RIM rumours abound

In a week that celebrated the World Wide Web reaching 21 years of age (6 August), the international ICT market was dominated by rumours surrounding possible sell-offs by RIM, which includes interest from IBM.

At home, the Competition Tribunal's ruling regarding Telkom stole much of the local ICT headline space, especially as there is a further case pending, which is due to be heard in June next year.

* Good interim numbers from MTN, with revenue up 17.5% and profit up 12.9%.
* A year-end loss from Infraco (down from 2011), although revenue up by 32%.
* A positive trading update from Trustco Group.
* The acquisition by Poynting Antennas of Radiant Antennas, a company specialising in the design, manufacture and supply of high frequency, very high frequency and ultra high frequency antennas.
* Ideco is now trading under the name Muvoni Technology Group.
* The Competition Tribunal has fined Telkom SA R449 million for 'bullying' tactics between 1999 and 2004.
* Websense has opened a data centre in SA to offer its cloud-based security as a service to organisations.
* A new quarterly publication by IT News Africa has debuted. African Innovator is dedicated to the coverage of ICT and its impact on Africa.
* The appointments of Stewart Bloom as CEO of Aspect Software; and Pommie Lutchman, CEO of Ocular Technologies, as CCMG chairman.
* The resignations of Graham Braum, Africa country manager for Acer; and Jim Foy, CEO of Aspect Software (remains as executive chairman).

* SkyVision Global Networks acquired Afinis Communications from Monaco Telecom. Afinis is a leading provider of connectivity solutions in francophone Africa.
* Tana Khalifa was appointed MENA GM for Intel.

The Competition Tribunal has fined Telkom SA R449 million for 'bullying' tactics.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Accenture bought Octagon Research Solutions, an Irish management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.
* BMC Software purchased VaraLogix, an application release automation provider.
* Digia Oyj, a Finnish IT firm, acquired Nokia's software development kit Qt.
* Interactive Intelligence bought Bay Bridge Decision Technologies, a supplier of contact centre forecasting, capacity planning and strategic analysis technology.
* PTC purchased Servigistics, the developer of an innovative suite of service life cycle management software solutions.
* Vringo, a company that specialises in suing companies for patent infringement, acquired 500 patents from Nokia.
* Motorola Solutions invested in Fixmo, a provider of mobile security, compliance and risk management solutions.
* Very good quarterly figures from Cognizant Technology Solutions, Nuance Communications and Rackspace.
* Good quarterly numbers from SMIC (back in the black) and Tech Mahindra.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Telus and Zain.
* Mediocre quarterly results from CSC, Molex, Sykes Enterprises, T-Mobile USA and Trend Micro.
* Mixed quarterly figures from BCE, with revenue down but profit up; Bharti Airtel, with revenue up but profit down; CenturyLink, with revenue up but profit down; Deutsche Telekom, with revenue down but profit up; JDA Software, with revenue up but profit down; Nvidia, with revenue up but profit down; Open Text, with revenue up but profit down; Plantronics, with revenue up but profit down; and US Cellular, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Bottomline Technologies, Brightpoint, Imperva, Leap Wireless, MEMC Electronic Materials, Quest Software.
* The appointment of Richard Penn as president and CEO of Hutchinson Technology.

* International:
* The buyer of Kodak's patents, which looks like either Apple or Google.
* The disposal by RIM of NewBay and several other assets. In addition, IBM also showed interested in buying RIM's enterprise services division.
* South Africa:
* The fate of Infraco, Sentech and Telkom SA, all of which seem to be in the melting pot, with speculation abounding as to their separate or joint futures.

* Worldwide IT outsourcing services is on pace to surpass $251 billion in 2012, a 2% increase from 2011, according to Gartner.
* Android and iOS powered 85% of all new smartphones in Q2, with the former taking a 68.1% slice, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.9% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Up 1.8% (back over the '3 000' level again)
* Top SA share movements: Amecor (-10%), Ansys (-10.3%), CompuClearing (+15%), ConvergeNet (-10.8%), Huge (+8.7%) and Ifca Technologies (-33.3%)

Last weekend, the Sunday Times published its annual 'Top Brands' supplement for 2012. The following were the technology highlights:

* Nokia was the top overall favourite brand (consumer), coming in at number five overall.
* Vodacom and MTN, in that order, were the top two brands in both the telecoms service providers business and the telecoms service provider consumer national spaces.
* iPhone was number one in the cellphone business space; while Nokia took this spot in the consumer national space.
* iPad was tops in the computer tablet/e-reader category.
* Vodacom, MTN and Telkom were in the top 10 for the community upliftment consumer metro (four, five and seven); done most for the environment consumer metro (four, nine, 10); and most desired company to work for consumer metro (five, seven, three) categories.