America Movil on the move

The international ICT market was dominated last week by acquisition activities involving Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire and owner of America Movil.

At home, the Telkom/Korea Telecom news was the highlight of a quiet week.

MP3tunes, a cloud music service, has filed for bankruptcy.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* A full-year loss from Altron, although revenue up 3%.
* Positive trading updates from Ansys and Trustco Group.
* Argility, a retail software company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Capital Eye Investments, acquired a majority stake in Alacrity Technologies, a software development and IT services company.
* Korea Telecom made a $427 million (20%) investment in Telkom SA, in a move that still requires several approvals, including that of the PIC and government, and resolution of the issue before the Competitions Board, before it can be classed as an unconditional offer.
* The World Wide Worx Internet access survey results show the South African Internet user base has grown from 6.8 million in 2010 to 8.5 million at the end of last year, and will pass the 10 million mark by the end of 2012.
* Teraco Data Environments has launched the African Cloud eXchange, a secure data centre environment where cloud providers can company-locate their service offerings.
* ZTE will sever ties with its South African partner, ZTE Mzanzi.
* The ITWeb Africa Web site debuted.

* MapIT has made a $2.1 million investment in SatNav East Africa.
* The WACS cable that links Cape Town to London via 15 terminal stations in Africa debuted.
* Tunisiana, in which Qtel (Qatar) has a stake, has become Tunisia's third 3G and landline licence-holder.
* The government of Niger intends to nationalise Sonitel, a telecommunications provider in that country.

* America Movil purchased Simple Mobile, which is owned by T-Mobile USA (Deutsche Telekom).
* Citrix Systems bought Virtual Computer, a provider of virtual desktop technology.
* EMC acquired XtremIO, a flash storage pioneer.
* Facebook purchased Glancee, a 'social discovery' application maker.
* Ixia, a network test vendor, bought Anue Systems, a provider of network optimisation tools, for $145 million.
* America Movil has proposed an additional EUR3.2 billion investment in KPN, in a move that would increase its stake in the latter to 28%.
* Polycom has divested its enterprise wireless voice solutions business for $110 million to a Sun Capital Partners affiliate.
* There has been a split verdict in the Oracle/Google copyright suit.
* Micron Technology has won the exclusive rights to negotiate to buy Elpida Memory.
* MP3tunes, a cloud music service, has filed for bankruptcy.
* Very good quarterly figures from CommVault Systems.
* Good quarterly numbers from Cognizant Technology Solutions.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from AOL, CA Technologies, Capgemini, Cisco, SingTel and US Cellular.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Hitachi.
* Mediocre quarterly results from CenturyLink, Deutsche Telekom, Maxim Integrated Products, Nvidia, Telefonica and Trend Micro.
* Mediocre full-year numbers from Toshiba.
* Mixed quarterly figures from AVG Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; BMC Software, with revenue up but profit down; Convergys, with revenue up but profit down; Korea Telecom, with revenue up but profit down; NTT, with revenue down but profit up; Nuance Communications, with revenue up but profit down; and Pitney Bowes, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed year-end figures from BT Group, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Bottomline Technologies, MEMC Electronic Materials, Quantum, SGI, SMIC, Sony Mobile and Sykes Enterprises.
* Year-end losses from Olympus, Panasonic and Sony.
* The appointments of Andrea Ayers as CEO of Convergys; and Jeff Fox as chairman of Convergys (was CEO).
* The resignation of Luca Luciani, CEO of TIM Participacoes, one of the main Brazilian mobile operators.
* A good IPO on Nasdaq by Audience, a semiconductor and other electronic components manufacturer.
* A satisfactory IPO on Nasdaq by Edwards Group, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer.

* International:
* Yahoo selling part of its stake in Alibaba.
* A possible merger between T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS.

* South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the outstanding issues involving Telkom.

* The 'personal cloud' is poised to eclipse the PC as the hub of consumers' digital lives by 2014, according to Gartner.
* Only 50% of the Fortune 500 organisations will get a worthwhile ROI from their social customer relationship management initiatives, says Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 0.3%
* Nasdaq: Down 0.8%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-33.3%), Amecor (-9.6%), Ansys (-14%), Ideco (-13.3%), Jasco (+11.2%), Labat Africa (-30%), Morvest (-9.5%), Net1 UEPS Technologies (+8.5%) and Zaptronix (-33.3%)

The latest CIO magazine included an article: 'Top CIOs predict the five-year future of the CIO'. Their predictions were smart and may surprise many. In summary, they are as follows:

* They will be entrepreneurs. CEOs will require CIOs to have experience of starting a company, running a line of business or devising a new product line; and they will be no exceptions.
* They will be connectors. The CIO of 2017 must link people and ideas across the company and between companies.
* They will be global talent scouts. Five years from now, CIOs will spend a large percentage of their time travelling worldwide, talking to staff about how to use technology to improve business.
* They will be futurists. CIOs are used to projecting technology trends. But being in-house futurists will require CIOs to envision the implications of bigger changes: how workers work, how consumers consume and how suppliers supply. Then they will have to shape those developments for competitive advantage.
* They will be masters of business metrics. When the CIO takes responsibility for helping create new products, attract new customers and bring in new revenue, the CEO will hold the CIO accountable in new ways. Common IT metrics, such as on-time, on-budget projects and reduction in operational expenses, will remain part of the performance review. But in five years, the compensation of many IT leaders will depend on meeting the same business goals as the CEO and CFO.