Big boys buy small

A handful of small acquisitions by some of the 'big' boys in the international ICT world took place last week, and a flood of quarterly results is expected later this month. Locally, Net 1UEPS Technologies announced it is listing on Wednesday.

* Mediocre interim numbers from Dynamic Cables, with revenue and profit both down.
* Good interim figures from Altech, with revenue up 13.5%, but profit up 59%.
* Very good year-end figures from Celcom, with revenue up 46% and profit up 58%, although revenue/profit ratio well below 0.5%, which is extremely poor.
* An interim loss from Cape Empowerment Trust, with revenue slightly up.
* A positive trading update from Huge Group.
* A negative trading update from Square One.
* QuesCom, a provider of VOIP-mobile convergence and telecommunications application solutions, bought Innovations New Product Design, an R&D company known for its least cost routing solutions.
* Netsurit and Millennium Computer Services (MCS) merged. Netsurit is a managed outsourced IT provider specialising in the SME market; while Cape Town-based MCS provides IT consultancy, network deployment and Internet services to the Western Cape corporate sector.
* A pre-listing statement was issued by Nasdaq-listed Net 1UEPS Technologies, prior to its JSE listing on Wednesday in the 'Financial Administration' sector.
* Graham Rhodes was appointed MD of Nashua Office automation; and Chris Scoble as MD of Nashua Mobile.
* Mark Taylor, MD of Nashua Mobile (Mark is joining Vodacom), resigned.

* Dimension Data acquired a 51% stake in Angola-based Sistemas Redes e Communicac~oes, an IT solutions company, in a move that marks the launch of Dimension Data Angola.
* MTN purchased Afnet, a C^ote d'Ivoire-based ISP, and Arobase Telecom, a landline operator that also has a CDMA operators' licence.
* Altech made a 10% investment in the Kenyan government's undersea fibre optic projects, called Teams, one of five undersea cable projects linking Africa with the rest of the world.
* There are now four serious contenders vying for the third national telecommunications licence in Rwanda. They are Larrycom for Investment, a privately owned Sudanese company; Nasdaq-listed Millicom Cellular International; Telecel Globe, an Egyptian company established by Orascom Telecom (Egypt); and Zain (Celtel). An approved decision is expected by year-end.
* The Ugandan Communications Commission announced it had awarded a telecommunications licence to SA-based Smile Communications that is owned by a consortium of Saudi Arabian investors (79%); and Irene Charnely (ex MTN Group Director), Paul Savage and Sharron Vanessa Naidoo.
* China-based A-Link Technologies established a phone assembling plant in Rwanda that is capable of producing 600 mobile phones per day.
* Thapelo Lippe, ex CEO of Orange Botswana, was appointed CEO of Botswana Telecommunications.

A pre-listing statement was issued by Nasdaq-listed Net 1UEPS Technologies, prior to its JSE listing on Wednesday in the 'Financial Administration' sector.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Cable & Wireless purchased Thus, a Scottish telecommunications player, for £329 million. This creates a stronger challenger to BT.
* HP bought LeftHand Networks, a provider of storage virtualisation and iSCSI storage area network solutions, for $360 million.
* Nokia acquired Canada-based Oz Communications, a consumer mobile messaging solution provider.
* Oracle purchased Advanced Visual Technology, a provider of 3D visual macro space planning software for retailers.
* AT&T announced a restructuring that sees the company split into four units: consumer, business, infrastructure and diversified businesses.
* CMGI has changed its name to ModusLink Global Solutions.
* Matsushita Electric is now called Panasonic Corporation.
* The completion of a high-speed fibre optic cable across the Pacific Ocean that links the USA with China, South Korea and Taiwan. The six partners involved were China Telecom, China Netcom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan), Korea Telecom and Verizon Communications.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Corel (back in the black).
* James O'Neill, ex CEO of CompuDyne, was named CEO of Siemens Enterprise Communications. This is the joint venture between the Gores Group and Siemens AG. O'Neill also previously worked for DEC, Northrop Grumman's IT division, and Oracle.
* Dustin Moskovitz, company-founder of Facebook, resigned. Moskovitz is starting a new software business with Justin Rosenstein, a Facebook engineering manager.

* Emirates Telecommunications (Etisalat) buying a majority stake in another Middle East (but not within the Gulf) operator. Last week Etisalat bought a 45% stake in Swan Telecom (India).
* The sell-off to a financial investor by Nokia of its computer-security hardware business.
* The purchase by Tata Consultancy Services of Siemens' SIS unit.
* The purchase of Epicor Software by Elliott Associates, a US-based investment company.
* The purchase of Atmel, a semiconductor maker, by Microchip Technology and ON Semiconductor, two stronger semiconductor makers with combined revenues approaching $3 billion, almost twice that of Atmel.
* A possible partnership between China Mobile and True Corporation (Thailand), a communications conglomerate that controls the country's largest cable TV provider and the largest ISP.

* Worldwide semiconductor sales grew 5.5% in August to reach $22.7 billion, with year-to date sales up 4.5% from a similar period last year, according to SIA.

* JSE All share index: Down 7.4% (lowest weekend close since October 2006)
* Nasdaq: Down 10.8% (lowest weekend close since April 2005)
* Top SA share movements: Dialogue Group (-36.7%), FoneWorx (-15.2%), ISA (-12%), Jasco (+11.6%), MiX Telematics (ex Matrix) (-11.1%), Poynting (+33.3%), SecureData (-30.8%), Simeka (-15.4%), Stella Vista (+14.3%) and TeleMasters (-18.9%)

US-based InformationWeek has just published its 'Top 500' for 2008, a list that ranks US businesses by their IT and business practices, ie, the companies are listed by which are the 'best and brightest'.

From a technology perspective, top of the list was National Semiconductor at number one. NetApp was at number 14, Sybase at 15 and Motorola at 20. Accenture came in at 52, HP at 87, Tata Consultancy Services at 94, Microsoft at 95, IBM at 205, and EMC at 208.