Hurd makes waves

The appointment of Mark Hurd - ex-CEO of HP - as co-president at Oracle, and the opposition to it by HP in the form of legal action, stole much of the international ICT media space. At home it was a very quiet week.

* Satisfactory year-end figures from Rectron, with revenue up over 8% and profit up over 16.5%.
* A positive trading update from AdaptIT.
* The termination of the listing of DTH on the JSE.
* Zaptronix acquired I to I Technology Solutions, a provider of comprehensive solutions to manage the business risks of its customers, for R6.6 million.
* Jersey-based 4D Innovative Capital made a R48 million investment in FireID, a mobile security specialist.
* Multichoice has been awarded a mobile TV licence, following the withdrawal of Super5 Media's application.

* eFive Telecoms, a South African-based company, announced the construction of a new high-capacity submarine cable linking SA, Angola, Nigeria and Brazil, which should start next year and come into service in 2012.

Look out for the announcements of the new CEOs at MTN and Telkom SA.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Asseco Poland bought 51% of Formula Systems, an Israeli software services provider, for $145.3 million. UK-listed Emblaze currently owns the stake.
* BCE (Canada's largest telecommunications company) purchased 85% of CTV, a Canadian broadcaster, in a move that is expected to help the former in the digital age. The deal was worth $1.26 billion.
* Ericsson acquired part of inCode's Strategy and Technology Group, a telecommunications consulting services firm.
* Research in Motion bought Documents To Go developer DataViz.
* Vodafone sold off its 3.2% stake in China Mobile for $6.6 billion.
* Godaddy.com, a company that registers Internet domain names, has put itself up for sale via an auction that could fetch $1 billion and attract several private equity firms.
* Very good quarterly figures from National Semiconductor.
* Quarterly losses from Ciena.
* The appointments of Stephen Elop (ex-Microsoft) as CEO of Nokia; Mark Hurd as co-president of Oracle; and Takashi Tanaka as president of KDDI (Japan's number two mobile carrier).
* The resignations of Sir John Bond, chairman of Vodafone; Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia; and Charles Phillips, co-president of Oracle.
* The retirements of Dov Baharav, CEO and president of Amdocs (as of Q1 2011); and Aharon Fogel, chairman of Ness Technologies (as of the beginning of 2011).
* A planned IPO from Nawras, Oman's second largest telecommunications company.

* International:
* The outcome of the legal fight by HP regarding Hurd's appointment at Oracle.
* The buy-out of Polkomtel (Poland) by a private equity group, a mobile company in which Vodafone has a 25% stake.
* The possible acquisition of Cable & Wireless Worldwide by Singapore Telecommunications.
* The possible investment by Etisalat (UAE) in Idea Telecom (India).
* The possible acquisition of RIM by Microsoft.
* South Africa:
* The announcements of the new CEOs at MTN and Telkom SA.

* The worldwide market for smartphones is expected to grow 55.4% this year, up 10% from IDC's previous forecast, according to the analyst firm.
* The worldwide external controller-based disk storage market grew 21.4% in Q2 to $4.6 billion, reports to Gartner.
* Symbian and Android are likely to account for almost 60% of the mobile operating system market by 2014, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.5%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.4%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+14.3%), Cape Empowerment (-10%), CompuClearing (+11.2%), Dialogue Group (-12.5%), Net 1 UEPS Technologies (+12.5%), Poynting Antennas (-18.7%), Sekunjalo (-8.8%) and TCS (+33.3%)

Fortune magazine recently published its '100 fastest Growing Companies' list. From a technology perspective, the following were mentioned in the top 25: Ebix at number three; Salesforce.com at number four; Pegasystems at eight; Sohu.com at 12; and NetScout Systems at 24.