The multibillion-dollar acquisition of TeleCorp by AT&T and the latest Microsoft/DOJ news dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.
[VIDEO]At home, the row over of the payment of the Financial Services Board fines against Datatec`s Jens Montanana and Robin Rindel and the bonus pay-outs following the sell-off of Datatec`s shares in UUNet, and the on-going saga at Siltek took much of the local headline space.
On the local front
* we saw satisfactory full-year numbers from MB Technologies (revenue and profit both up);
* a full-year loss from Prada Technologies (revenue also well down);
* reasonable interims from Altech (revenue and earnings both up);
* disappointing half-year numbers from Altron (revenue well up but earnings down over 50%); and
* the suspension of the shares of Sempres and Siltek, for the companies` failure to submit their annual financial statements timeously.
* Additionally, Hicor has had its shares annotated.
[Local]
Other local news included:
* the opening of a South African office in Cape Town by training materials provider, Wave Technologies;
* the acquisition of Network Times by Technews;
* the name change of PQ Africa to Comparex Africa;
* the withdrawal by Reed Exhibitions from managing the Tel.com 2002 show; and
* the re-organisation of MGX into five business domains.
On the international front
* we saw the rejection by the US Supreme Court of a Microsoft bid to throw out the findings of a federal judge who concluded in 1999 that the software maker used its monopoly power to bully rivals and thwart competition;
* the announcement that the European Commission might seek a fine of EUR2.74 billion against Microsoft and force it to remove features of its new Windows XP operating system; and
* the announcement of a significant restructuring at Polaroid, following its Chapter 11 application.
Now is not the time to hold back on IT spend.
Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners
Additionally, look out for the acquisition of French ISP, Infonie SA, by Italian-based Tiscali, and a deal between AT&T and BellSouth.
[International]
Other international news included:
* the appointments of Robert Gordon as CEO of Platform Computing, Bijan Khezri as CEO of Baltimore Technologies, Mike McTighe as chairman of Red-M, and Carl Vogel as president and CEO of Charter Comms;
* the resignation of Gene Godick, CFO of VerticalNet; and
* job loss announcements from Ardent Comms, Atlantic Telecom, Cap Gemini, Computer Associates, Geoworks, Network Associates, Onyx Software, Optus, Philips, RSA Security, Vignette, Xchange and Yahoo.
Financial results
Good numbers were posted by Infosys Technologies, Platform Computing and Unilog SA; and satisfactory ones by Cytec Industries, IPI (back in the black) and Troy Group.
Mediocre returns came from Cree, Electronics For Imaging EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering, First Data, Inet Technologies, Rational Software and VISX; while very poor results came from Inforte, infoUSA and Printronix.
Losses, however, came from Accenture, Akamai Technologies, American Nortel Comms, Avistar Comms, AVX, Centra Software, Digitas, DoubleClick, Exabyte, HEI, IBS AB, Imaging Systems, Interland, Juniper Networks, Lam Research, MIPS Technologies, Motorola, NDC Automation, Network Associates, Numerical Technologies, Omtool, Powerwave Technologies, Redback Networks, RSA Security, Sonus Networks, Unique Broadband Systems, Visual Networks and Yahoo.
Other financial news included share buy-back announcements from Comms Systems and Juniper Networks; profit warnings from Akamai Technologies, Arrow Electronics, Autonomy, Avaya, Black Box, Boston Comms Group, Cap Gemini, Centra Software, Commerce One, Creo, Daktronics, DDi, Digimarc, Electronics for Imaging, En Pointe Technologies, Eprise, F5 Networks, Geoworks, Learning Tree, Mapics, Matsushita, Nexans, ON Technology, Onyx Software, Optus, Pomeroy Computer Resources, Radiant Systems, Silicon Storage Technology, SilverStream Software, TransAct, Transmeta, Varian, Vignette, Viseon, Xerox and Yahoo.
There was also a share split announcement from Kana (reverse); and withdrawn IPOs from Israeli-based DealTime.com and Kintana (software and services). Additionally, iBeam Broadcasting, Netcentives and Polaroid (company and US subsidiaries) have applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Stock movements
Locally
Dynamic Cables (+20%)
E-Data (+150%)
EC-Hold (+36.4%)
Hicor (-37.5%)
Infowave (+80%)
Ixchange (-23.7%)
Labat Africa (+28%)
OSI (+50%)
ShawCell (-21.2%)
Square One (-50%)
Zaptronix (+20%)
Internationally
Allegiance Telecom (+80.8%)
Avanex (+66.6%)
AXS-One (+88.3%)
CMGI (+135.2%)
LanOptics (+70.8%)
Mentergy (+71.4%)
Palm (+57.4%)
Redback Networks (+77.8%)
Riverstone Networks (+90.1%)
Scan-Optics (+66.7%)
Final word
At Gartner`s recent Symposium/ITxpo in Florida, the key message was that it is imperative that during an economic downturn, enterprises select technologies that support core business initiatives, and that now is not the time to hold back on IT spend.
Four key emerging technology trends were also highlighted:
* Customer self-service, where it is estimated that by 2005, more than 70% of customer service interaction for information and remote transactions will be automated.
* Web services - by packaging business processes as software components, Web services will drive much of the still-to-be-developed e-business landscape.
* Wearable computers, where it is expected that by 2001, more than 60% of the US population aged between 15 and 50 will carry/wear a wireless computing and communications device for at least six hours a day.
* Tagging the world, where it is suggested that by 2008, at least $90 billion worth of B2C purchase decisions and $350 billion worth of B2B purchase decisions will be based on tags containing information and opinions about purchasable items.
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