Google debuts Nexus 7

The international ICT world was dominated last week by Google's announcement of its Nexus 7 tablet, and the disastrous quarterly results from RIM.

At home, it was a quiet week, with the sad news of the death of Antonie Roux one of the main stories.

Look out for the possible sell-off by RIM of its handset manufacturing arm to either Amazon or Facebook.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* An interim loss from Telemasters, with revenue down 47%.
* Mixed year-end figures from Amecor, with revenue up 53%, but profit down 8.6%;
and Naspers, with revenue up 19% but profit down 41%.
* A positive trading update from Poynting Holdings.
* A negative trading update from Gijima.
* Capital Eye Investments, an investment holding company (ex-UCS Group that was de-listed in October last year), has made three investments already and is looking for additional ones in the retail, financial services or healthcare technology markets.
* ReadSoft is opening a South African office, in Johannesburg.
* Samsung Electronics will locally manufacture computer monitors of 21 inches and above.
* The appointments of Neil Kayton as CEO of Power Technologies; Farhad Khan (ex-CEO of MTN Zambia) as the MTN Group Enterprise division's head; and Leon Viljoen as COO of Power Technologies.
* The death of Antonie Roux, head of the MIH Group and Naspers' Internet operations.

* Frost & Sullivan reported the southern African broadband market earned revenue of $3.78 billion in 2010, and this is estimated to rise to $19.08 billion by 2017. The area covers Lesotho, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

* Micron Technology acquired Elpida Memory, the bankrupt Japanese chipmaker, for $2.5 billion.
* Qtel bought the 47.5% of Wataniya, a Kuwaiti-telecommunications operator, it doesn't already own. The deal was worth $1.9 billion.
* Red Hat purchased FuseSource, a provider of open source integration and messaging, in a move intended to help accelerate the delivery of application integration products and services to enterprise customers.

* SBA Communications bought 3 252 mobile phone towers in the USA and Puerto Rico for $1.45 billion.
* Kingston Technology made an investment (almost 25%) in Panram International, a Taiwanese maker of DRAM modules, thus making it the latter's largest shareholder.
* American M'ovil has met its goal of achieving a 27.7% stake in KPN.
* The European Commission has upheld the fine that was levied against Microsoft for antitrust-orientated behaviour, in a feud that has lasted over a decade.

* Google released its competitor to Apple's iPad, the Nexus 7 tablet.
* L-3 Communications will spin-off as Engility Holdings, its government services unit.
* Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA will do a spectrum swap that would enable them to expand the roll-out of their fourth generation LTE networks.
* Good quarterly numbers from Tibco Software.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Accenture.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Shaw Communications, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Progress Software and RIM (revenue down 43%).
* The appointments of Ronald Black as president and CEO of Rambus; Fadi Chehad'e as CEO of ICANN; Philip Humm as chief of Vodafone's European operations; and Daniel Kelly as acting president and CEO of Tellabs, while the current CEO, Rob Pullen, undergoes cancer treatment.
* The resignations of Philip Humm, CEO of T-Mobile USA; and Jean-Bernard L'evy, CEO of Vivendi.
* A very good IPO on the NYSE by ServiceNow, a cloud service provider.

* International:
* The possible sell-off by RIM of its handset manufacturing arm to either Amazon or Facebook, and the fate of the rest of the company, which is in very serious trouble, with its share price dropping substantially yet again.
* The outcome of yet another bid by Dell for Quest Software.
* South Africa:
* Further news regarding Telkom SA and the MTN/Turkcell scenario.

* Enterprise social software spending is forecast to grow to from $0.8 billion in 2011 to $4.5 billion by 2016, according to IDC.
* Consumers will store more than a third of their digital content in the cloud by 2016, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.2%
* Nasdaq: Up 1.5%
* Top SA share movements: FoneWorx (-12%), Ideco (+50%), Ifca Technologies (-33.3%), Labat Africa (-8.3%), MiX Telematics (-17.8%), MICROmega Holdings (+16.7%), Poynting (+35.7%) and Trustco (+9.5%)

IDATE, a French NGO that tracks the global telecommunications, Internet and media markets, has just published its 2012 DigiWorld Yearbook.