A tender point

Further civil charges against former and current company personnel for potential financial irregularities, this time against Qwest Comms, and the continuing re-statement of financial results by several organisations dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.

This week will see the results of the share offer by Telkom SA, the final share price for this offer and its listings on both the Johannesburg and New York stock exchanges.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

At home, the closure of the Telkom SA share offer and the growing resentment re public sector tenders that preclude local brands stole much of the local ICT headline space.

* we saw good half-year numbers from Bidvest (includes many technology interests) and Mustek (revenue and net profit up);

* mediocre interim figures from DigiCore (revenue and attributable profit both down;

* interim operating losses from I-Fusion and mymarket.com (part of the Bidvest Group); and

* a half-year loss from OneLogix (revenue also down).

Other local news included:

* a share re-purchase announcement from UCS Group;

* the creation of a procurement committee that includes representatives of the SA IT industry, trade unions and Proudly South African, aimed at addressing the exclusion of local companies from public sector tenders;

* the resignations of Eduard du Plessis as MD of Sentech and Richard van Rensburg as CEO of Affinity Logic;

* the appointments of Ben Bets as acting MD of Sentech and Richard Newton as group CEO of Affinity Logic; and

* the announcement of Ethos Tech Funds` first investment.

New local distributorships included that of Westcon Group for Enterasys Networks and PowerDsine and Pytron Technologies for Sun Microsystems` StarOffice productivity suite. A new business alliance was announced by Business Connexion in conjunction with Sybari and its Antigen anti-virus product.

* we saw the SEC filing civil charges against eight former and current employees of Qwest Comms;

* the delay by Telstra of its privatisation plans; and

* the name change of Brooks-PRI Automation to Brooks Automation.

Additionally, look out for US-based Ripplewood`s acquisition of Japan Telecom`s fixed-line operations.

Other international news included:

* the appointments of Dwain Aidala as president and CEO of Quicksilver Technology, Thomas Atwood as chairman of Rogue Wave Software, Bob Betts as president of Timogen Systems, Patrick Gallagher as CEO of Flag Telecom Group, Marc Nussbaum as president and CEO of Lantronix, Axel Ruckert as chairman of Getronics, John Smith as CEO of iPSL, Paul Tufano as president and CEO of Maxtor, Klaas Wagenaar as deputy chairman of Getronics and Xingsheng Zhang as CEO of AsiaInfo;

* the resignations of Jan Docter, CFO of Getronics; Alan Goldworthy, president and CEO of Applix; John Moores, chairman of Peregrine Systems; and Peter van Voorst, chairman and CEO of Getronics; and

* job loss announcements from Adaptec, IBM, LogicaCMG, Palm and Rudolph Technologies.

We saw excellent* figures from ScanSoft (back in the black); and very good* numbers from Merge eFilm, Pac-West Telecom (back in the black), SSA Global Technologies and TCO Celular.

Good figures* were recorded by Bouygues, ClearWave NV, FAST (back in the black), Methode Electronics, MKS (back in the black), Optelecom, RiverDeep (back in the black), Tyler Technologies and Winland Electronics (back in the black).

Satisfactory* figures were posted by ADE (back in the black), CT Comms (back in the black), Forgent Networks (back in the black), GCI, HP, InfoNow, Omnicom, Orbital (back in the black), Project Telecom, PTEK Holdings (back in the black), SemTech, Staffware (back in the black), Systemax, TDC and Ultra Electronics.

Mediocre* returns came from Autodesk, Bitstream, Macrovision, Niku (but back in the black), Nyfix, Shenandoah Telecomms, SYS Technologies, Telekom Malaysia, Telstra, The Innovation Group (but back in the black) and Unify.

Very poor results* came from Cable Design Technologies (but back in the black), MDC, Merant (but back in the black) and Vodavi Technology.

Losses* came from Analysts International, Call-Net, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, CellStar, Clarus, Colt Telecom Group, Comcast, Computer Horizons, Crossroads Systems, Daou Systems, Datakey, DDi, Dialog Semiconductor, Dycom Industries, EasyLink Services, EasyNet Group, Eiger Technology, Elecsys, FirePond, GSI Lumonics, Hanaro Telecom, Hellenic Telecomms Organization SA, HickoryTech, IFX, Information Holdings, Intec Telecom Systems, ITC-DeltaCom, ITNet, Iusacell, Jazztel, Leitch Technology, Lightspan, Magic Software Enterprises, Marvell Technology, Maxcom Telecomms, Maxwell Technologies, MCSi, Microvision, Morse, Multilink Technology, NetEase.com, Novell, Numerex, OAO Technology Solutions, On2 Technologies, Pegasus Comms, Perficient, Plaintree Systems, PLATO Learning, Primus Knowledge Solutions, Proginet, Radyne ComStream, Ramtron, RCM Technologies, Rural Cellular, Safeguard Scientifics, Sapiens, Stratos Lightwave, TechTeam Global, Telefonica, TerenceNet, Terra Lycos, Titan, Trintech, US LEC, Veramark Technologies, Versant, Versatile Mobile Systems, Versus Technology, Viewpoint, Wind River Systems and Xplore Technologies.

Other financial news included share buy-back announcements from Convergys, Digitas, Dycom Industries, Logitech, Sanchez Computer Associates and Trend Micro; shareholders rights plans from Sanchez Computer Associates; and results/profit warnings from Altran Technologies, Autodesk, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Daisytek, Getronics, Symantec, TDC and UPC.

There was also a share split announcement from LightPath Technologies (reverse) and a rights issue announcement from France Telecom. Additionally, AirGate PCS`s iPCS unit and Divine have filed for Chapter 11 protection, Applix is to re-state certain historical financial statements; Peregrine Systems has filed its financial re-statements for 2000, 2001 and 2002; and CT Comms has found accounting errors in its figures for 2000, 2001 and the nine-months ending September 2002.

Locally

AST (-21.1%)
Beget Holdings (+20%)
Cape Empowerment Trust (+50%)
Cycad (-33.3%)
Elexir (+25%)
Grintek (-15.6%)
Infowave (-26.7%)
Maxtec (+150%)
MGX (-35%)
Netactive (+20%)

Internationally

Daisytek (-54.3%)
DDi (-37.5%)
Eyretel (+36.1%)
Future Internet (-29.2%)
Infonet Services (-25.3%)
MCSI (-60%)
NTELOS (-23.8%)
Peregrine Systems (+57.7%)
Robocom Systems International (-30.8%)
Rural Cellular (+93.4%)

This week will see the results of the share offer by Telkom SA, the final share price for this offer and its listings on both the Johannesburg and New York stock exchanges. Hopefully, assuming this listing is successful, the second national telecoms operator issues can now be addressed and resolved.

* NB

Guidelines for the categorisation of results are as follows. The figures 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%.

* 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.