A busy IT week

The 'courting` of mmO2 and the resolution of the WorldCom/AT&T routing dispute dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.

At home, the slating of Telkom for its alleged anti-competitive practices and the news from CS Holdings and Intervid stole much of the local ICT headline space.

* We saw satisfactory interim figures from Comparex (ignoring Europe sell-off, both revenue and income slightly up);
* Mediocre interim numbers from Bidvest (revenue and income both down) and Mustek (revenue and income both down);
* Interim operational losses from I-Fusion and mymarket.com (both part of Bidvest Group);
* Half-year losses from Faritec (but revenue well up) and Intervid (revenue also significantly down);
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Datacraft Asia, owned by Dimension Data (revenue up a little and back in the black - just);
* The suspension of Maxtec`s shares following a management buyout;
* A results warning from Datacentrix; and
* Positive earnings/results warning from Global Technology (although a loss still expected) and Reunert.

Other local news included:

* Comparex`s payout of a significant special dividend amounting to R1.62 billion;
* The resignations of Bill Lambert, non-executive chairman of Intervid (but now re-appointed), Mark Taylor, CEO of Intervid (but now re-appointed) and Annette van der Laan, CEO of CS Holdings;
* The appointments of Rob Howard as executive chairman of Intervid, Karl Socikwa as interim chairman of the second national operator, and Dave Vink as acting CEO of CS Holdings;
* The announcement of the findings of the Competition Commission and the Competition Tribunal re Telkom and its alleged anti-competitive practices; and
* The Telkom 'ICT Journalist of the Year` award went to Marina Bidoli of the Financial Mail.

A new local distributorship included that of i-mate mobile products by Leaf Wireless.

Look out for the outcome of France Telecom`s offer to buy the rest of Wanadoo for EUR3.9 billion.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

Furthermore, on the local front look out for the fate of Intervid if the company cannot come up with surety for the R21 million overdraft it has with Nedbank, and the buyer(s) for Iocore`s Oracle and SAP businesses.

* We saw a settlement in the dispute between WorldCom and AT&T re call routing;
* The unveiling of a new investment of $26 million of 3G funding for UK-based UbiNetics; and
* The courting of UK-based mmO2 by both NTT DoCoMo and Royal KPN NV.

International strategic partnerships were announced between RedHat and Wind River Systems for the development of RedHat Embedded Linux for the device software optimisation market; and between Procera Networks and ServGate Technologies.

Additionally, look out for the outcome of France Telecom`s offer to buy the rest of Wanadoo for EUR3.9 billion; the outcome of the talks between Australia`s Telstra and Indonesia`s mobile carrier, Excelcomindo; and a possible management buyout of Gaming International.

Other international news included:

* The appointments of Mike Keough as president of ClearOne Comms, Carl Schlachte as CEO of ARC International, and Pete Sinisgalli as president and COO of Manhattan Associates;
* The resignations of Nicholas Brookes as CEO of Spirent, Dan Del Rosario as CEO of Photronics, Son Kil-Seung as chairman of SK Telecom, Pyo Moon-Soo as president of SK Telekom, and Greg Rand as president and COO of ClearOne Comms; and
* Job loss announcements from AT&T.

We saw excellent* figures from Audiovox (back in the black), Lion, Marvell Technology Group (back in the black), Proginet (back in the black), RELM Wireless (back in the black) and Tundra Semiconductor; and very good* numbers from Autodesk, Catalyst Semiconductor, SBE and VSE.

Good figures* were recorded by Applied Signal Technology, Bouygues Telecom, Capita Group, CellStar (back in the black), chinadotcom (back in the black), CT Comms, Dynamics Research, GSI Lumonics (back in the black), Ingram Micro, Iron Mountain, OTE Group, Portal Software (back in the black), Proxima Technology, Rural Cellular, SemTech, SEZ Group (back in the black), US LEC, USi and Versant (back in the black).

Satisfactory* figures were reported by Concord EFS, DDi (back in the black), Dycom Industries (back in the black), Entercom Comms, Ikonics, Mediacom Comms (back in the black), Novell (back in the black), PPOL, Presstek (back in the black), Royal KPN NV (back in the black), Sykes Enterprises (back in the black), TechTeam Global (back in the black), Telefonica (back in the black) and Ziff Davis (back in the black).

Mediocre* returns came from CDI, eOn Comms (but back in the black), Getronics (but back in the black), NII Holdings, Niku, Novatel, ScanSoft, Synopsys, Tyler Technologies, Wind River Systems (but back in the black) and Winland Electronics; while very poor results* came from Titan and Tri-Vision International.

Losses* came from 24/7 Real Media, Agile Software, Alaska Comms, Allin, ASAT Holdings, Call-Net, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Catalyst international, Cesky Telecom, Choice One Comms, Copper Mountain Networks, Crossroads Systems, Daleen, Datakey, Datalex, Datatrak, Digimarc, EPIQ Systems, Fiberstars, GameTech, Ibis Technology, Information Holdings, Insight Comms, InteliData, Intellisync, Iusacell, Leitch Technology, Loudeye, Mandator AB, McData, MDSI Mobile Data Solutions, MetroPCS, Microtune, Morse, NetRatings, Numerex, NUR Macroprinters, On2 Technologies, Open Solutions, Optimal Robotics, Path 1 Network Technologies, Plaintree Systems, PLATO Learning, QI Systems, Quanta Services, Radiant Systems, SBA Comms, SDL, Seagull Software, Spectrum Signal Processing, SR Telecom, Telesystems International Wireless, Terra Lycos, Triton PCS, Unify, US Wireless Data, Verso, Viewpoint, Wi-LAN and Zoran.

Other financial news included analyst upgrades for Amphenol, Ascential, Foundry Networks, International Rectifier, Jabil Circuit and TriQuint Semiconductor; analyst downgrades for CommScope and Cray; share offerings from InterNAP, LightPath Technologies, MapInfo, ServicePower Technologies and TTM Technologies; share buy-back announcements from DST Systems, Novellus, SemTech and SunGard; positive results/profit warnings from Comtech Telecomms and Qualcomm; and negative results/profit warnings (often veiled) from BearingPoint, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Netflix, Raft International and Synopsys.

There was a share split announcement from Marvell Technology Group (2:1); planned IPOs from Irish telecommunications company, Eircom, in Dublin and London, Chinese wireless services company, Linktone, in New York and Chinese-based SMIC in New York and in Hong Kong; and a good IPO from CSR in London. Additionally, Adelphia Comms filed for a proposed Chapter 11 reorganisation.

Locally

Cycad (-33.3%)
Datacentrix (-17.4%)
Edutech (+25%)
Elexir (-33.3%)
Global Technology (-50%)
Infowave (-24.2%)
Intervid (-33.3%)
Labat Africa (+14.2%)
Vesta (-60%)
Zaptronix (-25%)

Internationally

Com21 (-50%)
DA Consulting Group (-50%)
Geoworks (+30%)
Intelek (+25.5%)
RCN (-28.2%)
Robocom Systems International (-24.1%)
Sirius Financial Solutions (+28%)
SONICblue (+40.6%)
Tadpole Technologies (-19.6%)
Tarantella (-18.9%)

In terms of indices, Nasdaq was down 0.4% and the JSE down 0.8% for the week.

Last week witnessed the Telkom ICT Journalist of the Year award ceremony. To me it was very noticeable that none of the awards went to journalists from the 'conventional` ICT publications.

* N.B.

Guidelines for the categorisation of results are as follows and are always in comparison with the equivalent period for the previous year; pro forma numbers are ignored (the terminology may vary slightly from country to country).

* Excellent: Both revenue and net income growth are in excess of 50%.
* Very good: Both revenue and net income growth are in excess of 25%
* Good: Both revenue and net income growth are in excess of 10%.
* Satisfactory: Revenue is within 10% of previous year and net income is up.
* Mediocre: Either revenue and/or net income is down.
* Very poor: Net income is less than 1% of revenue.
* Loss: A loss has been recorded.