CDW bought for $7.3bn

The international ICT market was dominated by the CDW acquisition and a couple of purchases by Google.

At home, Vodacom's latest financial performance and a handful of BEE investments stole the local media space.

* A consortium of private equity companies, led by Madison Dearborn Partners, purchased CDW for $7.3 billion. CDW is one of the largest resellers of computers, software and related equipment in North America, with $6.8 billion in sales last year and 5 640 employees.

In its third purchase in the last month, Vestor acquired Sizwe Africa IT Group.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Good full-year figures from ISA, with revenue and profit both up over 10%; and Vodacom, with revenue and profit both up over 20%.
* Excellent interim numbers from Stella Vista, with revenue up nearly 100% and back in the black.
* An interim loss from Vestor Investments.
* A Q2 loss by Cell C, although revenue was up nearly 25%.
* Positive interim numbers from Cyberhost, but no possible comparisons that are meaningful.
* In its third purchase in the last month, Vestor acquired Sizwe Africa IT Group (51%).
* In a buyout by past and present management, IndigoCube bought Software Futures.
* A consortium that included Lechabile and Digital IQ Corporation made a 30% BEE investment in CSC SA.
* A consortium of African Renaissance Holdings and Awari Investment Holdings completed a BEE investment in T-Systems SA, increasing the latter's BEE stake to 30%.
* ERP.com proposed its name changes to SecureData Holdings.
* Cisco withdrew from president Thabo Mbeki's international technology advisory group.
* AMD opened its local office and appointed Imi Mosaheb as its country manager.
* Siemens announced the formation of Siemens IT Solutions & Services, headed by Zunaid Mayet and formed from Siemens Business Services, Business Innovation Centre, Development Innovations & Projects, Program and Systems Engineering and Siemens Information Systems. Worldwide, this unit has revenue of EUR6 billion and locally, has customers in both the private and public sector.

* Comium, a new GSM company in The Gambia, was inaugurated.
* Telecel Zimbabwe auditors announced the company was "technically insolvent"

* Hoya acquired Pentax, another Japanese optics maker.
* Google purchased FeedBurner, a distributor of podcasts, blogs and other kinds of Internet content; and GreenBorder Technologies, a provider of security software.
* William Roper was appointed CEO of VeriSign.
* Lothar Pauly, CEO of T-Systems, resigned, as did Stratton Sclavos, CEO of VeriSign.
* Job loss announcements from Dell, IBM, Motorola, TechFaith Wireless and Tundra Semiconductor.

* The worldwide semiconductor industry is expected to grow 2.5% in 2007, says Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.4%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.2% (highest weekend close for over five years)
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (-18.2%), Cyberhost (-12.5%), FoneWorx (+12%), Labat Africa (-28.6%), Spescom (-13.6%), Trematon (+12.5%), Vestor (+9.7%) and Zaptronix (+14.3%)
* Top international share movements: CT Communications (+42.7%), Eagle Broadband (-19%), Geoworks (+33.3%), Onstream Media (+23.3%) and SEMX (-40%)

BusinessWeek has published its latest top 100 'Hot Growth' companies list. From a technology perspective, the list includes Vasco Data Security International at number four, Applix at number six, Hittite Microwave at 11, Cognizant Technology Solutions at 15, Tessera Technologies at 20 and Ansoft at 25.

I am in Taipei visiting Computex, so my next column will be published on 18 June and will cover a two-week period.