DiData hogs the headlines

In a quiet week that included the US Thanksgiving Day holiday, the Vodafone AirTouch/Mannesmann ongoing "battle" dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.

With Dimension Data`s recent flurry of overseas acquisitions, the company seems to be leading the race to become the first South African IT company to have an overseas listing.

The top news locally was the purchase of the RE/COM Group by Dimension Data to become the third largest networking services company behind IBM and INS.

• good year-end numbers from Softline (although revenue was static);
• excellent interims from M-Cell (nearly twice the last full-year numbers) and from Streamworks (income about 50% of prospectus forecast for full-year);
• good interim numbers from Labat Africa (now well back in the black);
• satisfactory interim figures from Accord Technologies (margins have slipped a bit) and from Contlan (back in the black, and income on target for year-end prospectus forecast, but revenue well short of expectations);
• mediocre interim results from Casey Investment Holdings (revenue only marginally up and income well down);
• an interim loss from Central Information Holdings (but much smaller than at full-year);
• a profit warning from The Y3K Group; and
• the announcement that M-Cell would move to the telecommunications sector of the JSE with effect from 10 January 2000.

[Local]

Local acquisitions, mergers, investments etc (see attachment).

Local Cautionary Notices (see attachment).

Local Listing calendar (see attachment).

Other local news included:

• the appointment of Sonny Fisher as the new CEO of the Y3K Group;
• the opening of a South African office for Comverse Network Systems, a division of Nasdaq-listed Comverse Systems;
• the announcement of an integrated e-commerce business unit by Dimension Data; and
• the announcements that IST and Softline had won the telecommunications and IT awards respectively in the Technology Top 100 awards.

• we had the announcement by Newbridge Networks that it would lay-off some 700 employees;
• that Vodafone AirTouch is also in talks with Spain`s second largest mobile telecomms company, Airtel, about increasing its stake to over 50%, this is on top of the Mannesmann negotiations;
• SGI was on the verge of selling Cray Research to the Gores Technology Group;
• SBC Comms and Prodigy have agreed to join their consumer and small Internet operations in a deal that will give the former a 43% stake in the latter; and
• Microsoft now seems to be inundated with class action suits, following the recent findings of fact by Judge Jackson in the Microsoft/Department of Justice anti-trust trial.

Additionally, it is now the major consultancy groups that are looking for mergers or joint ventures; specifically, Ernst & Young and Cap Gemini have been holding discussions.

This is not the only potential tie-up that is on the cards. Only last August Cisco announced it was planning to invest $1 billion in the consultancy arm of KPMG. The next few months could be very interesting, especially with potential conflict of interest situations arising between traditional audit work and that undertaken by the consulting side of these businesses.

[International]

International acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures etc (see attachment).

Other international news included:

• the appointments of Peter Caswell as the new CEO of Advent Software;
• Alex Leupp as the new president and CEO at graphics chip-maker 3dfx;
• Israel Teiblum as the new president of Magic Software Enterprises;
• George Calhoun, Dennis Craig and Mark Brodsky as the new CEO, president and chairman respectively of Illinois Superconductor; and
• Barry Litwin, one of the founders, as the new president of Hummingbird Comms.

We saw excellent numbers from Plasmon.

Losses came from CHS Electronics, Computer Concepts, Data Fellows Group, Eidos, Energis, Equalnet Comms, Fonix, Genicom, Global Telecommunications Solutions, Inso, Intuit, Mitsubishi Electric, Portal Software, QAD, Supercom and Ubizen NV.

Good numbers were recorded by Arthur Anderson (although no income figures available), HADCO, Internoc NV, Macola Software, Novell, Puma Technology (back in the black), RM, Softlink and Ultimate Electronics.

Satisfactory results were reported by American Software (back in the black) and Mediware Information Systems (back in the black).

Mediocre returns came from Hummingbird Comms, IQE and NTT. Very poor results came from Autodesk and Ortel (but back in the black - just).

Other financial news included profit warnings from Compaq (some Alpha NT discontinuing costs), Egghead.com (Onsale merger charges) and Systems Software Associates (SSA).

There was also share split announcements from Business Objects and Ixos Software; and news that Neoware faces a possible Nasdaq de-listing, which could also jeopardise its MTX acquisition. Additionally, I-Cable Comms, an Internet company, had a very successful debut on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Locally

Casey (+36.4%)
Connect (+61.5%)
Crux (+21.4%)
Digicore (+27.9%)
Elexir (+87.5%)
Infiniti (+25%)
ITech (+63.6%)
Micrologix (-21.4%)
Netactive (+23.3%)
Pinnacle (+30%)
Stantronics (32.4%)
Streamworks (+28.6%)
Y3K (-23.7%)

Internationally

Applix (+37.5%)
AT&T (+23.4%)
Corel (+27.7%)
Exabyte (+36.2%)
Exodus (+24.4%)
Group 1 Software (+37.5%)
Input Software (+26.7%)
InteliData (+39.4%)
Intuit (+49.3%)
JDS Uniphase (+24.4%)
Mecon (+37.7%)
Micro General (+72.5%)
Phone.com (+23.6%)
Quintel Comms (+36.4%)
Staffware (+25.4%)
Veritas Software (-28%)

With Dimension Data`s recent flurry of overseas acquisitions, the company seems to be leading the race to become the first South African IT company to have an overseas listing.

PS

It seems a gremlin hit my column last week. The figure re the value of the new Dimension Data networking unit should have been billions not millions. Sorry about this.