Calm before the storm?

Internationally, expect significant news from HP and Microsoft, while at home the Convergence Bill, the ICT charter and the licensing of the second national operator could dominate the news.

The number of IT staff in the profession will shrink 15% by 2010, according to Gartner.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

The 'win` by an alliance of large technology groups, including IBM, Nokia and Oracle, that gives them permission to join the EU`s anti-trust case against Microsoft on the day when Microsoft was publicly warned that it had only one week to comply with the anti-trust sanctions imposed by the EU Commission last year or face fines of up to $5 million per day.

* An interim loss from Spescom with revenue also significantly down.
* A negative trading update from Sekunjalo Investments.
* A share split (reverse 6:1) by Net 1 UEPS (ex-Aplitec) and a filing for a listing on the Nasdaq National Market.
* Mandla Langa, chairman of ICASA, slated the Convergence Bill.
* Paracon acquired Ivory Systems.
* Xantium Technology Holdings bought ITQ.
* The investment (30%) by Mononong Technologies in Integ8 IT and by Sifikile Group in Spectrum Visual Networks.
* The resignation, as yet unconfirmed, of Mokati Ramphele, the sub-Saharan GM for Cisco.
* The appointment of Kelvin Reynolds, MD of Oracle SA, to VP within Oracle.
* The Competition Commission cleared the proposed sell-off of 15% of Cell C to a Saudi Arabian company, although ICASA still needs to alter Cell C`s licence.
* Amatole Telecommunications, which has an underserviced area licence, has partnered with Tellumat Communications and an unnamed PTN to offer technical services in the Eastern Cape.
* Meta Group hosted the last METAmorphosis conference this week.
* Biodata IT South Africa was appointed as a distributor for Group Technologies AG.
* Comztek was appointed as a distributor for Nortel`s Business Communications Manager range of products.
* The signing into law of the VANS licence fee application process.
* The appointment of EOH as a master reseller for Mercury Interactive in sub-Saharan Africa following the withdrawal from SA of the latter some months ago.

* Subscriptions for the East African region will hit 40 million by the end of 2009, according to the Telecoms and Media World Cellular Database.
* 21 bids have been received for a controlling share in Nigeria`s Nitel and its mobile subsidiary M-Tel, including proposals from Celtel International, MTN, Orascom Telecom and Vodacom. A decision is expected by September.

* Another two acquisitions by Cisco.
* The $760 million acquisition of Acterna by JDS Uniphase.
* PalmOne to acquire full rights to the Palm brand and change its name later this year to Palm.
* Singapore Telecommunications ups its stake in Bharti Telecom-Ventures, India`s largest mobile service provider.
* The appointments of Gary Gist as chairman of Intersil, Richard Liebhaber as chairman of Avici Systems, Colin Macnab as CEO of Artimi, Tammy Martin as CEO of Davel Communications, and Abhi Talwalkar as president and CEO of LSI Logic.
* The resignations of Wilfred Corrigan as founder, president and CEO of LSI Logic (stays on as chairman), Mike Donnell as CEO and president of Zi, and David Nagel as president and CEO of PalmSource.
* Analyst upgrades for ADC Telecommunications, Avnet, Bisys Group, Cable & Wireless, Ciena, Conexant Systems, Credence Systems, EDS, Hyperion Solutions, Intersil, JDS Uniphase, McAfee, Pixar, Sonus Networks, STMicroelectronics and Tellabs.
* Analyst downgrades for 3Com, Avaya, BMC Software, Boston Communications Group, EchoStar Communications, Fiserv, InterVoice-Brite, iPayment, Jabil Circuit, Journal Communications, Micron Technology, SRA International, Symmetricom, Tibco Software and Xyratex.
* Negative result warnings from Fujitsu and Vodafone.
* Stock repurchase announcements from Belden CDT, Infocrossing and Vodafone.
* Job loss announcements from IBM.
* Private funding obtained for Caspian, a supplier of high-performance flow-state solutions for the telecommunications industry; Good Technology, a mobile computing company; ISD, a company that provides payment management software; Plasmon, an optical storage vendor; Sandvine, a network equipment maker; TriActive, a hosted systems software management provider; Trolltech AS, an embedded Linux tools vendor; and Voltage Security, an encryption firm.
* Stock offering announcements by Cogent Communications.
* A mediocre IPO from SSA Global Technologies.
* A good IPO from Tom Tom in Amsterdam.
* A planned IPO on Nasdaq by Rackable Systems, a maker of servers.
* Computer Associates is to re-state, yet again, its results for 1998-2001.
* An involuntary bankruptcy petition has been made by the creditors of Satmex in order to force the company to reorganise and restructure its overdue debt of $523 million.

* Worldwide wireless LAN equipment revenue rose 20% to $767.6 million between 4Q04 and 1Q05 and is predicted to grow to $3.6 billion by 2008, according to Infonetics Research.
* New licence sales of RDBM systems worldwide grew by 10.3% in 2004, with IBM taking 34.1% market share and Oracle 33.7%, says Gartner.
* The number of IT staff in the profession will shrink 15% by 2010, according to Gartner.
* Mobile phone sales worldwide rose by 17% in Q1, according to Gartner, with Nokia accounting for 28.8% market share, followed by Motorola (16.3%) and Samsung (12.6%)
* The carrier VOIP market will increase 40% for Q105 compared to Q104, according to Infonetics Research.

This column is slightly shorter than normal as I am away in the UK for a few days. The stock market movements, etc, will be updated next week.