Good news during quiet week

The ICT market both internationally and locally was quiet last week, with no earth-shattering announcements.

* Excellent full-year numbers from Dialogue Group, with revenue up 55% and profit up over 100%; and MICROmega, with revenue and profit up nearly 100%.
* Excellent interim numbers from FoneWorx, with revenue and profit up over 100%.
* SAB&T Ubuntu Holdings investments in El Gondor Trading 146 (50%), a software development company; Applebox Accounting (55%), a provider of business support services; and Equitemps (30%), a placement company.
* Comztek invested in NetShield SA.
* Phoenix Software was appointed as a distributor for Corel.

* Vodacom sold off a stake in its Mozambique unit to Intelec Holdings, a local company.
* The Eassy project changed its name to the Nepad Broadband Infrastructure Network.
* Libya Africa Portfolio's Green Com, the investment arm of the Libyan government, acquired majority shares in Uganda Telecom.
* Eric Tronel was appointed as head of MTN Congo.

Look out for the possible privatisation of SAP by a buyout involving a private equity consortium.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Philips Electronics sold off its 16.2% stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.
* LogicaCMG bought out the Norwegian unit of Siemens Business Services.
* Ericsson acquired Tandberg Television ASA.
* A negative result warning from AMD.
* Planned IPOs from Aruba Networks, a maker of network security technology; and Glu Mobile, a publisher of mobile games.
* IPO filings from Aecom Technology, a provider of professional technical and management support services; and Starent Networks, a provider of infrastructure solutions.
* Satisfactory IPOs by Clearwire, a wireless broadband company; and Sourcefire, a network security company.
* An excellent IPO in India by Mindtree Consulting, an IT services provider.
* Financial re-statements for Research In Motion, going back to 2004..

* The possible privatisation of SAP by a buyout involving a private equity consortium.
* The acquisition of Take-Two Interactive Software by a private equity company.
* The potential sell-off by Telefonica of its 75% in Endemol Entertainment Holding NV.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.4%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.8%
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (+33.3%), Dialogue (+10.7%), ERP.com (+15%), Infowave (+9.2%), Labat Africa (-15.8%), MICROmega (+25.4%), Vestor (-12.5%) and Zaptronix (+16.7%)
* Top international share movements: Elcom International (-20%), Jupitermedia (-22.6%) Micro Component Technology (+58.8%), MIDGARDXXI (+33.3%), RF Monolithics (+19%), Silverline Technologies (+21%), Sykes Enterprises (+19.1%), VerticalNet (-29.9%) and Vonage (-20.1%)

The Competition Tribunal on the proposed Telkom SA/Business Connexion acquisition starts today. This is extremely pertinent, especially in light of the rumours surrounding the fate of Dimension Data and arivia.kom in conjunction with BT and Tata respectively.

I will be away for a few days later this week and so my next column will appear on 26 March and will cover a two-week period.