A week of immense speculation

Acquisitions by Cisco and Nokia dominated the international ICT market last week. At home, the Telkom SA and Vodacom results and the immense speculation re the cautionaries from Business Connexion and Bytes Technology Group stole the local ICT headline space.

* Cisco`s $6.9 billion purchase of Scientific-Atlanta in a deal that completes Cisco`s end-to-end triple-play solution for networks and the home.

My long shot for either this acquisition or for some other South African ICT company is Tata of India.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* The cautionary issued by Business Connexion (BCX) that indicates it is the subject of a potential take-over. There seem to be several potential predators talking with BCX including Telkom SA. My long shot for either this acquisition or for some other South African ICT company is Tata of India. Tata is already the driving force and main shareholder of the second national operator. It is importing individuals into SA through Faritec to work at companies such as Absa and MTN, and its listed IT services arm is aggressively looking for new purchases.

* Excellent year-end figures from Paracon, with turnover up over 45% and attributable profit up nearly 130%.

* Very good interim numbers from Vodacom, with revenue up over 22% and profit up over 65%. Subscriber numbers up over 40% since 2004.

* Good full-year figures from Reunert, with revenue up 13% but earnings up 48%.

* Poor full-year results from Dimension Data, with revenue up about 15% and back in the black, but profit still only just above 0.5% of revenue.

* Excellent interim numbers from Eureka Industrial.

* Good interim figures from Telkom SA, with revenue up about 10% and profit up over 40%. It is also looking at multiple Africa opportunities apart from Nitel.

* A positive trading update from MTN.

* The Nigerian government set up a new company, Nigerian Cabling and Telecoms Network, to manage the international submarine cable, SAT-3.

* The merger of Wananchi Online and ISP Kenya has finally materialised.

* Channel Data has been appointed to distribute communications technologies from Juniper Networks in Africa.

* The setting up of a joint venture for optical disk drive production by NEC and Sony.

* The 55% investment in Turk Telecom by Oger Telecom, the majority shareholder in Cell C.

* Nokia`s $430 million purchase of Intellisync, a mobile middleware player.

* The purchase of the Yankee group, a technology analyst company, by Alta Communications, a private equity company.

* Oracle`s acquisition of Thor Technologies, a provider of identity provisioning software, and OctetString, a meta-directory that links and merges multiple directories and other information.

* Infineon AG intends to split-off its D-ram business prior to an expected floatation in 2006.

* Telefonica raised its stake in China Netcom.

* The sell-off of Enterasys Networks to two investment companies.

* AU Optronics split its business into two groups: IT displays and consumer electronics displays.

* Computer Associates changed its named to CA and created five new business units for EMEA.

* DAT Group changed its name to Synchronica.

* The appointments of Bob Brennan as president and COO of Iron Mountain, Robert Felton as interim president and CEO of TenFold, Richard Kreysar as president and CEO of Sendmail, John Murphy as president and COO of Celerity, Sundi Sundaresh as president and CEO of Adaptec, Gregg Thompson as chairman of Infowave, and Tom Tullie as CEO of Path 1 Network Technologies.

* The resignations of Dave Anderson as president and CEO of Sendmail (stays on as chairman), and Nancy Harvey as CEO and president of TenFold.

* The retirement of Charles Winston as CEO of GSI Group.

* Analyst upgrades for Agilent Technologies, Ansoft, Aspen Technology, FalconStor Software, Kulicke & Soffa, Marvell Technology Group, SBC Communications and SRA International.

* Analyst downgrades for Activision, ADC Telecommunications, Advent Software, Aladdin Knowledge Systems, Autodesk, Blue Coat Systems, Enterasys Networks, F5 Networks, Infineon Technologies AG, Intersil, Intuit, Micron Technology, Navarre, Red Hat, SanDisk, Scientific-Atlanta and Vodafone Group.

* Positive results announcements from Brocade Communications Systems and Nuance Communications.

* Negative result warnings from Credence Systems, Iomart Group, Telstra and Vodafone.

* Stock repurchase announcements from Agilent Technologies, ePlus, Intuit, Logitech, Network Appliance, Paragon Technologies and Perceptron.

* A job loss announcement from Telstra.

* Private funding obtained for JackBe, a provider of asynchronous JavaScript and XML software and services; Mempile, a developer of DVD storage; Sepaton, a tape emulation specialist; Strix Systems, a maker of wireless mesh gear; UCN, a provider of on-demand contact handling software and business telecommunications services; and Visto, a push e-mail developer.

* Share split announcements from Loud Technologies (reverse 1:5); PAR Technology (3:2) and TALX (3:2).

* A planned IPO from Cyan on AIM.

* A very good IPO from SunPower, a Cypress semiconductor company.

* A good IPO in Japan from Sumco, a maker of silicon wafers.

* A disappointing IPO by Vimicro, a fabless designer of multimedia processors.

* The purchase of Denmark`s TDC by a private equity consortium in what could be Europe`s largest-ever leveraged buy-out estimated to be worth more than $14 billion.

* A management buy-out of UK`s Computacenter.

* JSE All share index:

Up 2.2% (highest-ever close), Nasdaq: Up 1.1% (highest weekend-close since 1990s)

* Top SA share movements:

Business Connexion (+17.5%), Beget Holdings (-25%), DataPro (+14%), Dynamic Cables (-28%), I-Solutions (-50%), Idion (-32.7%), Infowave (-11.3%), Labat Africa (+23.1%), Paracon (+27.5%) and Stella Vista (-33.3%).

* Top international share movements:

Brocade Communications (+25.4%), Cray (+24.8%), Enterasys Networks (+23.9%), FfastFill (-25%), FiberMark (-35.3%), Firstwave Technologies (+41.8%), Intraware (+23.5%), Level 8 Systems (-26.1%), Smart Telecom (+27.1%) and Spiritel (+36.4%).

Fortune Magazine has published its 50 Most Powerful Women listing (international) and America`s Power 50. From a technology perspective internationally, Tomoyo Nonaka, chairman and CEO of Sanyo Electric, comes in at five; Mary Ma, CFO of Lenovo, at nine; Marie Ehrling, president of TeliaSonera, at 21; Lien Siaou-Sze, senior VP of HP, at 22; and Barbara Kux, chief procurement officer at Philips Electronics, at 24.

From an American perspective, Meg Whitman, chairman and CEO of eBay, is at number one; Anne Mulcahy, chairman and CEO of Xerox, at two; Pat Russo, chairman and CEO of Lucent Technologies, at 14; Ginni Rometty, SVP, Enterprise Business Services at IBM Global Services, at 15; and Ann Livermore, SVP Technology Solutions Group of HP, at 18.