Consolidation continues

The international ICT scene last week was dominated by IBM`s FileNet acquisition and a couple of other smaller, but significant acquisitions.

The local ICT market was extremely quiet except for news of the second national operator (SNO) 'go live` date.

From the latest set of quarterly results, good numbers came from Nvidia, Softbank and Trend Micro, with disappointing figures from Adaptec, BMC Software, Borland, Creative Technology and Ntl, the new owner of Virgin Mobile.

* Brocade Communications Systems, a player in the storage networking market, took out its competitor, McData, for $607 million.
* IBM swallowed up FileNet for $1.6 billion, its largest software acquisition in over three years.
* Nokia bought Loudeye, the US digital music distributor.
* The SNO said it will go live on 31 August.

* A 16-month loss from Beget Holdings, following a move of its year-end to 30 April.
* A government about-turn re the selling of Eskom`s assets to the SNO.
* A delay for the Telkom SA/Business Connexion deal.
* A positive trading update from Digicore.

* The Nigerian Communications Commission issued unified licences to MTN, VGC Communications, Dan Jay Telecoms and Boudex Telecoms.
* Eyal Copitt was appointed as district manager (Africa) for Network Appliance.
* A job loss announcement from Nitel.

IBM swallowed up FileNet for $1.6 billion, its largest software acquisition in over three years.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Asustek, the world`s largest motherboard manufacturer, established a joint venture with Gigabyte.
* Sage Group bought Emdeon Practice Services for lb297 million to establish a presence in the healthcare market.
* The US authorities have accused the former CEO and two other ex-executives of Comverse Technology of securities fraud.
* The termination of the proposed ADC/Andrew merger.
* Job loss announcements from Credence Systems and Lexmark.
* A disappointing IPO in New York by Qimonda, a spin-off of Infineon. However, it was still the largest non-US IPO this year in the US.
* Apple will re-state its financial numbers from 2002.

* ABI Research has reduced its 2007 forecast for RFID software and services by about 15%.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.4%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.3%
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (-25%), I-Solutions (+31%), MICROmega (-28.6%), Stella Vista (-8.3%), Vesta (-9.1%) and Zaptronix (+10%).
* Top international share movements: Bitstream (+34.7%), Broadvision (+35.4%), Credence Systems (-32.3%), Entrada Networks (-50%), Isonics (+22.5%), Jupitermedia (-34.7%), Orbotech (+23.6%), Robocom International (+25%), SONICblue (+20%) and Zomax (+35.9%).

Computer Business Review (UK) has published its annual listings, one of which is the top 50 services providers. In this year`s rankings, Fujitsu has moved into second slot behind IBM, with BT Global Services now at five (was eighth). Additionally, T-Systems has slipped to eight from four; SAIC is at 11, up from 14; and Deloitte Consulting has slipped to 17 from 13. Other significant movements include Getronics at 22 (16), Tata Consultancy Services at 23 (30), Wipro at 25 (40), Infosys Technologies at 26 (37) and Lufthansa Systems GmbH coming in for the first time at 41.