its tracker products.

A spokesman for Halifax said that the retail bank was withdrawing the products because of the high cost of bank funding.

Tracker mortgages sold by Bank of Scotland (Ireland) are still being reviewed as they are priced at a higher margin - above Halifax tracker products - over the European Central Bank rate so there is less funding pressure on these products, the spokesman said.

Bank of Scotland (Ireland) was the first bank to offer tracker mortgages in the Irish market when it launched the loans in April 2001.

National Irish Bank and EBS building society withdrew tracker products earlier this week following similar moves by AIB and Bank of Ireland last week.

Recession to cut carbon emissions

Industrial carbon emissions will fall faster in Europe as result of a coming recession, cutting the demand for and price of emissions permits under the EU's emissions trading scheme, Deutsche Bank analysts said today.

Lower carbon prices may hand an unexpected boost for politicians and green groups urging industry and bankers not to back down in the fight against climate change.

Recession will cut industrial carbon dioxide emissions by about 100 million tonnes in 2009 compared to 2007, from current installations, the research note said. - (Reuters)

Intel profits up 12% as chip sales hold

Technology giant Intel posted a 12 per cent rise in quarterly profit as the world's biggest computer chipmaker said demand was holding up despite the global economic crisis.

Intel said last night it expects revenue in the fourth quarter of $10.1 billion to $10.9 billion.

The midpoint of that range, $10.5 billion, is around 2 percentage points lower than Wall Street had hoped but better than many had feared.

Meanwhile, profit in the quarter topped Wall Street targets and Intel shares rose 5 per cent in after-market trade. Investors said Intel is benefiting from one of its strongest product line-ups in years, is executing well and keeping a lid on costs.