End in sight for WorldCom saga

Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was found guilty of fraud last week. The SEC action against ex-Qwest Communications executives surrounding accounting frauds also dominated the international ICT scene.

Meanwhile, Oracle and SAP`s battle for control of Retek is over, with Oracle acquiring the software maker in a deal worth $631 million.

The black empowerment ICT charter hiccups were the key focus locally.

* Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was found guilty of an $11 billion fraud perpetrated in 2002 and faces a long sentence. The company rose to become a major corporate giant that was valued at over $100 billion at one time, following the $40 billion acquisition of MCI in 1998. It ended with a Chapter 11 filing, the world`s largest bankruptcy case to date and the biggest accounting fraud in US history.

* IBM has acquired enterprise data integration company Ascential Software for $1.1 billion. The latter company name was given to the remains of Informix following IBM`s $1 billion purchase of the database part of that company in May 2001. The question must be asked as to why all of Informix wasn`t purchased previously and why was IBM not attuned to the evolving needs of the market that have now given rise to the need for this current purchase?

Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was found guilty of an $11 billion fraud perpetrated in 2002 and faces a long sentence.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* It emerged last week that certain corporate/regulated organisations have threatened progress on the finalisation of the black empowerment ICT charter. However, the charter steering committee is still confident that agreement on the draft will be forthcoming by the end of the month and that the final charter will be in operation by the second half of 2005. There are numerous deals pending the publication of the charter, so any delays and continued in-fighting could cause significant damage to the industry and divert attention away from on-going business activity.

* Alliance Data, an open source software developer, plans an IPO on AltX later this month.

* Satisfactory year-end numbers from Control Instruments. Revenue and profits both slightly up.

* Mediocre interim figures from Compu-Clearing with revenue slightly up and attributable earnings down.

* A full year loss from Idion, with revenue also down (even in US dollar terms).

* Positive trading updates from Bytes Technology Group, Datacentrix and Jasco Electronics.

* Khuselo Investments took a 75% stake in the ImpiLinux open source project.

* Control Instruments announced that it will roll-out a broad-based internal black empowerment programme later this year.

* Maxtec Peripherals was appointed as the South African distributor for Maxell`s range of data storage products.

* The Kenyan government dissolved its telecommunications regulator.

* Telkom Kenya licensed Bell Western to provide telecommunications services in the North East province of Kenya.

* Sitabile was appointed as the sole distributor in Africa for XioTech, an emerging storage provider.

* Harvey Jones Systems was appointed as the Sub-Saharan distributor for Corda Technologies` data presentation solutions.

* Chris Kirubi was appointed as chairman of Ilanga Systems in Kenya and Romeo Khumalo as MD of Vodacom Tanzania.

* The Kenyan government announced that the sale of Telkom Kenya will start in June.

* Alcatel SA sold off its 15% stake in Nexans, Europe`s largest cable maker, for about EUR114 million.

* Vodafone snapped up two Eastern European wireless operators for $3.5 billion.

* The US SEC is suing former Qwest Communications CEO Joseph Nacchio and several others re alleged accounting frauds dating from 1999 to 2002.

* The appointments of Alan Biland as president of Snap-on, William Mackenzie as CEO of Oxford Semiconductor, Brad Mattson as chairman of Tegal, Thomas Mika as president and CEO of Tegal, James Morozzi as CEO of D&E Communications, Phil Wilmington as CEO of OutlookSoft, and Harry You as CEO of BearingPoint.

* The resignation of Michael Parodi as chairman, CEO and president of Tegal.

* The retirement of Michael Montemurro, president of Snap-on.

* Analyst upgrades for Apple, Applied Micro Circuits, Aspen Technology, ATI Technologies, BMC Software, Business Objects, Cablevision Systems, Ciber, Ciena, Emulex, Intel, Manhattan Associates, National Semiconductor, Nvidia, Opnet Technologies, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Salesforce.com, Sigma Designs, Sirf Technology Holdings, Sonic Solutions, Synaptics, Synplicity, TiVo and Vasco Data Security International.

* Analyst downgrades for AMIS Holdings, Ariba, Ascential Software, California Micro Devices, Cray, F5 Networks, GSI Commerce, Ingram Micro, Manhattan Associates, MCI, MicroStrategy, MTC Technologies, Symbol Technologies, Tech Data, Websense and Western Wireless.

* Positive results announcements from Digital River, LSI Logic and Raindance Communications.

* Negative result warnings from Digimarc, InfoUSA, NeoMagic, palmOne and SBS Technologies.

* Stock repurchase announcements from Entercom Communications and Micrel.

* A job loss announcement from IBM.

* Private funding obtained for CodeFast, a provider of programs that automate some aspects of the software development process; NeoScale, an enterprise storage security company; and Openlogic, a software vendor.

* Private stock placements by Glowpoint, ParkerVision and Syscan.

* A share split announcement from Take-Two Interactive Software (3:2).

* Planned IPOs from Indian IT services company 3i Infotech later this year, Japan-based Jupiter Telecommunications, and Powerlan`s subsidiary, FinancialBPO, an Australian BPO company.

* Satisfactory IPOs on London`s AIM by Ant, a company that provides software for Internet Protocol television, and Calyx, an Irish IT services and telecommunications provider.

* A mediocre IPO in New York by PanAmSat.

* ViryaNet re-stated its financials from 2000-2003.

* IT services vendor DecisionOne filed for Chapter 11 protection. This has been done to facilitate a restructuring of secured notes.

* Affiliated Computer Services` acquisition of the outsourcing unit of Mellon Financial.

* Liberty Media`s possible spin-off of its empire into a series of smaller companies, ie its Ascent Media unit and its 50% stake in Discovery Communications.

* McLeodUSA put itself up for sale.

* The software storage market grew 16.1% in 2004 to $7.9 billion, according to IDC`s worldwide quarterly storage software tracker, with EMC at number one with 30.9% revenue share, followed by Veritas Software with 21.9%.

* IDC forecasts that the growth in the managed IP VPN services market will slow down from 2006 as a result of falling network connection prices.

* AMR Research`s latest study suggests that the cost of compliance over the next five years will be at least $80 billion. In 2005 alone, it is estimated that organisations will spend $15.5 billion on compliance-related issues.

* JSE all share index: Down 0.3%

* Nasdaq: Down 3%

* Top SA share movements: AST (+63%), Beget Holdings (-20%), Elexir (-25%), Labat Africa (-18.5%), Metrofile (-33.3%), Pinnacle (-13.3%), Square One (-30.6%), Stella Vista (-16.7%), UCS (-12%) and Zaptronix (-14.3%).

* Top international share movements: Daisytek International (-50%), FiberMark (-36.8%), Formscan (+35.3%), Marlborough Stirling (+44.7%), Provo International (-45.5%), Nortem NV (-79.1%), Streetnames (+53.4%), Telspec (+61.9%) and Ultima Networks (+46%).

Last week, Business Day published its Excellence in Corporate Reporting survey of SA`s Top 100 companies. With the exception of Telkom rated at number five and an excellent rating for MTN, the other technology companies surveyed didn`t fare very well, which is obviously a cause for concern. Hopefully, we will see some significant improvements by next year.

As this coming weekend is Easter, the next issue of Booth`s Bites will appear on Monday, 4 April and will cover a two-week period.