Google sells stake in Clearwire

The international ICT market was very quiet last week, with small acquisitions by Apple, Cisco and Dell being some of the more visible news items.

At home, during a very quiet week, the hostile takeover bid at ConvergeNet Holdings was a key item of news.

Lester Petini resigned as chairman of ConvergeNet Holdings.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Blue Label Telecoms, with revenue up 7% and profit up 36.4%; Digicore, with revenue up 24% but profit only up 5%; Gijima, with revenue up 7.5% and back in the black; and Morvest, with revenue up 8% but profit up 35%.
* A positive trading update from Poynting Holding.
* Lime St Xchange debuted, which is a joint venture formed by management and staff of Ovations and Knowledge Dimension. It intends marketing TriSystems, a UK-based system that targets the insurance sector.
* ConvergeNet announced that a group of shareholders, led by Trinity Asset Management, has acquired a substantial shareholding in the company, which may lead to a takeover bid and the ousting of several directors, including the current CEO.
* The appointments of Shaun Liebenberg as CEO of IQ Business Ventures, a subsidiary of the IQ Business Group; and Sandile Swana as interim chairman of ConvergeNet Holdings.

* Lester Petini resigned as chairman of ConvergeNet Holdings.

* A quarterly loss from Mobinil (Egypt), with revenue also down.
* IDC said Egypt's IT spend fell 13% in 2011 and is likely to be flat for this year.
* SecureData was appointed the sub-Saharan distributor for AirTight Networks.

* Cisco acquired Lightwire, a developer of advanced optical interconnect technology, for $270 million.
* Dell purchased AppAssure, the provider of technology that delivers reliable application recovery from customers' servers to their data centre.
* Ericsson bought BelAir, a WiFi technology company, in a move designed to boost the former's mobile broadband offering.
* F5 Networks acquired Traffix Systems, a provider of signalling products for telecommunications service providers.
* Globalfoundries purchased ProMOS Technologies, yet another Taiwanese consolidation in the semiconductor market.
* Juniper Networks bought Mykonos Software, a provider of intrusion deception systems that protect Web sites and Web applications. The deal was worth $80 million.
* SBA Communications acquired some antenna assets of Mobilitie for $1.09 billion.
* Google will sell its 6.5% stake in Clearwire at a loss of nearly $453 million.
* Microsoft has filed a complaint with the EU regarding Motorola Mobility and its handling of so-called standard essential patents.
* Samsung Electronics is to spin off its LCD business.
* Excellent quarterly results from Yandex.
* Good quarterly numbers from Autodesk, Intuit and MetroPCS.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Avago Technologies, Brocade Communications Systems, Garmin and Rogers Communications.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Analog Devices, Everything Everywhere, France Telecom, HP, Iron Mountain, Marvell Technology Group and T-Mobile USA.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Alibaba.com, with revenue up but profit down; Dell, with revenue up but profit down; and Telefonica, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed year-end numbers from Logica, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Deutsche Telekom, NII Holdings and Salesforce.com.
* The appointments of John Jumper as CEO of SAIC; and Jorge Titinger as CEO of Silicon Graphics.
* Planned IPOs from Palo Alto Networks, security software maker; ServiceNow, a management software maker; Violin Memory, a flash memory maker; and Workday, a machine data software company.
* An IPO filing from E2open, a provider of ERP software.
* A very good IPO on Nasdaq by Brightcove, a provider of cloud-based solutions for publishing and distributing professional digital media.

* International:
* The privatisation of Alibaba Group Holdings following a $2.3 billion bid for the shares it doesn't already own.
* A new start-up, CrowdStrike, formed by two ex-McAfee executives, which is developing technologies to help corporations and government agencies track down elusive hackers.

* Africa:
* The 'go-live' in April of Kenya's fourth ocean cable, LION2, that links Kenya, the island of Mayotte and Mauritius.

* South Africa:
* The entry of Mu Sigma into the country via a strategic partnership. Mu Sigma, based in India, is one of the world's leading providers of digital sciences and analytic services, with a presence in over 10% of the Fortune 500 companies.

* The worldwide WLAN market reached nearly $6.4 billion in 2011, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.5%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.4% (highest weekend close for over 10 years)
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+11.8%), CompuClearing (+23.4%), ConvergeNet Holdings (+12%), Digicore (+9.7%), Ideco (36.4%) and Stella Vista (-20%)

Last week, Gartner hosted a one-day event: 'The Growing World of Technology in Business'.

The initial session, presented by Steve Prentice, addressed the issues of technology, business and management and society, ie, the three major trends that will impact business over the coming years, as organisations grapple with the implementation of their digital strategy, which in many cases may not yet even exist.

The impact of technology is determined by the value that people derive from it, which in turn is related to the circumstances in which people live, and thus, the relevance of societal trends is very important in the interpretation of this value. In a similar way, businesses and public sector organisations have the opportunity to deploy appropriate technologies to meet the defined and expressed needs of individual citizens or customers, and in doing so, provide a profitable or service-efficient capability. Business trends are influenced by technology and societal trends, which in turn influences the accessibility and affordability of technology that is reflected by its use in society. All three areas are inextricably linked.

It is important to view all trend information in a very holistic manner, rather than attempting to look at each one on an individual basis in isolation. In most cases, the greatest business benefits will arise from the bringing together of multiple technology trends to meet an emergent and evolving societal need through a new business process, model or trend.

The session expanded on each of these three areas and then focused on the elements of a digital strategy and its implementation. The following were stressed:

* Look beyond visible trends to understand the story behind them and their cumulative impact; and then develop a strategy to respond to them.
* Develop a multidisciplinary approach to identify forces, drivers and responses that create new risks and opportunities for the organisation.
* Address the separate dimensions of people, information and things.
* Investigate new business models and experiment with emerging technologies to enhance meaningful interactions.
* Ensure the momentum is maintained.

In the final session of the day, Prentice talked about Gartner's top predictions for 2012. The following were just some of them:

* By 2015, 35% of enterprise IT expenditure will be managed outside the IT department's budget.
* Through 2016, the financial impact of cyber crime will grow 10% per year, due to the continuing discovery of new vulnerabilities.
* By 2013, the investment bubble will burst for consumer social networks, and for enterprise social software in 2014.
* By 2015, the prices for 80% of cloud services will include a global energy surcharge.