MICROSOFT

The Czech branch of Microsoft was named the best national branch in the worldwide network in the first half of the U.S. fiscal year (July 2006–June 2007). Microsoft Czech Republic won for increasing sales and opening a development center for mobile phone technology support in Prague this January.

The Chamber of Deputies passed a government-proposed bill March 21 to dis­­solve the IT Ministry. The bill now goes to the Senate. The IT Ministry operates under the control of Interior Minister Ivan Langer, who said the IT Ministry could close in mid-2007. The agency’s powers would be transferred to the Interior, Trade and Industry and Regional Development ministries.

More than 782,000 new computers were sold in the Czech Republic in 2006, up 24.6 percent from 2005, analyst company Gartner reports. Acer remained market leader with a share of more than 17 percent, followed by Hewlett-Packard and Dell. The top-10 list includes three Czech companies: BGS Levi (Lynx computers), AutoCont and T.S.Bohemia.

The number of domains with the .cz suffix exceeded 300,000 in March, according to an announcement by Cz.nic, which administers the national domain. The association believes the number of registrations will top 350,000 by the end of 2007.

Czech computer users and companies spent 630 million Kč ($30.1 million) on security software in 2006, a year-on-year growth of 25 percent, IDC CEMA announced. Users spent about half the sum on tools like anti-virus software. In 2007, IDC expects spending to grow 23 percent in most Central European countries.

eTel announced it ended a year in the black for the first time since launching Czech operations in 1999. Operating profit reached 17.2 million Kč in 2006, and total revenues hit 241 million Kč. eTel’s parent company, eTel Group Limited, announced in 2006 it concluded an agreement with Telekom Austria AG on sell­ing eTel branches in Austria, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany. Completion will depend on approval by national regulators.

UPC, the largest domestic cable TV group, raised the number of Internet connections 50 percent to 186,400 in 2006, Liberty Global announced. UPC’s cable and satellite customers amounted to 663,800 last year, about 2 percent more than in 2005. About 1.3 million households have access to UPC’s cable networks, 965,000 of which also use them for Internet.