Highlights of the past week

The international and local ICT markets were again extremely quiet, although the signs are 'in the air` regarding some significant consolidation or acquisition moves both here and in the wider global market.

* Freescale Semiconductor, one of the world`s largest semiconductor companies with 2005 sales of nearly $6bn, falls to a private equity Blackstone Group led consortium for $17,6bn

* Excellent year-end figures from Pinnacle with revenues up nearly 50% and profits up nearly 80%
* Good year-end results from Faritec with revenues up nearly 24% and profits up over 500%; and from Interconnective solutions with revenues up 14% and profits up about 150%
* Positive trading updates from Altron, BTG, Datapro and EOH
* The appointments of Magda Engelbrecht as SA Country Manager for Nortel Networks and Judi Nwokedi as SA Country Manager of Motorola
* Datatec (Logicalis) to open offices in Chile and Peru
* A rights offer from Metrofile

Look out for the possible acquisition of Business Objects by one of the major software companies such as Oracle or SAP.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Seven companies are short-listed in the race for Kenya`s SNO. The contenders include Emirates Telecommunications, France Telecom and Telkom SA

* Ericsson to simplify its organisation structure into three units. These will be Networks, Global Services and Multimedia
* AT&T snaps up USinternetworking, an application service provider
* The appointments of Robert Dutkowsky as CEO of Tech Data; Daniel Goldberg as President and CEO of Telesat; Harry Hobbs as President and CEO of Elandia; Mark Hurd as Chairman of HP (as from January 2007- stays on as CEO); Richard Leza as Chairman of Exar; Henry Olsen as CEO of Edge Dynamics; and Peter Viginier as CEO of Orange
* The resignations of Patricia Dunn, Chairman of HP (as from January 2007); Didier Quillot, CEO of Orange; and Marco Tronchetti, Chairman of Telecom Italia
 

* The possible sell-off by Telecom Italia of all or part of its network and mobile telephony units as it plans to split the company into three units;
* The possible acquisition of Business Objects by one of the major software companies such as Oracle or SAP
* The possible buy-out of Freescale Semiconductor by a group of equity partners

* According to Gartner, the worldwide security market grew 15% last year to $7,4bn

* JSE All share index: Down 1,6%
* Nasdaq: Up 3,2% (now back above the level as at 1st January 2006)
* Top SA share movements: I-Solutions (+38,9%), Sekunjalo (-9,1%), Simeka BSG (+25%) and Stella Vista (+8,3%)
* Top international share movements: Com21 (-88,9%), enherent (-23,1%), Entrada Networks (-60%), Epicus Communications (-31,2%), Exabyte (-21,1%), Freescale Semiconductor (+20,8%), Geoworks (+23,3%), Level 3 Communications (+22,6%), Pegasus Wireless (-28,2%), SONICblue (-45%)

US-based InformationWeek has just published its '500 listing` of the USA`s most innovative companies. From a technology perspective ADP came in at No 2; APC at No3; Global Crossing at No 4; and Sun Microsystems at No 6. In total, there were 15 technology companies in the top 50.

I will be taking a few days away over the long weekend and therefore my next column will be published on October 2nd, but it will cover the two week period since this one.