Google and Yahoo team up

The search/advertisement tie-up announcement between Google and Yahoo dominated the international ICT headlines last week; at home, the activities, involving MTN, MWeb and Verizon Business dominated a week which also included the announcement of Telkom's and Vodacom's annual results together with a strong indication that Vodacom would, at long last, be severed from the ties of Telkom.

* Good year-end figures from Vodacom with revenues up 17,1% and profits up 21,3%. Customer numbers also up 12,7% to 34m. Revenues and profits from outside SA growing significantly faster than inside SA, which is very healthy. The sooner it is released from the shackles of Telkom SA the better.
* Mediocre year-end numbers from Telkom SA with revenues up 9% but profits down 7,7%. If it hadn't been for the Vodacom contribution (50%), the figures would be significantly worse. There seems to be too much interference from government and a lack of timely and creative decision making from management, which if not rectified will continue to have a negative effect on the company, thus the purchase of Telkom and the shedding of Vodacom would be a very positive move.

* Positive trading updates from Naspers and Simeka

* The announcement by Tata Communications of a new multi-service Point of Presence (PoP)) in Johannesburg in association with Neotel. This new PoP integrates seamlessly with Neotel's NGN and offers connection through Tata's global network to over 600 cities in 50 countries worldwide
* The announcement by TeleMasters that it has cancelled its proposed acquisition of Marketel
* The opening of a local office by Red Hat that is headed by Louis Seyffert as its Country Manager. Seyffert was previously Country Manager for Legato Systems SA and then worked at EMC SA, after the latter's acquisition of Legato.
* The appointments of Adrian Schofield as the new President of the CSSA, replacing Moira de Roche. Schofield is well known in the local ICT industry having previously been President of the ITA

* The very successful debut by Safaricom on Kenya's stock exchange, with the shares up 50% in value at one stage
* The announcement by Metrofile that it has opened a branch in Maputo, Mozambique in conjunction with its local partner, CVS.
* The announcement by Kuwait-based Zain, the owners of Celtel, Africa's third largest mobile operator, that it is seeking to buy three African operators, one of which could be Cell C. It would also be interested in becoming SA's fourth cellular operator, if the opportunity arose. Zain is looking for a European IPO in order to raise cash ($5bn) for the above. Recently Celtel Zambia was listed on the Lusaka Stock Exchange.
* The appointments of Olivier Delepine as APC's new sales and operations services manager for Africa, based in South Africa. APC is now owned by Schneider Electric.

The Indian cellular market is currently growing by about 10m users per month

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* The acquisition by Cisco of Denmark-based DiviTech, a digital video technology company. The intention is for DiviTech's DSM product with its ROSA network-management and element-management software to create an end-to-end platform capable of offering all layers of digital video management in a single modular product.
* The acquisition by Cognizant Technology Solutions, an IT, consulting and BPO service provider, of US-based Strategic Vision Consulting (SVC). Cognizant was recently named as a partner to T-Systems in the area of systems integration. Cognizant had revenues in 2007 of over $2,1bn, but as yet does not have a local office in South Africa
* The acquisition by SanDisk of MusicGremlin, a privately-held technology company, established in 2003, that develops advanced digital content distribution technologies.
* The $123m acquisition by Symantec of SwapDrive, a privately-held online storage start-up company. The move strengthens its service offerings in its Norton consumer portfolio
* The sell-off to Belgian investment company, GIMV, of Nokia Siemens Networks' Open Transport Network (OTN) in order that it can focus totally on its core business
* The announcement by Google and Yahoo that the two companies had entered a search-advertising pact that is likely to be pitted against Microsoft
* The resignation, for medical reasons, of Lou D'Ambrosio, President and CEO of Avaya, which was bought out by private equity firms in late 2007.

* The investment (+/-40%) by India's Idea Cellular in India's Spice Communications in a deal valued at over $1,2bn. The merged entity would have some 30m users and be ranked No 5 in the country. Bharti Airtel is No 1 with about 65m users, followed by Reliance Communications. The Indian cellular market is currently growing by about 10m users per month.

* According to IDC, the worldwide software storage market grew 9,4% in Q108 to $2,9bn with EMC remaining the top vendor, followed by Symantec and IBM
* According to Gartner, the worldwide application infrastructure and middleware market grew 12,9% in 2007 to $14,1bn, with IBM well in the lead with a 28,9% market share. In second slot, but down at 9,3% was BEA Systems, closely followed by Oracle
* According to Gartner, worldwide supply chain management software revenue grew 18% in 2007 to $5,1bn with SAP and Oracle accounting for 38,4% of this market
* According to IDC, worldwide PC shipments are expected to grow 15,2% in 2008 to 310m units

* JSE All share index: Down 1,6%
* Nasdaq: Down 0,8%
* Top SA share movements: Celcom (-13,3%), DVT (+30,7%), Dynamic Cables (+20%), FoneWorx (-13,2%), Huge Group (-9,6%), Labat Africa (+25%), Sekunjalo (+10%), Stella Vista (+12,5%), TCS (-17,9%) and TeliMatrix (-10,7%)

eWeek has just released its Eighth Annual Excellence Awards winners. The list included the following products:

* Sanctuary 4.2 from Lumension Security, a product that is proactive in looking for security holes and vulnerabilities;
* everRun VM from Marathon Technologies, a product that has the potential to solve many of the problems found in today's complex networks; and,
* Service Analyser 2.0 from Netuitive, a performance management software solution.