Mixed week for Microsoft

The international ICT market was dominated last week by announcements from Microsoft regarding its Windows 8 release.

At home, the eruptions that occurred at the Telkom AGM stole much of the local ICT media space.

* A full-year loss from SecureData, with revenue also down 2.8%.
* Positive trading updates from Business Connexion, MiX Telematics and Vodacom.
* Media reports say government voted against the re-election of four Telkom directors and two new management share incentive schemes at the Telkom AGM.

* MTN's subscriber numbers grew 3.8% in Q3 to reach 182.7 million, with SA showing a 4.1% growth and Guinea-Conakry an 11.5% growth, the highest increase anywhere in Africa.
* The National Outsourcing Association announced that SA has won this year's Offshoring Destination of the Year Award.
* Craig Chambers was appointed non-executive chairman of AdaptIT.
* Jacques Malherbe resigned as CEO of Westcon.
* Bernard Ravno retired as non-executive chairman of AdaptIT.

* Bharti Airtel, the world's fourth largest mobile operator, said its subscriber base in Africa has passed the 60 million mark.
* Orascom Telecom Holding will change its name to Global Telecom Holding before the end of the year, to reflect its international presence in the mobile and telecoms sector. The company also plans to convert its non-voting shares in Globalive (Canada) in order to take absolute control of the company.

* Diebold acquired Turkey-based Altus, an industry-leading multivendor service provider.
* KDDI and Sumitomo bought Jupiter Telecommunications, the cable group, in a deal that will create a cable TV company commanding half of the Japanese market. The acquisition was worth $2.7 billion.
* Marlin Equity Partners purchased the intelligent bandwidth management business of Sycamore Networks, which will file for liquidation once this deal has been closed. The acquisition was worth $18.75 million.
* Nice Systems bought Redkite Financial Markets, a provider of real-time, cloud-based institutional trade surveillance solutions.
* Telefonica acquired Tokbox, a US-based start-up that allows people to embed live video chat capabilities within their Web sites.
* Telstra purchased Australian ISP Adam Internet.
* Yahoo bought Stamped, a small, mobile start-up company.
* MTS, Russia's largest mobile operator, made a 25.1% investment in MTS Bank (formerly the Moscow Bank for Reconstruction & Development), a domestic bank in that country.
* Microsoft debuted Windows 8 and Windows RT, which coincides with a warning by the EU regarding its browser options in the new operating systems.
* Samsung Display will terminate its contract with Apple and no longer supply LCD panels to the company.
* Excellent quarterly results from InterDigital and Western Digital.
* Very good quarterly figures from Samsung Electronics and TSMC.
* Good quarterly numbers from Akamai Technologies, Apple, ARM Holdings, China Unicom, Dassault Systemes, Equifax, Idea Cellular (India), LG Display, LSI, Micros Systems and VeriSign.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from America Movil, China Mobile, EMC, F5 Networks, Ingram Micro, Motorola Solutions, Symantec, Telenor and Yahoo.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Anixter International, CA Technologies, Canon, Compuware, EE (was Everything Everywhere), Ericsson, France Telecom-Orange, HTC, Informatica, KPN, Maxim Integrated Products, Molex and Xerox.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Altera, with revenue up but profit down; ASML, with revenue up but profit down; AT&T, with revenue down but profit up; Broadcom, with revenue up but profit down; Citrix Systems, with revenue up but profit down; Diebold, with revenue up but profit down; Forrester Research, with revenue down but profit up; Juniper Networks, with revenue up but profit down; LG Electronics, with revenue down but profit up; Logitech, with revenue down but profit up; Netgear, with revenue up but profit down; NTT DoCoMo, with revenue up but profit down; Rogers Communications, with revenue up but profit down; SAP, with revenue up but profit down; Texas Instruments, with revenue down but profit up; VMware, with revenue up but profit down; and Websense, with revenue down but profit up.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Acer, but back in the black; and Lexmark.
* Quarterly losses from Amazon.com, AU Optronics, Clearwire, Facebook, L3 Communications, Netflix, NetSuite, Polycom, Quantum, RF Micro Devices, Sprint Nextel, ST-Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Tellabs, Unisys and ZTE.
* The appointments of Anthony Ambrose as CEO of Data I/O; and Pierre Nanterme as chairman of Accenture (this is in addition to his role as CEO).
* The retirements of William Green, chairman of Accenture; and Frederick Hume, CEO of Data I/O.
* A delay of the planned IPO in London by MegaFon (Russia). This is the third delay of the IPO by the company, which was originally scheduled for July 2012.

* International:
* The buyer for BMC Software, valued at $6.4 billion. The contenders include private equity companies Bain Capital Partners, KKR & Co and TPG Capital.
* Africa:
* The buyer for Vivendi's Maroc Telecom's stake. The contenders include Etisalat (UAE), MTN, Qtel (Qatar), Saudi Telecom; and possibly Vodafone.
* South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the future of Telkom, following the AGM that was held last week.

* The worldwide mobile phone market grew 2.4% in Q3 2012 to reach 444.5 million units, with Samsung and Nokia taking just over 40% of the market, according to IDC. In the same period, the worldwide smartphone market grew 45.3%, with Samsung growing its market share to just over 31%. It was followed by Apple, RIM, ZTE and HTC, with Nokia no longer one of the top five.
* Two-thirds of enterprises will adopt a mobile device management solution for corporate liable users through 2017, according to Gartner.
* Every budget is becoming an IT budget, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.2% (highest ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Down 0.6%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (-9.1%), ConvergeNet Holdings (+13%), Digicore (+18.4%), Huge (+8%), Labat Africa (+11.5%), MiX Telematics (+24%), Poynting (+10.5%) and TCS (-50%)

Gartner has revealed its top predictions for IT organisations and users for 2013 and beyond. These include the following:
* Through 2015, 90% of enterprises will bypass broad-scale deployment of Windows 8.
* By year-end 2014, three of the top five mobile handset vendors will be Chinese, including Huawei and ZTE.
* By 2015, big data demand will require 4.4 million jobs globally, but only one-third of those jobs will be filled.
* By 2014, European Union directives will drive legislation to protect jobs, reducing off-shoring by 20% through 2016.
* By 2014, IT hiring in major Western markets will come predominantly from Asian-headquartered companies enjoying double-digit growth.
* By 2017, 40% of enterprise contact information will have leaked into Facebook via employees' increased use of mobile device collaboration applications.
* Through 2014, employee-owned devices will be compromised by malware at more than double the rate of corporate-owned devices.
* Through 2014, software spending resulting from the proliferation of smart operational technology will increase by 25%.
* By 2015, 40% of Global 1000 organisations will use gamification as the primary mechanism to transform business operations.
* By 2016, wearable smart electronics in shoes, tattoos and accessories will emerge as a $10 billion industry.
* By 2014, market consolidation will displace up to 20% of the top 100 IT services providers.