DOC takes staggering stance

The international ICT market was quiet last week apart from HP's job loss announcement. The local ICT market was buoyed by the local investment announcement by Cisco, but staggered by the DOC's na"ive stance on the recent Altech High Court ruling.

* An interim loss from Ifca Technologies, with the loss recorded greater than the revenue for the six-month period.
* Excellent year-end figures from Digicore, with revenue and profit both up more than 50%.
* Very good year-end numbers from Pinnacle, with revenue up 45% and profit up nearly 40%.
* Positive trading updates from Altech, Altron and ConvergeNet Holdings.
* A negative trading update from Poynting Antennas.
* Cisco announced a R215 million investment in the Cisco Innovation Hub Technology Centre (CIHTC) that will include an InnovationLab, a global talent acquisition programme, the Cisco Netversity, an Entrepreneur Institute and a software development programme.
* The communications minister will appeal the Altech High Court judgement regarding self-provisioning for VANS. What an unbelievable retrograde step, especially in the light of ICASA's decision not to appeal.
* Mark Kelly was appointed SA country manager for Motorola.
* James Theledi was suspended as CEO of USAASA.

HP announced 25 000 job losses following its acquisition of EDS, with many of the positions coming from the newly acquired stable.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Adobe bought Denmark-based YaWah, an imaging software provider.
* Cisco acquired Jabber, an instant messaging start-up that will help Cisco's push into the online conferencing market.
* Sony bought out NEC's 45% stake in its Blu-ray disk joint venture.
* Nortel Networks intends to sell off its Metro Ethernet Networks, a division that contributed over $375 million in revenue in Q2 this year.
* HP announced 25 000 job losses following its acquisition of EDS, with many of the positions coming from the newly acquired stable. I wonder what the local effect will be?
* Good quarterly numbers from Oracle.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Adobe and Progress Software.

* Another attempt by Samsung to buy out SanDisk.

* Worldwide telecommunications revenue is expected to grow 7.6% this year and reach $2 trillion, according to Gartner.
* The worldwide wireless LAN intrusion prevention system market will reach $168 million this year, 40% up on 2007, predicts Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 2.9%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.6%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-13%), Business Connexion (-21.4%), Cape Empowerment Trust (+11.1%), FoneWorx (-14.1%), Ideco (+33.3%), Labat Africa (-20%), Poynting (-12.7%) and Telkom SA (-16%)

In Forbes' latest Asian Fabulous 50 listing, Acer is at number one; Asustek at number three; Bharti Airtel at six; China Mobile at 11; Hon Hai Precision Industry at 23; HTC at 24; and Infosys Technologies is at 25. Wipro and ZTE (China) are also in the top 50.