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Great plans for Brilliant and Pastel?

By Paul Booth for ITWeb
Johannesburg, 22 Feb 1999

The international IT market was quiet last week compared to the past few weeks, but at home the sell-off by Siltek of Pastel to Softline stole the limelight. Bringing together Brilliant Software and Pastel Software into a single stable could signal the intention to migrate the former package to the latter over the coming months, thus consolidating, and hopefully, retaining the combined user base.

On the local front

  • good interim figures from Paradigm Interactive media;
  • poor interim results from Seartec, together with a full-year profit warning;
  • mediocre interim numbers from Bryant Technology; and
  • a loss in its interim numbers by Metropolis.

[Local]

Local Cautionary Notices (see attachment)

Other local news:

  • the management buy-out of Rhomberg Electronics from Control Instruments; and
  • the announcement that Dectronic has combined three of its subsidiaries - PDM Solutions, Thembelitsha Solutions and Dectronic Administrators - under one name, Thembelitsha.

Additionally, Bryant Technology announced its intention to move to the main board of the JSE following the release of its full-year results to 30 June 1999. Hix Technology Holdings indicated that it is to list in the venture capital sector of the JSE on 24 March.

On the international front

  • the dramatic actions from NEC following its announcement of an expected huge year-end loss ($1.25 billion), which included the resignation of the NEC president, the cutting of some 15 000 jobs and a significant restructuring;
  • the rumours that AOL may buy eBay, the online auctioneer; and
  • Olivetti plans to make a bid for Telecom Italia.

    • [International]

    Financial results

    We saw excellent figures from Computer Horizons, Dell (revenue below expectations), Navision Software, Appliance, Royal Blue Group and Safeguard Scientifics.

    Losses came from Ansoft, Applied Graphics Technologies, Austria Mikro Systems International AG, Brokat Infosystems AG, Credence Systems, Transmission Systems, EarthLink Network, Executone Information Systems, Global TeleSystems Group, ICO Global Communications, MSGI, MSW Technology, OzEmail, SPSS, SSA and Theglobe.com.

    Good numbers were recorded by Analog Devices, Compel Group, Dicom Group, Electronic Tele-Communications, NeoMagic, Oce NV, OSI Software, Pomeroy Computer Resources, Prokom Software, Sema Group, Smart Modular Technologies, Tangram Enterprise Solutions (back in the black) and Wall Data. Satisfactory results were reported by 3D Systems, Cox Communications, Evans & Sutherland and Software Spectrum.

    Disappointing returns came from Centura Software, Hewlett-Packard and Macro 4, while very poor results came from Applied Materials and Ciena (better than expected!).

    Other financial news included profit warnings from Geac and NEC; and share splits from Lucent.

    Stock movements

    Locally

    Altech (+17.1%)
    Infinity (+26.2%)
    JemTech (+18.8%)
    LogTek (+18.8%)
    Micrologix (+24.3%)
    Siltek (+23.4%)
    Stantronics (-20%)

    Internationally

    Applix (+25%)
    Arrow Electronics (+17.7%)
    Computer Horizons (-21.6%)
    Geac (-29.8%)
    LanOptics (26.6%)
    Tekelec (-18.9%)

    Final word

    As the Microsoft trial trudges on, the surprising ineptitude of the witnesses continues, making it even more likely that the DOJ will rule against Microsoft and force some form of break-up of the corporation.

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