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EIRCOM’S TAKINGS FROM its customers continue to slide but the company is still turning a profit after slicing through its wage bill.
The former state telecoms company said its revenues were down 4% for the most recent three-month period when compared to the same time in 2013, although the rate of slide had slowed compared to a year earlier.
Its operating costs were down even further with the company’s payroll sliced 13% against the equivalent period last year.
In an update this morning, Eircom said it had 3,458 full-time equivalent staff at the end of December – 140 fewer than three months prior and 307 below the figure for December 2013.
The company’s income was €316 million for the quarter to the end of December compared to €334 million a year earlier.
Eircom recently rung in the changes on its prices, announcing an increase of close to 10% on some plans for bills from mid-April.
Its increased rates for business customers were slammed as “excessive” and “opportunistic” by the small- and medium-sized business lobby.
Over the past three months Eircom has lost 15,000 fixed-line phone customers, but picked up 17,000 broadband connections and 25,000 mobile-phone customers.
It also gained 30,000 customers on its fibre network – the largest in Ireland – although that number remains well behind market leader UPC’s total.
3,000 applications
Meanwhile, Eircom recently announced it was hiring 300 candidates for its new apprentice programme over the next five years – the first, large-scale recruitment scheme in the company for nearly three decades.
Chief executive Richard Moat said the company had been “overwhelmed” with the response to the recruitment drive and it had received 3,000 applications for the jobs.
“As the leading provider of telecommunications services in the country, we believe this recruitment programme underlines our ambition for the future of the Irish economy, as well as for our company,” he said.
We are committed to investing in our future, both in the new technologies we are rolling out and also in our people.”
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Settings -> Personalization -> Make sure “occasionally show suggestions in Start” is switched to Off.
No ads in start menu.
Until they remove the option or an update sets it to “Default”
I upgraded to it and about an hour later downgraded back to windows 7, way too many apps for my liking, keep it to what you know #simple
And I thought I was the only one. I really disliked Windows 10 so much I’ve decided to completely convert to Apple.
You will find OS X very frustrating then. You will experience many many problems on the Mac that never seem to make it the press. Also, constant pressure to take the free OS upgrades that frequently means that some of your apps need to be upgraded at cost. Mac computers slow down FASTER than Windows and there is little you can do about it. I write this as I use both systems every day. Enjoy hating Windows 10 for now. In a years time you I’ll enjoy hating OSX.
Windows 10 is a disaster and when I tried to change back to Windows 7 whole system crashed!
Noel. Did you ring Windows support team?
Well there was always going to be a catch with free software, but it’s still a bit despicable that the start menu is going to consist mainly of promoted apps that they want you to download.
Just use Linux Mint
While Mint is shiny and lovely, and would be my default choice, one word kills it…
Games!
This will be microsoft last major version of windows. All future versions will be done through minor upgrades to Windows 10. Once Windows 7 and maybe 8 go end of life, Windows 10 will become software as a service and you will be forced by mickiesoft to pay a subscription to continue using it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/05/08/microsoft-windows-10-last-windows/#22c1a9c968de
As with all computer software products. Apple will be best at it.
That’s when they will slowly die, they’re making their money for other services that they offer like office 365 and OneDrive, yes SaaS is the way forward that is cloud computing and vendors love it as it kills piracy straight out since everything is on their servers but can’t see an OS succeeding in that when you look at Linux is open source and Apple OS is free as well.
What makes you think that ?
They are best at closed systems. MS just learning from them.
Remember the time Linux Mint got hacked? http://www.safetyonline.info/?p=490. You’d want to hope this won’t happen again!
Nothing is a 100% secure
Steam..
I still have windows 7 on my laptop.
That’s nice. And what did you have for lunch?
Hopefully his lunch wasn’t from 2009 like his OS.
Maybe the wine was.
People who prefer windows 7 to 10 really have fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a decent OS. And honestly, how many people open their start menu for more than a few seconds to start typing the command they want?
Jesus people will complain about anything.
Welcome to Ireland. Let me introduce you to the locals…
Who has forgotten that the customer is always right?
Have windows 7 ultimate 64bit. The most stable Microsoft OS since 2000 professional. I won’t be upgrading, thanks.
Yet another reason I went to Mac. MS sucks!!!!!!
You went to Mac with its massively overpriced hardware instead of just throwing Linux Mint (or whatever distro you like) onto your IBM spec machine??
Well done you.
You will find the Apple OS X will mirror the problems you had with MS, with some very poor software to boot. :) Enjoy. When saving a file on an Apple OS X app try navigating through folders! Good luck with it. O yes, you will do what all OS X users do, quietly buy an app for 30euro to make it easier. If MS Windows has the same poor navigation system the world would be up-in-arms. As its Apple OS X – well better not say a word. Good luck with the free OS X updates. You find that some of your apps will no longer work or at best you will need to pay to update them. Noa word to anyone. Good luck with all the small add-ons you have to buy. Good luck with stopping iPhotos from taking over all your images whether you like it or not. Good luck with trying to write a long document in Pages or create a spreadsheet in Numbers. All LEGO apps in my mind. Put a few folders and loose files on your Desktop and watch OS X slow down. OS X wants pretty much everthing put in the Documents folder. its all ahead of you. All the MS moaners on the Journal should try a week on a Apple PC. They may not find it worst than MS Windows, just different but with its only set of issues that Apple OS X users prefer to remain silent about.
I haven’t found ANY of those problems Paul, seriously. I switched from PC to Mac over 6 years ago and have never looked back. If you want to learn how to fix a computer, buy a PC. If you want to learn now to use a computer, then buy a Mac. I worked in IT with PC’s for over 10 years, never want to use one again if I can avoid it. Different strokes for different folks I suppose. XP and 7 were good OS’s. 8 and 10 are horrible.
I tried Windows 10 but hate it & return to 8 thought I keep getting 10 request every time I open it. Like harassment. I plan switch to Apple laptop because I’ve iPad & iPhone those performances were brilliant!
Google it. It gives you instructions to delete files and stop notifications. Can watch tutorial on you tube!
It’s worth the time and effort!
I too hate windows 10 and reverted back to Windows 8. Had to go all technical to stop Windows from sending me update to Windows 10 requests
Hi Lily. Would you be able to tell me how u stopped the requests or is it really technical? I’m not going to upgrade, I’m very happy with Windows 7, so would love the requests to stop.
Like to buy my 99 Mercury then?
Mercedes……
Sorry was at work, I did make a comment below about googling it (that’s what I did) and followed instructions, I don’t have a clue what I did so explaining it would be a bit hard. Did that about 3 months ago and not one single update.
That’s grand – I’ll have a go at google and see how it goes. Thanks :-)
I’m sticking with 7 for as long as possible, then I’m switching to Linux. Probably Ubuntu.
I wonder if I deleted the right registry key then???
6 year old Dell Latitude running Win 10 on a SSD (€50) & using open DNS for browsing (UPC DNS causes lag), it’s the fastest pc I have ever used & won’t be changing anytime soon!
have your say