Tech sector eyes fresh blood

De Rebel

From ENN http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9558093

Tech sector eyes fresh blood
Friday, October 08 2004
by Matthew Clark

Minister Dermot Ahern and his tech-focused ministerial peers have moved on to greener pastures thanks to the recent Cabinet reshuffle. But are the new e-ministers up to the job?


In fairness, departing Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Tanaiste Mary Harney, has no easy row to hoe. She's been given -- and by most accounts sought -- the poisoned chalice of Health, leaving the high-profile job of Minister for Enterprise to former Minister for Health Micheal Martin. Having held the post since 1997, Harney has become synonymous with the creation of new IDA- and Enterprise Ireland-backed jobs, including thousands at the likes of Intel, Google, AOL, SAP, eBay and Bell Labs.


Thankfully for Minister Martin, the IDA wheels have long been in motion and new jobs are said to be in the pipeline. But with the country now coming to expect a few hundred new tech or bio-tech jobs every few months -- against the backdrop of constant job losses in traditional manufacturing -- the new Minister for Enterprise will need to ensure Ireland is ever more alluring to foreign firms, a not-so-easy task in the midst of rising costs and fewer highly educated graduates.


Elsewhere in government, the Minister for the Information Society, Mary Hanafin, has left to take up a full ministerial position as Minister for Education and Science. Her heir to the Information Society post, a job that over the last two years has been strongly focused on e-government rollout, has not yet been announced. Motor tax online, the e-Cabinet and e-Courts projects have all been put in place on Minister Hanafin's watch, with sources now saying that e-health is in the crosshairs.


Truth be told, the Department of Enterprise, the Information Society Commission and its e-government implementation companion, Reach, will probably chug along nicely with new skippers at the helm. But it's a different story at the Department of Communications, the Marine and Natural Resources (DCMNR).


"Minister Ahern will be missed," declares Damien Mulley, the chairman of pressure group IrelandOffline. "When Dermot Ahern issued a directive, or made a statement, things changed."


In fact, the market changed tremendously during Minister Ahern's time at the DCMNR, with ADSL broadband subscriptions rising from just 2,000 to nearly 80,000. Indeed, Ahern's move to Foreign Affairs could only be seen as a promotion for the man who presided over the construction of 19 Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), the Broadband for Schools programme, the introduction of flat-rate dial-up internet access, the Community Broadband Scheme, full mobile number portability (FMNP) and all-Ireland mobile phone tariffs. More importantly, the now-competitive broadband sector is experiencing a consumer-loving price war that has seen broadband prices spiral down to what Mulley calls "an affordable level."


While it's fair to note that the country is unlikely to meet Minister Ahern's mid-2005 deadline of 350,000 broadband subscribers -- a magic number that would bring Ireland up to the EU-15 Average -- few can say that the 'Minister for Broadband' Dermot Ahern did not oversee, or indeed instigate, real change.


For his part, Noel Dempsey, former Minister for Education and Science, has big shoes to fill. In fact, just days after the reshuffle was announced, the new Minister for Communications was called upon by the Labour Party spokesperson on Communications, Deputy Tommy Broughan, to succeed where his predecessor ostensibly failed and ensure universal broadband access to every home in the country. "I hate to use the Fianna Fail slogan, but it's true: a lot has been done, but there is still a lot more to do," Mulley says. Apart from universal broadband access, lower-priced local loop unbundling -- a key process in fostering competition -- and even lower consumer prices are at the top of the "to-do" list, and anything less than total success may be seen as failure.


Meanwhile, telecoms firms themselves are already keen to ensure Minister Dempsey hears their voices loud and clear. The CEO of mobile operator O2, Danuta Gray, for example, said just two days after the reshuffle announcement that the Irish telecoms sector is already awash with over-regulation, making new investments in infrastructure more difficult. At the annual ACCA business lunch, she said Minister Dempsey ought to implement IBEC's recommendation to create a body to oversee industry regulation "which will result in intervention only when needed."


Gray's comments hardly make it to the level of "fighting words," but her voice is just one in a chorus that includes the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators, IBEC's Telecommunications and Internet Federation (TIF), and countless firms and associations who are keen to bend Minister Dempsey's ear in multiple directions.


For his part, TIF director Tommy McCabe says the key to a successful reign for Minister Dempsey will include the "right" level of public investment in telecoms infrastructure -- such as the MANs, which are certain to harm Eircom's business. But McCabe's point is a solid one: too much public investment makes existing private infrastructure less valuable, while too little ensures slow development.


Then again, that's really the trick of government, isn't it? In the multifaceted struggle that engulfs Ireland's telecoms sector -- with ComReg, consumers, Eircom and other operators all vying for pre-eminence -- walking the tightrope between the needs of business and the desires of voters is never easy, especially when the tightrope is an overheated broadband line.