Groupon gets mass buy-in

The international ICT market was dominated last week by Groupon's successful IPO, and the news that RIM's market capitalisation had fallen below the total value of its assets, including cash, patents and real estate, minus its liabilities.

At home, the resignation of Len de Villiers from Absa was one of the key stories during a week that was very quiet.

* Good year-end figures from Sekunjalo, with revenue up 9.2% but profit up more than threefold.
* A positive trading update from Vox Telecom.

* The suspension of the listing of the shares of Vox Telecom on AltX.
* Cape Empowerment disposed of its interest in Dynamic Cables, 75% to Nexans Participations (France) and 25% to Theo Rai, in a deal valued at R9.8 million.
* Cell C and Google have opened an innovation centre in Cape Town, called Umbono, to assist technology entrepreneurs turn their ideas into commercial products.
* Channelwise said Rectron has been named the 2011 Distributor of the Year, fighting off strong competition from AxizWorkgroup and Sahara.
* CSSI was appointed African partner of Solidata, a major provider of solid state disk products.
* Ike Kunene was named executive director for Corporate Affairs and Government Relations for Software AG South Africa.
* Andy Baker resigned as CEO of Nashua; and Len de Villiers resigned as CIO of the Absa Group (as of 31 December).

* Bitange Ndemo, information and communications permanent secretary of the Kenyan government, said the ICT sector in that country had grown 20% in the last year.
* The federal government of Nigeria allegedly suggested that Nitel may be sold off in pieces.
* Shahab Meshki was appointed CEO of Kenyan Data Networks.

Cell C and Google have opened an innovation centre in Cape Town, called Umbono.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Adobe acquired Auditude, a player in video advertisement management and monetisation technologies for premium publishers and media companies.
* Arm Holdings bought Prolific, a developer of IC design optimisation software tools.
* Descartes Systems Group purchased InterCommIT, a Netherlands-based provider of B2B integration as a service.
* DragonWave acquired Nokia Siemens Networks' Microwave division for EUR15 million.
* Magic Software purchased BluePhoenix's AppBuilder Activity for $17 million.
* VeriFone bought Global Bay, a software developer of tools that helps retailers use alternate devices, such as iPads, as payment options.
* Yahoo acquired Interclick, a designer of tools to help marketers target online customers, for $270 million.
* The announcement of a $945 million rights issue by LG Electronics.
* Excellent quarterly results from HTC.
* Very good quarterly figures from CommVault Systems, Lenovo and Qualcomm.
* Good quarterly numbers from BCE, CACI International, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Gartner, Guidance Software (back in the black), Sohu.com, TE Connectivity (ex-Tyco Electronics), Telephone & Data Systems and Teradata.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Bharti Airtel, Comcast, Plantronics and Wipro.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Asustek Computer and Toshiba.
* Mediocre half-year numbers from Garmin and TDK.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Alcatel-Lucent, with revenue down but profit up; BT Group, with revenue down but profit up; CenturyLink, with revenue up but profit down; DST Systems, with revenue up but profit down; Fiserv, with revenue up but profit down; Hitachi, with revenue up but profit down; Hon Hai Precision Industry, with revenue up but profit down; MicroStrategy, with revenue up but profit down; NTT DoCoMo, with revenue up but profit down; Pitney Bowes, with revenue down but profit up; Samsung Electronics, with revenue up but profit down; Sanmina-SCA, with revenue up but profit down; and Zynga, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Alvarion, AOL, Clearwire, Eastman Kodak, Level 3 Communications, LinkedIn, MEMC Electronic Materials, NetSuite, Panasonic, Sony and Tata Teleservices.
* The appointments of Erez Antebi as CEO of Gilat Satellite Networks; Yang Jie as president and COO of China Telecom; Scott McNealy (ex-Sun Microsystems) as chairman of Wayin, a social media company; Thomas Nielsen as president and CEO of RealNetworks; Rob Shuter (ex-CFO of Vodacom Group) as CEO of Vodafone Netherlands (as from March 2012); and Yang Yuanqing as chairman of Lenovo.
* Amiram Levinberg resigned as CEO of Gilat Satellite Networks (stays on as chairman).
* Liu Chuanzhi, founder and chairman of Lenovo, retired.
* John Opel, CEO of IBM in the early 1980s, died.
* An IPO filing on Nasdaq by Lashou Group, China's leading daily deals Web site.
* A very good IPO on Nasdaq by Groupon in a move that raised over $700 million in the largest Internet IPO since Google.

* International:
* A possible take-over by Digicel of Eircom (Ireland).
* A possible deal between the two Ambani brothers that would bring back together the Reliance companies.

* Africa:
* The possible purchase by Altech of Symphony, a Kenya-based IT company, in a deal that could be worth $60 million.
* Possible acquisitions by Business Connections in Kenya.

* South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the cautionary issued by Business Connections and possibly France Telecom Orange.

* The worldwide smartphone market grew 42.6% in Q3 with 118.1 million units shipped, according to IDC. Samsung took over as the number one supplier, followed by Apple, Nokia, HTC and RIM.
* Worldwide microprocessor shipments rose 12.2% in Q3 to $10.7 billion, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Down 3%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.9%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+10.8%), BCX “A” (+9.2%), CompuClearing (+10.7%), ConvergeNet (-12%), EOH (+10%), Ifca Technologies (-10%), Poynting Antennas (+122.2%), SecureData (-24.2%), Stella Vista (-40%) and Zaptronix (+50%)

At an awards banquet held in Cape Town last week, Frost & Sullivan presented its annual African Excellence honours to 13 of the continent's best companies for outstanding performance across a spectrum of industries. Over half the awards went to technology-oriented organisations and included:

* 2010 South African Human Machine Interfaces Market Share Leadership Award: Wonderware Southern Africa
* 2011 Uninterruptible Power Supplies Customer Service Leadership Award: Master Power Technologies
* 2011 South African Programmable Logic Controllers Market Penetration Leadership Award: Beckhoff Automation
* 2011 West and Central African Broadband Growth Leadership Award: iBurst Africa DRC
* 2011 South African Data Centre Green Excellence Award in Technology Innovation: Cybernest
* 2010 South African Business Process Outsourcing Services Growth Strategy Leadership Award: Direct Channel Holdings
* 2011 South African Excellence in M&A Strategy in IT services Award: Dimension Data
* 2011 African Broadband Communications Customer Value Enhancement Award: Econet Wireless

Also, the Sunday Times published its annual 'Top 100 Companies' listings. From a technology perspective, the following were of interest:

* Pinnacle Technology was the highest rated (at number nine) in the 'Top 100 companies over five years' category;
* Silverbridge was the highest rated (at number 10) in the 'Top 50 growth in turnover' category;
* Naspers was the highest rated (at number five) in the 'Top 100 companies over 10 years' category;
* Sekunjalo was highest rated (at number seven) in the 'Top 50 companies over one year' category;
* Africa Cellular Towers was rated as the second worst in the 'Worst 20 companies over one year' category; and
* Morvest Business Group was rated at number 10 in the 'Worst 20 over five years' category