LAURA SLATTERYperuses the week in business
Quote of the week
"We did say we would fight to the bitter end and hopefully we are at the end of this now and we can put all of this to bed and move on with our lives."-Antoinette Shevlin, one of the 26 Thomas Cook workers and union reps arrested and subsequently released following a sit-in protest at the terms of their redundancy, expresses relief that the company has agreed to enter talks with the union.
GOOD WEEK
E-book readers
They’re still stuck outside the mainstream in that gimmicky, gadgety gift category, but competition in the e-book industry is hotting up with Sony’s announcement that it is to introduce two new reading devices, the Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition, and match the $9.99 (€6.95) flat price for books charged by e-book rival Amazon on its Kindle model. The lower e-book prices are prompting book publishers to delay the interval between higher-margin bookshelf-friendly hardbacks and digital editions.
Shannon airport
The airport has been blessed with the opening of a new US customs and border-protection inspection post, the first of its kind to be established in Europe. The pre-clearance facility will make Shannon a more attractive stopover spot, allowing passengers to not only get all that charming finger scanning and photo posing out of the way before take-off, but to land in the US fully pre-authorised, as if they’ve just stepped off a domestic flight. So it’s a case of queue before you get on the aircraft, rather than after.
BAD WEEK
Friends Reunited
Having spent half the noughties wondering what to do with this website thingy, broadcaster ITV has sold the social networking site of yesteryear for a not-so-cool £25 million (€29 million) – more than analysts had predicted but mere loose change compared to the much cooler $10 billion (€6.96 billion) Facebook was last estimated to be worth. Friends Reunited now earns more money from dating services and a genealogy business called Genes Reunited than it does from social networking. So you can get in touch with old friends, date them, and then check out their gene pool before making any lasting commitments.
Gambling
Not even the boost from Mon Mome’s outsider win at the Grand National could save book- maker William Hill from a lacklustre financial performance, while a newfound risk aversion has also infected transatlantic slots and table- game punters, with casino behemoth MGM Mirage reporting plummeting second-quarter profits. Meanwhile, betting exchange group Betfair is threatening to move to Malta to avoid paying taxes and only a newly invigorated Donald Trump (right) is sounding upbeat, celebrating regaining control of Trump Entertainment by promising/threatening to “make Atlantic City hot once more”.
THE NUMBERS
999– record number of megawatts of wind power reached last Friday, according to figures from EirGrid.
9.3– percentage cut in the price of gas from October proposed by Bord Gáis, following a 10 per cent reduction in May.
39– percentage of national electricity demand met by wind power at certain points last weekend, another record.
