Welcome to 2000 and this year`s first issue of Booth`s Bites, which covers the five weeks since 5 December. Some new items are attached, and other enhancements will be included over the next few weeks.
The continuing Vodafone/Mannesmann battle still dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications during the last few weeks.
At home the reduction in the price for Dimension Data`s deal with Comparex, the demise of Infiniti and in contrast the buy-out of Thwart by VeriSign for over R3 billion stole the local headlines.
On the local front
we saw the suspension of Infiniti`s shares, the liquidation of its subsidiary, FSA, and an application for the liquidation of Infiniti itself by Standard Bank;
satisfactory full-year numbers (maidens) by Skills Accel (both revenue and income slightly below forecast);
disappointing full-year figures from PentaCom (there was a loss without the proceeds from the sell-off of a subsidiary to I-Fusion);
a full-year (15 months) loss from WenTech, which has disposed of all its assets in the last few weeks;
good half-year figures from Oracle SA (no details available);
satisfactory interim numbers from Core Holdings (the second half needs to be much better to show a reasonable growth on last year`s figures);
an interim loss from Planit Technology Holdings (revenue also well down);
the disposal of the remaining business of WenTech, Computer Crisis Centre;
the disposal by Wiphold of its interests in Connection Group, Mustek and OSI; and
management buyout of JBA SA, in a deal which includes the outsourcing of all implementation and support activities to EOH.
Additionally, Bryant Technology and Oxbridge Online face a possible suspension of their shares on the JSE, through not having submitted their financial year-end results within the required time frame.
[Local]
Local acquisitions, mergers, investments etc (see attachment).
Local Cautionary Notices (see attachment).
Local Listing Calendar (see attachment).
Local Result Summaries (see attachment).
Other local news included:
the announcement that BCS-Net has established an office in Namibia;
USKO has streamlined and consolidated some of its operations;
Leigh Warren, the ex-Oracle SA MD, has been appointed MD of Glotec`s Asia Pacific operation;
Gary Craul has resigned from ATIO and is leading the offshore consortium which has bought ATIO`s international interests; and
local consortium eMediate has established a strategic distributor partnership with Commerce One, a global business-to-business e-commerce solution company.
Additionally, Leading Edge Technologies has changed its name to Pervasive Software SA after being awarded Southern Africa distribution rights by Pervasive Software; Zambia`s government has agreed to sell off 20% of its shares in Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel); and Nigerian Mobile Telecomms (M-Tel) is looking to Intel SA for financial assistance for its Global Systems for Mobile Communications.
On the international front
the announcement of a re-shuffled management team at AT&T;
the name change of GS Telecom to Xethos;
the breakdown of the proposed Telia/Telenor telecommunications merger; and
the announcement that Nextel has abandoned its $8.3 billion bid for NextWave.
Additionally, rumours suggest that British Telecom is to merge with Spain`s Telefonica SA and possibly bid for Ireland`s Esat Telecomms Group; and Sprint looks like severing its ties with France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom.
[International]
International acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures etc (see attachment).
If you thought that this was a quiet time of year, just look at this list! (Nearly 200 entries.)
Other international news included:
the
appointments
of John Dillon as the new CEO at Salesforce.com, Christopher Larsen and Eric Rubino as president and COO respectively of SAP America, Paul Lord as president of Walker Interactive Systems, Sharon Rothstein as the new CEO at WorldSpy, Jeff Weitzen as the new CEO at Gateway, Joseph Tucci as the new president and COO of EMC and Leo Hindery as the chairman and CEO of GlobalCenter, the Internet arm of Global Crossing;
the retirement of Cadence Design Realization group president, John Olsen;
the
resignations
of Mary Coleman, CEO of Baan, Jeff Papows, president of Lotus, Gary Lauer, president and CEO of MetaCreations, Greg Maffei, the CFO of Microsoft, to become CEO of WorldWide Fiber, and of Robert North, CEO at HNC Software;
the
re-organisation
of the software group at IBM; and
the announcement of
job cuts
by Call-Net Enterprises, IBM, Inacom, MetaCreations and PairGain.
Additionally, Steve Jobs was finally confirmed as permanent CEO of Apple; Data Fellows, the provider of Data protection products, changed its name to F-Secure, and Fastech, an IT consultancy group, changed its name to Cotelligent.
Vhhead = Financial results
We saw excellent figures from Advanced Digital Information (back in the black), Check Technology, Credence Systems (back in the black), Cree, Fairchild Semiconductor (back in the black), InterVoice-Brite, LMKI, Sage Group, Starnet Comms and The Source Information Management Company.
Losses came from Aehr Test Systems, AmeriQuest, Circuit Systems, Comms World International, Cyberian Outpost, Datapoint, Ednet, Engage Technologies, CFM Technologies, CMGI, En Pointe Technologies, Futuremedia, IEC Electronics, Input/Output, Internet Commerce, Intraware, IXnet, Leap Wireless International, Liberate Technologies, Manugistics, MGI Software, MicroAge, Microlog, Mondas, Muse Technologies, Net2Phone, RDM, Red Hat, REMEC, Sheldahl, Sierra Systems, Tibco Software, TMSSequoia and Visual Data.
Good numbers were recorded by AbleCommerce, Adobe, Agilent Technologies (back in the black), AIT Group, Analytical Graphics, Artworks Systems Group NV, Business Resource Group, Ciena (back in the black), ESI, Great Plains Software, Jabil Circuit, KPMG (no income figures available), Manatron, Micron Technology (back in the black), Numerex (back in the black), Optical Cable, Oracle, Progress Software, RCM Technologies, Saturn Solutions, SITEL, Solectron, Synstar, Tecsys (back in the black), Volt Information Sciences and Workflow Management.
Satisfactory results were reported by 3Com, Cabletron Systems, Cognos, GTech Holdings, Kalamazoo (back in the black), Logic Devices (back in the black), Micron Electronics, National Semiconductor (back in the black), Printronix, Standard Microsystems, Tektronix (back in the black) and Wallace Computer Services.
Mediocre returns came from Alpha Bytes, CSI, Datatec Systems, Geac Computers, Q-Media Services and Verity.
Other financial news included profit warnings from 3Com, ANTEC, Applix, Baan, Beyond.com, BMC Software, Ciprico, CNT, Consolidated Graphics, Corel (Q4 loss), Data I/O, Digi International, ECSoft Group, Epicor (loss expected), Equinox, Gateway, Genesis Microchip, Inacom, Indus International, Infinium, KLA-Tencor, Lason, Lucent Technologies, MetaCreations, NCD, Parametric Technology, PeopleSoft (Vantive charges), PCD, Quad Systems, Red Hat, Salient 3 Comms, SCT, SDL, US West, Ultimate Software and Xerox.
There were share split announcements from C-COR.net, Celestica, CGI, Check Point Software Technologies, CMGI, DoubleClick, IXOS, JDA Uniphase, Liberate Technologies, MapInfo, Network Solutions, Novellus, Oracle, Portal Software, Progress Software, Siliconix, Sony and Sprint (Sprint PCS stock).
There was also successful debuts by SDL, the UK Internet and software translation company, on the LSE, by Agency.com, the Web design and Internet services firm, Andover.net, a Linux player, FreeMarkets, an e-business company, Infodata, a data services company, Preview Systems, the Internet technology company, and VA Linux Systems, on NASDAQ, and by Internet Research Institute and Liquid Audio Japan, two new Internet companies, on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Additionally, Genicom is faced with a possible de-listing from NASDAQ; Applied Magnetics, a maker of magnetic recording heads for disk drives, has filed for Chapter 11 protection; 3Com has filed for an IPO for its subsidiary Palm Incorporated; and Sage Group, the UK accounting software company, has proved to be the leading UK equity of the 1990s according to an analysis by Primark Corporation of the US, with an increase in value of over 28 000%.
Stock movements
The major movements (much larger changes than usual) for the five-week period came from:
Locally
Brainware (+78.6%)
Conlog (+61.9%)
Core (+69.2%)
Hicor (+50%)
Idion (+53.3%)
ITI (+49.7%)
Ixchange (+57.2%)
M-Cell (+74.1%)
Metropolis (+65%)
PTH (+66.7%)
SecureData (+60%)
Skills Accel (+133.3%)
Streamworks (+185.7%)
Zaptronix (+61.3%)
Internationally
Adaptive Broadband (+71.2%)
APAC Customer Services (+72.2%)
American Nortel Comms (+87.5%)
Bitstream (+77%)
California Micro Devices (+77.8%)
CHS Electronics (+81.1%)
CMGI (+71.8%)
Computron (+241.3%)
Geoworks (+171%)
ICM Computer (+57%)
IMA (+63.3%)
Input Software (+261.9%)
Madge (+161%)
Manugistics (+79.6%)
Novell (+75.3%)
Ortel (+67.7%)
QAD (+139.5%)
SCO (+74.6%)
SK Telecom (+60.5%)
Symix (+71.4%)
US Interactive (+62.5%)
Vignette (+66.8%)
Walker Interactive (+83.4%)
Yahoo! (+61%)
Final word
The flood of quarterly results and year-end figures will start appearing shortly, and are likely to be indicative of what may be in store for the industry in 2000. Stock prices are very high presently and profit warnings are being posted thick and fast, which suggests a downward correction is likely to occur over the next few weeks.
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