Acquisitions keep coming

The international and local ICT markets were quiet last week, with results from a number of companies making the headlines here and overseas.

* Good interim figures from Blue Label Telecoms.
* Mixed interim numbers from Metrofile, with revenue up 10%, but profit down nearly 20%; Mustek, with revenue up 12%, but profit down over 50%; and Pinnacle, with revenue up 39%, but profit down about 10%.
* Mediocre interim profit from Venfin.
* A positive trading update from Digicore.
* Negative trading updates from CompuClearing, Ifca Technologies and SecureData.
* Blue Label Telecoms (BLT) acquired 50.1% of US-based Virtual Prepaid Network (VPN), an airtime company. BLT has formed a US wholly-owned subsidiary into which it has folded VPN.
* Simeka bought the remaining minority interests in Mint Net SA.
* O-Tel, a telecommunications company, has formally entered the South African market. It received its iECNS licence from ICASA in January this year.
* TallyGenicom SA has closed its doors, following the placement of its US parent in Chapter 11.

* Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (ECMS) purchased Orascom Telecom's subsidiaries, LINKdotNet and Link Egypt. The subsidiaries are the latest of the latter's non-core businesses to be sold off, and part of its stated strategy. Last month, it sold its M-link subsidiary to TLC SERVIZI, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wind Telecomunicazioni, for approximately $77 million. Last November, it agreed to sell OrasInvest to sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment for $180 million.
* Libya announced a tender for its first private licences for a mobile and landline operator.
* Transnational Corporation (Transcorp) has relinquished its 51% equity holding in Nitel and Mtel (Nigeria) and will offset the company's indebtedness to those companies.
* Lebanon-based Vivacell has launched a new mobile phone network in south Sudan. Vivacell operates under the Now licence, the latter being purchased by a group of Lebanese investors in 2007.

O-Tel, a telecommunications company, has formally entered the South African market.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, a subsidiary of Hitachi, acquired Fabrik, an external storage business.
* Qualcomm bought Digital Fountain, an online IPTV and mobile video tech provider.
* SAP purchased Coghead's intellectual property rights for its online application development platform.
* Visto, a mobile push and synchronisation platform for service providers, acquired Motorola's subsidiary, Good Technology, a mobile e-mail company that Motorola bought for about $500 million in 2007.
* Yahoo Japan bought IDC Solutions, Softbank's data centre unit, for $480 million.
* Intel Capital invested in three technology companies in the UAE.
* HP and Sun Microsystems announced a partnership agreement involving the latter's Solaris 10 operating system.
* Qatar Telecommunications (Qtel) made an additional investment in Indonesia's PT Indosat, bringing its shareholding to the 65% maximum that is possible.
* Very good quarterly figures from Salesforce.com (profit up 86%).
* Mediocre quarterly results from Dell (profit down 48%), Garmin (profit down almost 50%), Logica, Novell (profit down 36%) and Telefonica (although profit up 89%).
* Very poor quarterly figures from Iron Mountain (revenue up 4%, but just in the black).
* Quarterly losses from Borland Software (also revenue down), Deutsche Telekom and TomTom (also revenue down 24%) and Zain Saudi Arabia.
* Sir Howard Stringer was appointed president of Sony. This is in addition to his role as CEO.
* Ryoji Chubachi, president of Sony, and Sol Trujillo, CEO of Telstra, resigned.

* Two or three additional acquisitions in Africa by Zain.

* Worldwide vertical market spending is projected to total $2.7 trillion in 2009, up only 0.5% from 2008, according to Gartner.
* The worldwide server market in Q408 declined 14% to $13.5 billion, reports IDC. IBM and HP remained the market leaders, with Dell and Sun Microsystems in positions three and four, as per Q407.
* The worldwide semiconductor revenue is set to reach 194.5 billion in 2009, a 24.1% decline from 2008, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 4.8% (lowest weekend close this year)
* Nasdaq: Down 4.4% (lowest weekend close this year)
* Top SA share movements: Cape Empowerment Trust (-25%), Faritec (-22.2%), ISA (-24%), Labat Africa (+100%), MiX Telematics (-38.9%), Mustek (-39.9%), Poynting Antennas (-16.7%), SecureData (-20%), Spescom (-18.9%) and TCS (-18.2%)

Last week, IDC held its CIO conference, which was attended by almost 100 CIOs from across Africa. The following is an extract from one of the presentations from IDC, entitled: 'What to expect in 2009'.

* Expect some slowdown in discretionary spend and new initiatives (projects), particularly in BFSI, real estate, construction and hospitality (general services) and trade/distribution sectors. IT budgets will be affected and distribution of spend will change.
* In the enterprise segment, focus will shift towards “utilisation of IT assets”.
* Continued investments expected in select sectors (healthcare and education), infrastructure enhancements, and increased adoption of IT in mature SME markets will ensure positive growth during these uncertain times.
* Belt tightening might potentially drive faster migration to new technologies, such as virtualisation, software as a service, and managed services.
* ROI/TCO models gaining prominence in the boardroom (price still an issue, but prominence declining rapidly).
* Shortage of qualified staff (value-add) key concern in the region. Piracy too.