Disgust at DOC

Disgust was the main sentiment following the DOC's decision to challenge the High Court ruling regarding self-provisioning. Internationally, Oracle announced last week that it intends to move into the hardware business.

* Very good year-end figures from EOH, with revenue up 35% and profit up 25%.
* Good year-end numbers from FoneWorx, with revenue up 22% and profit up 65%.
* Positive trading updates from Celcom and Datacentrix.
* Galdon Data acquired Abnoba, a business automation company and Microsoft Certified Partner.

* Naspers entered a joint venture between its Chinese subsidiary, Tencent and its Indian counterparts, MIH India Holdings and MIH India Global Internet, to attack the wireless market in India.
* Eugene de Kok was appointed executive chairman of Alliance Mining and Alwyn Steenkamp was appointed CEO of Alliance Mining.
* Wayne Rosenberg resigned as CEO of MICROmega.

* IBM invested in Egypt, in conjunction with the government of that country, to establish a nanotechnology research centre and a services science university curriculum.
* AfricaNext Investment research announced it expects the African broadband market to quadruple to three million subscribers by 2012.
* Ericsson will establish an Innovation Centre in Kenya, Nigeria and SA to develop mobile applications that will benefit society as a whole.

Oracle plans to enter the hardware business by selling computers bundled with Oracle software.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* McAfee acquired Secure Computing (SC) for $465 million. McAfee currently has annual revenue approaching $1.5 billion, while SC annual revenue is about $250 million. SC is currently in a loss-making situation.
* Etisalat (Emirates) made a $900 million (45%) investment in India's Swan Telecom. Etisalat already has operational interests in Afghanistan, Indonesia and Pakistan.
* A global partnership between SAS Institute and Tata Consultancy Services was announced.
* Oracle plans to enter the hardware business by selling computers bundled with Oracle software. The 'appliance' manufactured by HP for Oracle and badged Oracle, will come with Oracle's database software preloaded.
* Seagate will create a new umbrella company, i365, for its Evault, MetaLINCS and Recovery Services companies.
* Excellent quarterly results from Research In Motion (BlackBerry).
* Good quarterly figures from Accenture, Red Hat and Tibco (profits more than double).
* Satisfactory quarterly numbers from 3Com, with its first recorded quarterly profit for eight years, although this was almost totally created through a patent infringement pay-out from Taiwan-based Realtek Semiconductor.
* Joseph McGrath resigned as CEO of Unisys (with effect 31 December 2008).

* A possible buy-out of Tiscali's UK interests by Carphone Warehouse.
* The winner in the battle for UK-based Axon Group, a technology consultancy, between India's HCL Technologies and India's Infosys Technologies.

* The number of cellular subscribers worldwide will reach four billion by the end of the year, according to the ITU.
* Worldwide IPTV subscriptions will reach 19.6 million this year, up 64.1% from last year, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 3.6%
* Nasdaq: Down 4%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (+15.6%), Celcom (+13.3%), Cape Empowerment Trust (-22%), CompuClearing (-18%), FoneWorx (+26%), Ifca Technologies (+30%), Labat Africa (-25%), Poynting (-18.2%), Stella Vista (-12.5%) and Vox Telecom (-49.1%)

Interbrand has published its latest Top 100 Global Brands listing. From a technology perspective IBM is number two; Microsoft is number three; Nokia is five; Intel is seven and Google is 10. There are 11 entries in the top 25. The significant movers are Google up from 20; Apple at 24, up from 33; Yahoo at 65, down from 55; and Motorola at 87, down from 77.