Dell accomplishes Quest mission

Last week, which included the US Independence Day holiday, the international ICT market was very quiet. The story regarding Dell finally nailing the acquisition of Quest Software and the $6 billion write-down by Microsoft were two of the leading news items.

At home, Vodacom's announcement regarding its CEO succession plan was the main story of the week.

MTN has filed a motion to dismiss the case filed against it by Turkcell.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Datatec (Westcon) acquired Afina Group, a Latin America and Iberian-based multinational security, virtualisation and data centre distributor, for EUR50 million.
* MIH Allegro, part of the Naspers empire, bought Intel's stake in Netretail Holding, a central European retailer.
* MTN has filed a motion to dismiss the case filed against it by Turkcell.
* The appointments of Shameel Joosub (ex-Vodafone Spain and Vodacom SA) as CEO of Vodacom Group (from 1 September); Vincent Mokholo as executive chairman of Huge Group; and Richard Wingfield as CIO of Altech.
* The resignations of Steve Tredoux, non-executive chairman of Huge Group; and Pieter Uys, CEO of Vodacom Group (from 31 March 2013).

* XON, an ICT solutions business, opened offices in Kenya and Namibia.
* Tanzania's Communications Ministry has launched an ICT Commission to drive ICT development in that country.

* Amazon purchased UpNext, a mapping start-up.
* Avnet acquired the German Magirus Group, a developer of data centre services.
* Cadence Design Systems bought Sigrity, a signal and power integrity technology provider.

* Ingram Micro acquired BrightPoint, a wireless device distributor, for $650 million.
* Ixia, a provider of Internet protocol testing systems, bought BreakingPoint Systems, a security testing company, for $160 million.
* Micron Technology purchased Powerchip Technology's stake in Rexchip Electronics. The former is already in the process of taking-over Elpida Memory.
* Sony acquired Gaikai, US gaming firm, for $380 million.
* Syniverse bought MACH, a Luxembourg-based telecoms firm, for $694 million.
* VMware purchased DynamicOps, a provider of cloud application development software.
* Xerox acquired Lateral Data, an e-discovery technology provider, for $30 million.
* Microsoft will take a $6.2 billion charge to write-down the value of an advertisement agency (aQuantive) that it bought in 2007.
* Mediocre quarterly results from HTC.
* Quarterly losses from SMSC.
* The appointments of Calvin Chih as CEO of Foxconn International Holdings; Antonio Coimbra as CEO of Vodafone Spain; Rob Glaser as interim CEO of RealNetworks; and Eissa Mohamed as group chairman of Etisalat.
* The resignations of Terry Cheng, CEO of Foxconn International Holdings; and Thomas Nielsen, president and CEO of RealNetworks.
* The death of Rob Pullen, CEO of Tellabs.
* An IPO filing in Singapore from Reliance Communications' undersea cable unit.
* A planned IPO on the UK's AIM market by China's Kada Technology Holdings, a component distributor.

* International:
* The appointment of Ross Levinsohn as the next CEO of Yahoo.

* Africa:
* Buyouts in Africa by Adobe, Cisco, Google or Microsoft, all of whom converge in Nairobi from 24 to 26 October in search of firms or new software developed within Africa.

* South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the issues concerning MTN/Turkcell, Reunert/John Holdsworth and Telkom SA's future.

* The South African BPO sector is set to grow significantly over the next five years, and is estimated to reach $3.06 billion in 2016 from $1.3 billion in 2011, according to Frost & Sullivan.
* Security appliance revenue and unit shipments grew by 9.7% and 12.9% in Q1 2012 to $1.9 billion and 511 220 units respectively, according to IDC.
* EMEA's video conferencing equipment revenue is expected to grow 18.5% this year, according to IDC.
* The MEA disk storage market grew 17.25% in Q1 2012 to $2.26 billion, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.5%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.1%
* Top SA share movements: AdaptIT (-9.8%), Amecor (-12%), Ansys (-10.3%), BCX-A (+18%), Datacentrix (-13.7%), FoneWorx (+9.1%), Gijima (-9.1%), Ifca Technologies (+50%), Poynting (+39.1%) and Zaptronix (-33.3%)

IDATE, a French NGO that tracks the global telecommunications, Internet and media markets, has just published its latest issue of its 'DigiWorld Economic Journal', which is entitled: 'Development of ICT in Africa'.

One of the articles is entitled: 'General Overview of Telecom African Markets' and states:

“Africa's ICT markets represent barely 3% of the global market in terms of revenue, and half is derived from telecommunications services. But the growth momentum over the past 10 years has been particularly steady and a great many global operators see it as a continent of attractive international development opportunities.”