Big deals dominate

Several acquisitions valued at over $1 billion dominated the international ICT market last week, including the ones by Cisco and Dell.

At home, the interim financial results from EOH and Pinnacle Technology took pride of place in the local media.

Yahoo has filed a patent infringement suit against Facebook.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Very good interim numbers from EOH, with revenue up 44.1% and profit up 51.5%; and Pinnacle Technology, with revenue up 32.2% and profit up 46.6%.
* Good year-end figures from MICROmega, with revenue up 13.7% and profit up 51.6%.
* Good interim figures from CompuClearing, with revenue up 16.2% and profit up 35.7%.
* Satisfactory year-end numbers from MTN, with revenue up 6.2% but profit up 41.4%.
* Positive trading updates from Business Connexion and Datatec.
* A negative trading update from Mvelaserve.
* Autopage Cellular, a subsidiary of Altech, acquired Altech Technology Concepts, in a move that is intended to help push convergence solutions from the Altech group. The new entity will be headed up by Boyd Chislett as CEO, who is the current MD of Autopage, while Wayne de Nobrega, CEO of ATC, will take on a strategic advisory role.
* Metrofile bought Global Continuity SA, a provider of business continuity management and IT service continuity.
* Esquire Technologies made a 50% investment in SA Gateway, an Internet service provider, in a move that would allow the former to offer wholesale Internet-based communications rates to its clients.
* ATM Solutions has selected some solutions from Fiserv to help manage its network of ATMs in Africa. For six of the past eight years, Fiserv has been ranked number one on the FinTech 100, an annual international listing of the top technology providers to the financial services industry.
* The appointments of January de Lange as MD of Norbain SA; Ahmed Farrough as group chief operating executive for MTN; Alpheus Mangale as MD of Cisco SA; George Mothema as chairman of SAPO; Helen Rich as Enterprise Services country manager for HP SA; and Gert Schoonbee as MD of T-Systems SA.

* Mixed year-end figures from MTC (Namibia), with revenue up 3.2% but profit down significantly.
* A quarterly loss from Orascom Telecom, with revenue also down 2%.
* Eaton Towers purchased France Telecom's tower network in Uganda.
* Vodacom has lost its appeal in the DRC regarding $21 million in compensation for a former consultant.
* IDC announced that MEA server revenue shrank 6.1% in Q4 2011 to $425 million, but that the external storage market in CEMA rose 16.5% in Q4 2011 to $602 million.
* SAP will spend $450 million over the next four years expanding its business in the Middle East and North Africa.
* The appointments of Andy Baker as the head of the African division of G4S; Mardia van der Walt-Korsten as regional head of T-Systems' newly-formed Africa region; and Tertius Vermeulen as CEO of Trustlink.

* ADP acquired the HR solutions subsidiary of SHPS, a provider of benefits administration services.
* Avaya bought RADVision, an Israeli video conferencing company, for $230 million.
* BCE (Canada) purchased Astral Media, a Canadian media company, for $3 billion.
* Cisco acquired NDS, a video and content security software company, for $5 billion.
* CN Tetragen (Spain) bought the fixed-wireless broadband business of Nokia Siemens Networks.
* Dell purchased SonicWALL, a maker of network and data security products, for $1.2 billion.
* Ericsson acquired the Broadcast Services division of Technicolor, a leader in the media and entertainment sector.
* Flextronics bought Stellar Microelectronics, a full service EMS provider.
* Lexmark purchased BDGB Enterprise, which also includes Brainware, in a deal that will strengthen the former's managed document services capability.
* MDC Partners acquired Dotbox, a social commerce firm.
* Micrel bought PhaseLink, a provider of mixed signal technology for timing source and conditioning ICs.
* Nuance Communications purchased Transcend Services, a provider of medical transcription and speech editing services.
* RIM acquired Paratek Microwave, a company that provides adaptive radio-frequency technology that improves mobile-handset call quality and battery life.
* Singapore Telecommunications bought Amobee, a developer of mobile advertising technology, for $321 million.
* Twitter purchased Posterous, a blogging platform known for its slick digital media-sharing interface.
* Venture Partners acquired Quest Software, a provider of software that monitors data flowing through corporate networks and the Internet. The deal was worth $2 billion.
* Youku, a Chinese online video company, bought Tudou, its chief competitor, for $864 million.
* Vringo, a mobile content developer, merged with Innovate/Protect, a patent holding company.
* Abu Dhabi's ATIC made an additional investment in the remaining shares of AMD's former microchip manufacturing unit, giving it full control over Global Foundries, a spin-off from AMD in 2009.
* Intel invested (10%) in Tobii Technology (Sweden), a multinational chip maker.
* Analog Devices is moving its listing from the NYSE to Nasdaq.
* AU Optronics has been convicted of US price fixing over its LCD panels.
* NTT Data is planning a series of acquisitions in Europe in order to triple the size of its overseas business in the next two years.
* Yahoo has filed a patent infringement suit against Facebook, alleging the latter's social network's popular and financial success is based on technology developed and owned by the former.
* Excellent quarterly results from Renren (back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from Tencent Holdings.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Computacenter.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from China Mobile and Mitel (back in the black).
* Mixed quarterly figures from AVG, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Ciena and VimpelCom.
* The appointments of Takashi Okuda as president of Sharp; and Andrew Perriman as CEO of the newly formed company created by the merger of Vringo and Innovate/Protect.
* The resignation of Jonathan Medved, CEO of Vringo.
* A planned IPO from Ziggo, a Dutch cable provider, which could be worth almost EUR745 million, and a move that could result in Europe's largest listing for almost 12 months.
* A very good IPO on the NYSE by Demandware, a cloud computing-based software company.
* An expected IPO by Apptio, a business software maker, probably after that of Facebook.

* International:
The future of Misys following the breakdown of talks involving Temenos and various venture capital partners.
* Africa:
The future of Vodacom's DRC operation.
* South Africa:
Further developments regarding the possible tie-up between Telkom SA and Korea Telecom.

* Telecom OSS spending will reach $67 billion by 2016, a compounded growth rate of 5.9% over the coming five years, according to Insight Research.
* The worldwide external controller-based disk storage vendor revenue grew 4.8% in Q4 2011 to $5.9 billion, with HP dropping to number five from the number three position, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide PC shipments are likely to grow 4.4% in 2012 to 368 million units, predicts Gartner.
* Worldwide storage software sales grew 10.5% in Q4 2011 to almost $3.8 billion, according to IDC.
* Worldwide media tablets shipments into sales channels grew 155% in Q4 2011 to 28.2 million units, according to IDC.
* Worldwide semiconductor spending will reach $316 billion in 2012, up 4% from 2011, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.1%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.7% (the index closed at over the 3000 level for the first time since December 2000)
* Top SA share movements: EOH (+12.5%), MiX Telematics (-28.6%), Ideco (+25%), Ifca Technologies (+33.3%), Pinnacle (+9.3%), Poynting Antennas (+34.1%), Silverbridge Holdings (-22.2%), Stella Vista (-25%), TCS (+100%) and Telemasters (-16.2%)

Minister of communications Dina Pule has outlined the department's strategies and directions to Parliament, which she says will be implementing programmes that practically manifest the objectives of the six relevant outcomes detailed in its strategic plan and corporate plan.

The flagship projects, which are designed to offer technology and services to all citizens, include:

* Broadband Internet connectivity;
* Rural development and job creation;
* Digital broadcasting migration implementation;
* Cyber-security policy implementation;
* Radio frequency spectrum policy for national development; and
* A national ICT policy framework.