CA goes home

The quarterly results released by the top technology companies dominated the international world of ICT. At home, the news that CA has disinvested in South Africa consumed the local ICT media space.

* Good nine-month revenue numbers from Vodacom.
* Mixed interim figures from Beget Holdings, with revenue up over 75% but profit down 10%.
* Negative trading updates from Celcom and Faritec.
* EOH acquired REO Consulting, an Oracle remote technical support operation.
* Johann Rupert placed bridging finance in Stellenbosch-based Fireflight, a technology start-up, and the developer of a mobile authentication system.
* CA has closed its South African subsidiary and transferred the staff to EOH, which will be its sole representative in the sub-Saharan region.
* Computing SA is suspending its print edition.
* Femke Pienaar, acting CEO of SITA, resigned.

SaaS growth in 2009 is now predicted to be 42%, up from the previous forecast of 36% made last year, according to IDC.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Alcatel-Lucent's customer services software arm, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, bought Conseros, a provider of business applications that allow enterprises to manage and distribute high volumes of work items. It also purchased SDE Software Development Engineering, the creators of the Genesys Customer Interaction Portal.
* Cisco bought Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence, a provider of intelligent middleware to integrate building infrastructure and IT applications over a common Internet protocol.
* Lenovo acquired Switchbox Labs, a start-up focused on developing new consumer technologies.
* NEC purchased NEC Tokin, its battery making operation.
* Nokia bought Germany-based bit-side, a professional services and software company that makes mobile applications for the iPhone, Android and other platforms.
* Bookham, a provider of high performance optical products, and Avanex, a provider of intelligent photonic solutions, are to merge. This seems to be a merger of equals, with the former having annual revenue of about $250 million and the latter about $200 million. Also, both companies are slightly in the red.
* Nortel Networks will end its joint venture with Alvarion and discontinue its mobile WiMax business.
* Good quarterly numbers from Ariba (back in the black), CACI, CGI, Software AG, Tata Communications and VMware.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Juniper Networks, SAP and Verizon Communications.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Affiliated Computer Services, Canon (profit down 91%), Compuware, Corning (revenue down 32% and profit down 65%), EMC (revenue up, but profit down 45%), Kyocera (profit down 30%), Lexmark (profit down over 80%), NTT DoCoMo and Texas Instruments (profit down 85%).
* Mixed quarterly figures from AT&T (revenue up, but profit down 23%), CA (revenue down, but profit up 30%), Check Point Software Technologies (revenue up, but profit down), Citrix Systems (revenue up, but profit down), HCL Technologies (revenue up and profit down), Open Text, Qualcom (revenue up, but profit down over 50%), Sybase (revenue up, but profit down 35%) and Tellabs (revenue up and profit up 100%).
* Very poor quarterly numbers from Sony (revenue down 25% and profit down 95%) and Western Digital (revenue down and profits down 95%).
* Quarterly losses from Broadcom, Eastman Kodak (also revenue down 35%), Flextronics (revenue also down), Fujitsu, Hitachi, iBasis (revenue also down), JDA Software, NEC (revenue also down), NEC Electronics, Philips Electronics, Plantronics (revenue also down), Sun Microsystems (revenue also down), Symantec (revenue flat), Toshiba and Yahoo (revenue also just down).
* Etihad Atheeb Telecommunications' IPO is due to raise about $80 million for 30% of its shares. This is Saudi Arabia's first IPO since last August.

* The establishment of a joint venture between Sharp and Sony for the production and sales of large-sized LCD panels and LCD modules using the world's first 10th generation mother glass substrates.
* The Printronix acquisition of TallyGenicom's US business.

* SaaS growth in 2009 is now predicted to be 42%, up from the previous forecast of 36% made last year, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 5%
* Nasdaq: Down 0.1%
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (+50%), Celcom (-13.5%), Dynamic Cables (-11.9%), Faritec (-24.3%), GijimaAst (+14.6%), Huge (-11.4%), Ideco (+32.9%), Sekunjalo (+20.5%), SecureData (-13%) and Zaptronix (-25%)

InfoWorld recently published its 2009 Technology of the Year Awards, with Apple and Microsoft topping the list of 40 winning hardware and software products. Other winners of more than one award included Dell, Sun Microsystems and VMware.