Web giant Yahoo Inc. to open European base in Ireland [February 15, 2005]

DUBLIN, Ireland, Feb 15, 2005 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Internet giant Yahoo Inc. announced Tuesday that it will open a European operations headquarters in Ireland, a particularly popular base for high-tech multinationals.

The government, which provides strong tax incentives and grants for foreign companies locating in Ireland, said the project would create about 400 jobs over the next five years.

Ireland - which has long enjoyed the "Celtic Tiger" label in recognition of its past decade of European Union-leading economic growth - is the world's largest exporter of software and hosts regional operations of most big American computer-oriented firms, including Dell Inc., Google Inc., Hewlett Packard Co. and Intel Corp.

Now Yahoo, the Sunnyvale, California-based company that operates one of the world's most popular Web destinations, has also decided that Ireland - with its 12.5 percent corporate tax rate and English-speaking graduates - is the best spot for its European operations.

John Marcom, Yahoo senior vice president for international operations, said the success of Yahoo's Overture Services division, which has operated a networking and sales office in Dublin since 2003, pointed the way to Tuesday's much bigger investment.

Marcom said Overture Services' Irish office "has surpassed all forecasted operating targets." He also credited what he called "the caliber and volume of graduates available in Ireland" and "the up-to-date and cost-competitive telecommunications and data center infrastructures."

To seal the deal, the government's Investment and Development Agency provided a confidential amount of financial aid.

Economy Minister Micheal Martin said other unspecified countries had offered "strong competition." He said Yahoo's choice "endorses Ireland's ability to support global activities that are 'people-intensive' and require a continuous high volume of graduates in many disciplines."

Yahoo said the new Dublin base would include accounting and revenue operations, a Web hosting center and a multilingual customer support unit.

Ireland traditionally suffered from double-digit unemployment and mass emigration, but reversed the picture beginning in the mid-1990s. Today the country has 4.2 percent unemployment and significant levels of immigration, including IT specialists and software engineers from other western European nations.