The filing by Oklahoma of fraud charges against WorldCom and several of its ex-executives dominated the international world of IT and telecoms, while at home Vodacom`s Mozambique announcement and the SNO news stole most of the ICT headline space.
On the local front
* very good annual figures from Prism Holdings (revenue well up and back in the black);
* year-end losses from I-Fusion (revenue also well down) and mymarket.com (revenue substantially up), both part of the Bidvest Group.
Other local news included:
* the appointment of Nic Vlok as CEO of Digicore (was executive deputy chairman);
* the resignations of Richard Beytagh, the country manager for Novell SA, Jeff Molobela, Chairman of Casey Investment Holdings and Lazarus Zim, MD of MTN International;
* the announcement of significant job losses at Telkom SA;
* the rejection by ICASA of both the bids for the SNO;
* and the announcement that Vodacom is to launch its cellular network operation in Mozambique within the next eight months through a company operating as Vodacom Mocambique, in which it will be the majority shareholder, with Emotel, a local Mozambique company, holding a minority stake.
New distributorships included Asbis and Redington for East and West Africa respectively for Intel.
On the international front
* the announcement from Canon that it is to invest Y100bn ($850m) in its semiconductor operations in a bid to become the global industry leader;
* the news that HP and Konica-Minolta are to jointly develop multifunction digital copiers;
* the agreement by Siebel Systems to changes in its corporate governance;
* the settlement by Computer Associates of three outstanding lawsuits;
Look out for:
* the possible acquisition by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young of Transiciel SA, France`s fifth largest indigenous IT services company;
* the sell-off by Motorola of its 19% Symbian stake to Nokia and Psion;
* the sell-off by German mobile phone operator, MobilCom AG, of a 70% stake in the company to Debitel and Permira.
Other international news included:
* the appointments of Gerard Buckley as CEO of Transversal, Jason Carlson as CEO of SemTech, Michael Dager as CEO of Worksoft, Thomas Gantt as President and CEO of Spherix, Peter Hodgson as CEO of Easyscreen, Edward Park as President and CEO of Ximeta, Mark Sotir as CEO of Sunburst Technology and Dave Weisman as CEO of Eagle Broadband;
* the resignations of Renato Soru Chairman and CEO of Tiscali, Ron Stevens President and CEO of Digital 5 and David Yap as CEO of Transversal;
* job loss announcements from EDB Business Partners ASA, EDS, Konica-Minolta, Matsushita Electric, Netia SA, Siebel Systems and Silicon Graphics.
Financial results
On the results front, we saw very good* numbers from eOn Comms (back in the black), Konka Group, McData (back in the black), Quanta Computer and Venture.
Good figures* were recorded by China Unicom, Hon Hai Precision and Micros Systems; and satisfactory* ones by OTE, SeaChange International (back in the black), Systems Union Group and Yell.
Mediocre* returns came from Bell Group, C&D Technologies, DataMirror (back in the black), Optio Software (but back in the black), SBE (but back in the black), SemTech, Teletouch Comms and Telstra; whilst very poor results* came from Tech Data.
Losses* however came from ASAT Holdings, CNT, Convera, Csii, Datalex, Dycom, Eiger Technology, FiberCore, FirePond, Impsat, Leitch Technology, LTX, Marconi, Maxis Comms, Merant, Morse, On Command, OTI, Peerless Systems, PlanetLink Comms, Pumatech, QSC AG, SR Telecom, Stratos Lightwave, Tactex Controls, TDS Informationstechnologie AG, Telekom Austria Group, T/R Systems, Ultimate Electronics, Unify, VA Software, Versus Technology and Workstream.
Other financial news included analyst upgrades for AMD, Ciena, Fairchild Semiconductor, National Semiconductor, PeopleSoft, Proxim and Xerox; analyst downgrades for Fujitsu and Internet Security Systems; an employee stock option exchange program from Datalink; results/profit warnings (often veiled) from Computer Associates, Integrated Device Technology, Marconi, McData, Novellus, Siebel Systems and Western Digital; and share split announcements from SR Telecom (reverse) and Yahoo Japan. Additionally, AM Comms has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Stock movements
Locally
Beget Holdings (+30%)
Datatec (+18.2%)
Digicor (+9.4%)
DNA (-50%)
Global Technology (+20%)
Labat Africa (+25%)
MGX (+18.2%)
Sekunjalo (-20%)
Trematon (-21.8%)
Zaptronix (+300%)
Internationally
Comtech Telecomms (+30.3%)
Corio (+30.6%)
IBNet (+75.2%)
ID Data (+88.8%)
NetBenefit (+51.5%)
NTELOS (-33.3%)
RadView Software (+93.1%)
Silverline Technologies (+40%)
SONICblue (+50%)
WJ Comms (+29.9%)
In terms of indices, NASDAQ was 2,6% up and the JSE 1,2% down for the week.
Final word
We are normally extremely creative in South Africa; surely we can find a solution to this [SNO] impasse.
Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners
After the recommendation by ICASA last week that both the SNO bids are rejected, one has to wonder if there will ever be an alternative to Telkom in the short term.
It is inconceivable that another round of tendering takes place, and ways must be found to bridge the shareholding gap while not hindering progress of bringing the SNO into operation.
We are normally extremely creative in South Africa; surely we can find a solution to this impasse. The last thing we want is a legal battle, since this is likely to delay even further the appointment of a real alternative to Telkom.
* NB
Guidelines for the categorisation of results are as follows. The figures 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 are in excess of 50%.
* Good: Both revenue and net income growth are 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.
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