Commerce One to file for Chapter 11

The demise of Commerce One was the key story in the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.

At home, the latest second national operator (SNO) news, the flood of local results and the winding-up of Global Technology stole much of the local ICT headline space.

* We saw mediocre full-year figures from SITA (revenue up but profits well down);

* Full-year losses from AST (revenue also down), CS Holdings (but revenue up), Integrear (but revenue up) and Interconnective Solutions (but revenue up);

* Good interim numbers from Datacentrix (revenue and earnings both up);

* Satisfactory interim figures from Cape Empowerment Trust (no revenue figures but income up a little) and Dynamic Cables (turnover static and earnings up);

* Interim losses from Beget Holdings (revenue also down) and Square One (but revenue significantly up);

* The suspension of Global Technology`s shares;

* A negative trading statement from EC-Hold; and

* Positive trading updates from Connection Group and Paracon.

Other local news included:

* Legal issues generated by Nexus Connexion caused yet more delays to the SNO process;

* FrontRange Solutions acquired US-based Cayo Comms;

* The appointments of Peter Lin as country manager for BenQ and Maanda Manyatshe as MD of MTN SA; and

* The resignation of Graeme Victor as CEO of Global Technology.

New local distributorships included that of Grisoft anti-virus products by Arkateq and NetSuite by Miraculum.

Furthermore, on the local front, look out for the details of the finalised agreements re the disposal of all the companies within Global Technology and the details of the reversing of some of Gijima Technologies` IT assets into AST.

* Commerce One signed a letter of intent to sell many of its assets and announced that it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection;

* Drexler Technology changed its name to LaserCard; and

* The termination of the acquisition of Interwave by Alvarion and SteelCloud by V-ONE.

Other international news included:

* The appointments of Mike Baker as president and COO of Enpocket, Edward Brady as CEO of Brooks Automation, Dave Duffield as CEO of PeopleSoft, Murray Martin as president of Pitney Bowes, Kevin Parker as co-president of PeopleSoft, Menahem Tirosh as CEO of TTI Telecom and Phil Wilmington as co-president of PeopleSoft;

* The resignations of Maureen O`Connell as president and COO of Gartner and Steve Rowley as CEO of Anite;

* The sacking of Craig Conway as president and CEO of PeopleSoft; and

* Job loss announcements from Agere Systems, Computer Associates, Iomega, Lawson Software, Motorola and Nortel Networks.

Excellent* figures from Research in Motion and USA Technologies (back in the black) and YAK Comms; and very good* numbers from Entegris and Nu Horizon Electronics (back in the black).

Good figures* were recorded by Elektron Plc and ICON; and satisfactory* ones by CSI, ICM Computer Group, Micron Technology and Synnex.

Mediocre* returns came from GTC Telecomms, Internet America and Visonic.

Losses* were posted by Acceris Comms, Avatech Solutions, Cenuco, CMGI, Easyscreen, Eltek, IS Solutions Plc, Jaco Electronics, Lawson Software, NDCHealth, NetWolves, Novo Networks, Pixology, Proginet, Prokom Software SA, Solectron, Streetnames, Tiscali SpA, Warthog and Yoomedia.

Commerce One signed a letter of intent to sell many of its assets and announced that it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

Other financial news included analyst upgrades for Applied Materials, Asyst Technologies, Credence, Emulex, Lam Research, Lawson Software, National Semiconductor, Nokia, Novellus, Radware, Red Hat, Teradyne, Ultratech and Viacom; analyst downgrades for Altera, Avocent, Clear Channel Comms, FileNET, Instinet, InVision Technologies, Juniper Networks, Micrel, Micromuse, Micron Technology, Remec, Silicon Labs, Snap-On, Tetra Technologies and Tektronix; a share offering from SI International; private funding obtained for Bridgeport Networks and LogLogic; share buy-back announcements from Advent Software, C&D Technologies, Entegris, Matsushita Electric, Nextel Comms and Red Hat; positive results/profit warnings from Emblaze, MMO2, Nextel Partners, Perot Systems and Research in Motion; negative results/profit warnings (often veiled) from Alliance Gaming, Amkor Technology, ASML, Avici Systems, Conexant Systems, Cypress Semiconductor, Entegris, Exabyte, IBM, Intuit, Metalink, Mindspeed, Mobius Management Systems, Pervasive Software, Plasmon, Redback Networks, Sonic Innovations, WJ Comms and ZiLOG; a very good IPO from Jamdat Mobile; and satisfactory IPOs from Ness Technologies and WebSideStory.

Locally

AST (-11.1%)
ERP.com (+17.2%)
MGX (+75%)
Sethold (+20%)
Spescom (+14.4%)
Stella Vista (+33.3%)
Trematon (-18.2%)
UCS (+20%)
Vesta Technology (-41.7%)
Y3K (+22.2%)

Internationally

Daisytek International (+66.7%)
eGain (+30.8%)
Exabyte (-28.3%)
Glow Comms (-70%)
Pennant (-42.6%)
Persistence Software (+49.2%)
Quiktrak (+59.6%)
Redback Networks (-39.6%)
Riverstone Networks (+28.8%)
Ultimate Electronics (+94.7%)

In terms of indices, the Nasdaq was up 3.3% and the JSE up 3.1% for the week.

Last week saw the publication of two new lists: Financial Mail`s 50 top companies to work for and the UK-based Financial Times` Europe`s top women in business.

In the former`s listing, only five technology-oriented companies were mentioned: Microsoft SA at number one, Internet Solutions at 11, The X-Pert Group at 16, SAP Africa at 30 and UCS at 49.

In the latter`s case, Sari Baldauf, president of Nokia Networks, was at number one; Marie Ehrling, president of TeliaSonera, was at five; Francoise Gri, CEO of IBM France, was at 13; and Barbara Kux, chief procurement officer of Royal Philips Electronics, was at 16.

I am in New York this week attending the annual Technology Week activities, so my next column will appear on 18 October, but will cover the two-week period.

* NB

Guidelines for the categorisation of results are as follows and are always in comparison with the equivalent period for the previous year; pro forma numbers are ignored (the terminology may vary slightly from country to country).

* Excellent: Both revenue and net income growth in excess of 50%.

* Very good: Both revenue and net income growth in excess of 25%.

* Good: Both revenue and net income growth in excess of 10%.

* Satisfactory: Revenue is within 10% of previous year and net income is up.

* Mediocre: Either revenue and/or net income is down.

* Very poor: Net income is less than 1% of revenue.

* Loss: A loss has been recorded.