Commission wants heftier Telkom fine

The international ICT market was very quiet last week, apart from the launch of Apple's iPhone 5 and a handful of small acquisitions.

* Excellent year-end figures from EOH, with revenue up 50% and profit up 50.3%.
* A positive trading update from Gijima (but still forecasting a loss).
* A negative trading update from Digicore.
* The R40 million sell-off by ConvergeNet Holdings of its remaining 15.05% interest in Future Cell to Pepkor.
* The Competition Commission is appealing the Competition Tribunal's decision to fine Telkom SA only R449 million, arguing that the figure should be much higher.
* The announcement that the assets of African Cellular Towers have been sold for $2.8 million, following the liquidation of the company earlier this year.
* The resignation of Lazarus Zim, chairman of Telkom SA.

* Telecom Namibia has entered into a partnership with New Telco SA, represented by Jasco Company-locations Solutions, to deliver four international POPs connected to the WACS undersea cable.

Public IT cloud services spending will approach $100 billion in 2016, a CAGR of 26.4%, five times that of the IT industry, says IDC.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Akamai bought FactSoft, a Web content acceleration software provider.
* The $350 million acquisition by Infosys of Lodestone, a Swiss management consultancy.
* NCR purchased Transoft International, a cash cost optimisation software company.
* The launch of the iPhone 5.
* Quarterly losses from Palo Alto.
* The appointments of Stephen Hooley as CEO of DST Systems and Steve Milligan as CEO of Western Digital (as of 2.1.13).
* The retirements of John Coyne, CEO of Western Digital (as of 2.1.13), and Thomas McDonnell, CEO of DST Systems (as of 31.12.12, but stays on as chairman).
* A planned IPO in India of Bharti Infratel, the tower unit of Bharti Airtel, in a move that could raise $1 billion.

* International:
* Sistema (Russia) buying a $3 billion stake in Aircel (India).
* The fate of Kodak following a failure to sell-off its patents for a fee expected to fund creditors.
* Africa:
* An expansion in Africa by Celpay, which already has a presence in the DRC, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
* South Africa:
* Further developments re Business Connexion and Telkom SA.

* According to IDC, worldwide IT spending will grow 5.9% this year at constant currency, slightly down on last year's 7%.
* Gartner predicts free apps will account for almost 90% of total mobile app store downloads in 2012.
* Public IT cloud services spending will approach $100 billion in 2016, a CAGR of 26.4%, five times that of the IT industry, says IDC.
* According to IDC, the software storage market grew only 0.9% in Q2 to reach $3.36 billion.
* Gartner says spending on security infrastructure is expected to rise 8.4% this year to reach $60 billion.

* JSE All share index: Up 2.3% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Up 1.5% (highest weekend close for over a decade)
* Top SA share movements: ConvergeNet Holdings (-9.7%), EOH (+10.5%), Huge Group (-10%), Muvoni (+200%), Poynting (-14.4%), SecureData (+8%), Sekunjalo (+8.3% and Zaptronix (-50%)

Forbes Africa recently published its 'Top 25 South African listed companies', a rating based on market capitalisation, revenue, profit and assets. From a technology perspective, there were no IT companies and two telecommunications companies; however, many on the list were conglomerates that had an ICT portfolio.
* MTN (at number two)
* Remgro (11)
* Vodacom (13)
* Naspers (14)
* Bidvest (19)