Comment Re:The Doctor needs a break too (Score 1) 332
The Master was on his last incarnation during the classic series, but said he had been granted a new set due to the services he provided during Time War.
Huh? Where I work we sell in the EU, and we do not have any offices or even any employees there.
Well, maybe not in the "legally required to" sense (though I think that in some areas those are mandated as well) but but more in the "if you want your business to succeed" sense.
There are lots of reasons for having headquarters of some sort near your customers. The most important is probably having easy understanding the culture of your customers and/or actually getting or retaining customers. The best example I can come up with on short notice is McDonalds, which for a good reason has headquarters in nearly every European nation in order to set the logistics and handle the cultural integration (see; selling beer in France or selling hamburgers with black rye bread in Finland).
Few years back (2005) I was trying to buy an iPod directly from Apple Europe (located from Ireland), and even that was horrible as the Irish customer service didn't understand my problem (the reference number wasn't correctly formated to be used with Finnish bank transfers* and students don't usually get credit cards even if we have savings and steady income from student benefits). The Finnish FAQ-web page didn't load correctly (links didn't work and some of the images were missing). Apple supposedly had Finnish contact phone numbers but they didn't work either; when I send email afterwards with feedback, they claimed that they "work perfectly from line phones", which few households had even back then. If they had had even one Finnish worker, none of these problems would be an issue. Not to mention better translation for the operating system; you still remove CD's and iPods by clicking button titled "Give Me".
And so on.
*these days it's not issue any more.
Ireland's tax rate may be low in European terms, it is not when compared with locations such as Singapore, India and China.
But the companies are in Ireland because it's part of EU: they HAVE to have headquarters on the EU-area to do business there. There already is Apple Singapore, Apple India and Apple China (and probably rather same percentage of the rest of the companies listed), and they very well can't move their European operations there. If the taxes rise, the only thing Ireland has going for it is a large population of native English-speakers (and already having all the infra built on Ireland).
The rest of the states have tax of average of 26% and none under 20%; Ireland has 12% and if I understand correctly, USA has anywhere between 15% - 35%. The companies currently have extremely good deal, and even if the taxes would rise, the deal would still be very good.
Also it was extremely difficult to multitask. If you were running both Word and Excel for example, you had to first minimize the Word window, then locate the icon representing Excel, followed by clicking it. Then if you wanted to switch back, minimize Excel, find the Word icon, and click it. Royal pain in the ass.
Didn't Windows 3.x have Alt+Tab? I distinctly remember using it. Worked like charm, and even today the best way to move between two programs, no matter what OS you prefer to use.
8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss