Big boys go shopping

As is usual during the so-called quiet period, the international ICT world was very active, with numerous announcements. These included several acquisitions by the 'big boys', and the scandal involving Satyam Computer Services. At home, there have also been a number of key announcements, a handful of executive staff changes and two successes by MTN at the Competitions Tribunal (iTalk and Verizon).

* Good year-end figures from Stella Vista, with revenue up over 50% and profit up 13%; and TeleMasters, with revenue up 19% and profit up 27%.
* A full year loss from Zaptronix, with revenue also down.
* A positive trading update from Simeka.
* A negative trading update from Dialogue Group.
* EOH acquired Highveld PFS, a contract management business and labour broker that provides financial taxation and administration services to contractors and staff resourcing, for R70 million.
* Netherlands-based Gemalto purchased Namitech South Africa, part of the Altech stable. However, Altech Card Solutions, Altech ISIS and Namitech West Africa (Nigeria) are excluded from the deal. Gemalto's annual revenue is in excess of EUR1.6 billion.
* Poynting Antennas bought certain assets and liabilities of a division of Saab Grintek Defence, for R2.8 million.
* Dimension Data invested in Australia-based BlueFire, a managed services provider.
* Celcom sold off V Cellular Stores, one of its subsidiaries, to Magauta Trading 18, for at least R49 million. Magauta Trading is a company set up and owned by George Aliferis, an executive director of Celcom, and Blaise Sommerville, MD of V Cellular.
* Celcom announced it is to de-list from AltX.
* Convergence Partners, which is chaired by Andile Ngcaba, announced a $250 million joint venture with Intelsat for a new satellite covering Africa. To be called Intelsat New Dawn, the satellite will carry a payload optimised to deliver wireless, broadband and media applications to the continent. It is expected to enter service in late 2010 or early 2011. It will be operated and marketed as part of Intelsat's global fleet and joins 25 other Intelsat satellites that service Africa. Pre-launch commitments have already been received from Gateway Communications, Gilat Satcom, Vodacom and Zain Nigeria. Pre-orders for satellite capacity, or backlog, currently totals more than $350 million, covering up to 15 years of service on the satellite. Convergence Partners also has several other ICT interests/investment, including Seacom, one of the African undersea cable projects; Dimension Data; Gemalto, a provider of smart card technology; Integrat, a wireless applications services provider; and SkillPod Media, an online casual gaming company.
* MTN announced a multibillion-rand deal involving its South African operation that will ensure the continued compliance of MTN from a BEE perspective.
* Business Connexion and Entesys have entered a partnership to provide high-end integration services in SA.
* The South African Information & Communication Technology Association established a new industry body created to act as a forum of all the ICT lobby groups, distributors, retailers and professionals in the country. It will be formally launched next month.
* Henry Ferreira was appointed regional GM for Lenovo, and Dean Sparrow was appointed deputy CEO of UCS.
* Jason Drew resigned as CEO of Dialogue Group, and Patrick Evans resigned as regional director for Symantec in Africa.
* Rashid Wally, regional GM for Lenovo, retired.

* The Rwandan government has awarded the third national telecommunications operator licence for that country to Millicom International Cellular.
* Tunisia is calling for tenders for the country's third telecommunications licence.
* The government of Zambia will partly privatise Zamtel in Q1 2009.
* Mukela Muyunda was appointed MD of Zamtel (Zambia), and Chris Uwaje was appointed D-Link International's regional director for West Africa.

Satyam Computer Services former founder, chairman and CEO revealed he had manipulated the books over a period of several years.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Satyam Computer Services former founder, chairman and CEO (who has now resigned) revealed he had manipulated the books over a period of several years. The fraud, which is estimated to amount to $1 billion, has already shaken the trust that many companies had in the Indian IT industry, and is being likened to the Enron crisis. The Indian government has appointed new directors and Ramalinga Raju has been arrested.
* CA bought Orchestra, a provider of data loss prevention technology.
* Check Point Software Technologies purchased Nokia's security appliance business, a unit not seen by the latter as a core part of its operations, and one that had been underperforming.
* China Unicom acquired the fixed-line business of China Netcom for $940 million.
* CSC bought Log.Sec, an IT and logistics engineering company.
* Dell purchased the Microsoft IT consulting and solutions segment of Allin for $12 million.
* EMC acquired SourceLabs, an open source software support start-up. SourceLabs operates the open source community Swik.net and provides support tools for Linux and other open source software.
* HTC (Taiwan handset maker) bought One & Company Design, a lifestyle design firm.
* Research In Motion (BlackBerry) purchased Canada-based Chalk Media, the developer of Mobile Chalkboard, a mobile content deployment system.
* Canada-based Sierra Wireless, a wireless modem company, bought France-based Wavecom, a wireless technology company, for EUR213 million. The deal potentially ups Sierra's revenue by 50% to nearly $900 million.
* Sun Microsystems acquired Belgium-based Q-Layer, a cloud computing company that automates the deployment and management of both public and private clouds.
* Vodafone purchased Sweden-based Wayfinder, a company that provides navigation services, for $60 million.
* Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Development made an additional investment in AMD.
* SCM Microsystems and Hirsch Electronics are to merge, in a deal that will create a major player in the security products space, which includes converged security solutions leveraging smart cards and smart chip-enabled devices.
* Apple is pulling out of Macworld Expo after this year's show.
* BCE, Canada's largest telecommunications company, announced the planned $35 billion leveraged buyout of the company by an investment group, has been canned. The takeover would have been the largest in Canadian history.
* Nasdaq announced its annual re-ranking of its Nasdaq-100 Index. Newcomers from a technology perspective include ADP and Maxim Integrated Products; while Cadence Design Systems, Leap Wireless International Level 3 Communications and SanDisk have been dropped.
* Polaroid has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, in order to restructure the business.
* Telemetrix, a wireless mobile telecommunications service provider, has filed for bankruptcy.
* The proposed merger of i2 Technologies and JDA Software has been terminated. The deal would have created a major global supply chain management company.
* Intel and Hitachi GST intend to jointly develop and deliver enterprise-class solid-state drives for servers, workstations and storage systems.
* Sweden-based UIQ, a telecommunications (handset) software company, has filed for bankruptcy. Sony Ericsson and Motorola, which hold a 50% interest in UIQ, refused to provide additional funding for the company.
* Huawei Marine Networks has been created, which is a joint venture between Huawei Technologies and UK-based submarine cable provider, Global Marine Systems.
* Good quarterly numbers from 3Com (back in the black), Red Hat and SAIC.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Accenture, Adobe, Research In Motion (although revenue up 66%) and Sage Group (UK) (owner of Softline).
* Mediocre quarterly results from Lawson Software, Oracle, Progress Software and Tibco Software.
* Mixed quarterly figures from HTC, with revenue up 22% but profit down 18.5%.
* Quarterly losses from ADC Telecom, Ciena, Infineon Technologies, Novell Palm (also, revenue down 45%).
* The appointments of Jeya Kumar as CEO of Patni Computer Systems (India); Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn as its CEO; Tod Nielsen as COO of VMware; Thomas O'Neill as chairman of BCE; and Jackson Wilson as CEO of i2 Technologies.
* The resignations of Richard Currie, chairman of BCE; Neil Montefiore, CEO of MobileOne (Singapore); Tod Nielsen, CEO of Borland Software; Dan Nye, CEO of LinkedIn; Narendra Patni, CEO of Patni Computer Systems (stays on as chairman); Ramalinga Raju, chairman and CEO of Satyam Computer Services; and David Ross, a co-founder and director of Carphone Warehouse.
* Ted Rogers, founder and CEO of Rogers Communications, died. Rogers Communications is a major Canadian communications and media company.
* A planned IPO from Saudi Arabia-based Etihad Atheeb Telecommunications Company, which comprises Bahrain Telecommunications and private Saudi investors.
* An IPO filing from Grameenphone, a mobile operator based in Bangladesh that is 62% owned by Norway-based Telenor.

* A buyer for Fujitsu's hard disk drive business.
* Nortel Networks seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and a possible de-listing from the NYSE. Nortel posted a $3 billion+ loss in Q308. It has also received offers for its Metro Ethernet division worth around $1 billion (rumoured to be from Radware), as well as interest from three companies for its entire business.
* The acquisition of Positivo Informatica, Brazil's largest PC maker, by Lenovo, in a deal that could be worth as much as $2 billion.
* Saudi Telecom, a 35% stakeholder in Oger Telecom, which in turn owns Cell C, acquiring the Bahraini government stake (36.7%) in Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco).
* The possible merger of Tech Mahindra (India) and Satyam Computer Services (India), although the current turmoil at Satyam may scupper this.
* The winner in the race for ownership of Aricent, a communications software company currently owned by private equity group, KKR.

* Worldwide server shipments grew 4% in Q308, while revenue declined 5%. HP closed the gap slightly on IBM and together accounted for over 60% of the total market. Dell maintained third position and its market share, but Sun Microsystems' share dropped nearly 1%, says Gartner.
* Smartphone sales grew 11.5% in Q308, the lowest growth since Gartner started tracking the industry, according to the research company. Nokia remained far ahead in the number one slot, followed by Research In Motion (BlackBerry) and Apple.
* Worldwide disk storage systems factory revenue grew only 1.1% in Q308, says IDC. HP remained as number one, but EMC and IBM were number two and three respectively, a change around from Q307.
* The worldwide software storage market grew 11.6% in Q308, with EMC, Symantec and IBM remaining as the top three vendors, according to IDC.
* Bluetooth semiconductor revenue will nearly double by 2012, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 4.7%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.3%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-31.1%), Altech (+35.2%), Ansys (-30.5%), DTH (+30%), GijimaAst (+29.2%), ISA (+35%), Sekunjalo (-34.4%), TCS (-52.4%), Vox Telecom (+28.6%) and Zaptronix (-37.5%)

Some of the winners of The World Communications Awards for 2008 include:

* Turkcell as the best brand.
* Bharti Airtel (India) for the best content service and best project management.
* Macquarie Telecom (Australia) for best customer care.
* Orange as best mobile operator.
* Safaricom (Kenya) as best operator in a developing country.
* Etisalat as best international carrier.
* BT Global Services received The Green Award.