Financial results trickle in

The international ICT market was quiet last week, apart from some quarterly results and a handful of small acquisitions, including ones by IBM and Software AG.

At home it was also very quiet, with no major announcements.

* Mixed interim numbers from Silverbridge, with revenue up 2% but profit down 68%.
* Positive trading updates from Business Connexion and Vodacom.
* Logic Group, the specialist adviser on utilising technology to enable business processes, has acquired total ownership of QlikView business intelligence software and solutions provider Consilia Consult.
* Cape Town-based Korwe Software unveiled its first commercial product, The Core, a mobile enterprise application platform.
* Business Connexion won this year's Best Managed Company award in the ICT sector from Top 500, an annual business-to-business directory of the country's leading companies in 100 sectors. The awards are based on rigorous criteria set by the Topco Research Foundation and look at various aspects of a company's operations in three broad categories: performance, empowerment and policies.
* MWeb won the 2010 South African Internet Service Provider of the Year Award at the recently held MyBroadband Conference.
* Sean Wainer was appointed SA country manager for Citrix Systems.

* Carl Kleynhans was appointed president Southern Africa for Schneider Electric.

Look out for the appointment of Settumo Mohapi as CEO of Sentech.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Garmin bought Belanor AS, its Norwegian distributor.
* IBM purchased Clarity Systems, a provider of financial governance software.
* NCR purchased Mobiqa, a mobile services company.
* Samsung Electronics has proposed a 41% acquisition of Madison, a South Korean maker of medical equipment.
* Software AG bought US-based Data Foundations, a master data management tool maker.
* Excellent quarterly results from Apple and Baidu.
* Very good quarterly figures from SanDisk, Tata Consultancy Services, VMware and Xerox.
* Good quarterly numbers from Bottomline Technologies, Check Point Software Technologies, EMC, Informatica, Juniper Networks, Millicom International Cellular, Philips Electronics and Wipro.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Acer, AT&T, CA Technologies, China Mobile, Ericsson, IBM, NCR, Nokia (back in the black) and Seagate Technology.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Verizon Communications.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Compuware, with revenue up but profit down; LG Display, with revenue up but profit down; Shaw Communications, with revenue up but profit down; TomTom, with revenue up but profit down; Western Digital, with revenue up but profit down; and Yahoo, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from ST-Ericsson.
* Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, has retired.

* International:
* The acquisition by EMC of Isilon Systems, a computer storage company.
* The sell-off by Vodafone of its 45% stake in SFR, the French mobile phone firm.

* Africa:
* Further acquisitions by Safaricom in the Internet space.

* South Africa:
* The appointment of Settumo Mohapi (ex-Telkom SA) as CEO of Sentech.
* The launch of Broadband Infraco in November.

* The number of Internet users will surpass two billion this year, approaching a third of the world's population, according to a UN study.
* Enterprise IT spending will reach $2.5 trillion in 2011, up 3.1% from this year, according to Gartner.
* Mobility will be a trillion-dollar business by 2014, Gartner predicts.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.2% (highest weekend close this year)
* Nasdaq: Up 0.4%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (-20%), Cape Empowerment (+10%), Ideco (-20%), Ifca Technologies (+28.6%), ISA (+9.3%), Labat Africa (+16.7%), Silverbridge (-14.7%), Simeka (-13.3%), TCS (+33.3%) and TeleMasters (+13%)

Fortune magazine has published its listing of the 50 most powerful women. From a technology perspective, the highest placed is Ginni Rometty, an SVP at IBM, at number eight; followed by Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, at number nine; Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, at 10; and Safra Catz, co-president of Oracle, at 11. Also in the top 25 are Ann Livermore of HP, and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook.