Groupon buys Ludic Labs

The international ICT arena was fairly quiet last week, with Groupon taking 'pride of place' regarding visibility in the media. At home the results from Naspers, the listing of Mvelaserve, the potential de-listing of TeleMasters, and various activities involving Datatec stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Good interim numbers from Naspers, with revenue up almost 18% and profit up over 100%.
* Mixed year-end figures from Zaptronix, with revenue down but back in the black.
* An interim loss from TCS, with revenue down 55.3%.
* A full-year loss from Stella Vista, with revenue down 38%.
* A trading update from Ideco that still reflects a loss, but a lesser one than that of 12 months ago.
* The strong listing of Mvelaserve, an outsourced business support services group with an ICT portfolio (Circle IT Solutions), on the JSE.
* Blue Turtle Technologies acquired Red Man Technologies, a specialist in implementing IBM's WebSphere suite of products. It will operate under the Blue Turtle Consulting banner.
* Datatec purchased US-based Network Infrastructure Corporation, a Cisco gold partner with annual revenue of about $20 million.
* Mineworkers Investment Company made a R28 million (26%) investment in Datatec's Westcon SA operation, replacing the 25.1% shareholding sold off by African Legend Computing for R20 million.
* MB Technologies' specialist SME distributor, Channelware, is closing its doors.
* Simeka Business Group proposes to change its name to Morvest Business Group, with effect from March 2011.
* TeleMasters intends to de-list from the JSE.

* Etisalat Nigeria bought Alheri Mobile Services, a telecommunications company that already has a 3G licence.
* Helios Towers Tanzania (HTT) acquired about 1 020 towers from Millicom Tanzania in a deal worth at least $80 million.
* Nigeria's Bureau for Public Enterprises announced that the preferred Nitel bidder, The New Generation Consortium, has up to mid-December to pay its $750 million deposit.
* 03b Networks, backed by Google, HSBC Principal Investments and cable operator Liberty Global, will launch high-speed Internet services into Africa by 2013.
* ICT Brokers, a Nigerian multinational IT firm, has been appointed as an IBM distributor to support the sale of IBM hardware across West Africa.
* Somasekhar Vellapakkam Ganapathy was named MD of Airtel Uganda.
* Yesse Oenga resigned as MD of Airtel Uganda.

TeleMasters intends to de-list from the JSE.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* BMC Software acquired GridApp, a database automation company.
* Cisco purchased LineSider Technologies, a provider of network management software.
* Cable & Wireless Communications bought 51% of Bahamas Telecommunications for $210 million.
* Ericsson acquired Nortel's Chinese joint venture assets for $50 million.
* Google purchased Phonetic Arts, a UK voice recognition company, and Widevine, a company that protects streaming of digital entertainment.
* Groupon bought Ludic Labs, an Internet technology company that develops platforms to connect consumers with businesses. Groupon is considering an IPO and has also just turned down a $5.3 billion deal to become part of the Google empire. Naspers has a small shareholding in Groupon.
* Mellanox Technologies purchased Voltaire, a rival in the global data centre and storage markets, for $218 million.
* Motorola Mobile acquired 4Home, a provider of a software and services platform for the 'electronic home'.
* Red Hat purchased Makara, a developer of deployment and management solutions for applications in the cloud.
* Research in Motion purchased The Astonishing Tribe, a Swedish mobile user interface design company.
* Microsoft invested in TurboHercules, a French software company whose complaint of anti-competitive business practices against IBM helped to stir up an EU investigation into that group.
* The European Commission has launched an anti-trust investigation into Google and the potential abuse of its dominance in online search.
* Motorola intends to split into two units (Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility) with effect from 4 January 2011.
* Seagate Technologies has ended talks regarding it going private.
* Very good quarterly figures from Descartes Systems Group and VeriFone (back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from VimpelCom.
* Satisfactory full-year results from Sage (UK).
* Mixed quarterly figures from Novell, with revenue down but back in the black.
* Quarterly losses from Sycamore Networks (revenue also well down).
* Greg Brown was appointed CEO and president of Motorola Solutions; and Jay Y Lee was named president of Samsung Electronics.

* International:
* Some software acquisitions by HP to strengthen its offerings in this part of their total portfolio.
* Africa:
* The outcome of the talks between Telkom SA and Etisalat regarding the former's CDMA Multi-Links operation in Nigeria.
* South Africa:
* The listing of PBT on the JSE, following its reverse listing into the Wooltru cash shell.

* Worldwide server revenue increased 13.2% in Q3 to $11.8 billion, with HP displacing IBM for the number one slot, according to IDC.
* Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenue grew 19% in Q3 to almost $5.2 billion, with EMC retaining the number one slot, but NetApp jumping into the number three position, ahead of both HP and Dell, according to IDC.
* Worldwide PC shipments in 2010 are on track to grow 14.3% to 352.4 million units, compared to 2009, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.6%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.2% (highest weekend close for almost three years)
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-10.5%), Ansys (-10%), Digicore (-9%), FoneWorx (+10.9%), Huge Group (-26.7%), Ideco (-15%), Net 1 UEPS Technologies (-8.4%), Poynting Antennas (-10%) and Zaptronix (+100%)

The UK's Financial Times recently published its 'Women at the top' supplement. From a technology perspective, Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, came in at number five; Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, was number 20; and Chua Sock Koong, CEO of Singapore Telecommunications, came in at 23.

Next week will be my usual review of the year, thus this is my last column for 2010. My column will resume on 17 January next year and will cover the whole of the intervening period.

I would like to wish all my readers a great time over the festive season and a very successful 2011.