In with the new

Significant executive changes took place at Hitachi and Toshiba in the past two weeks. Other international news included the start of the break-up of BearingPoint, and further news regarding Satyam.

At home, Cell C appointed its CEO, which, along with the proposed closure of Telkom Media, dominated the local ICT media space.

* Good interim numbers from EOH, with revenue up 28% and profit up 24%; and FoneWorx, with revenue up 12.5% and profit up 24.2%.
* Very poor interim numbers from SecureData, with revenue up over 100%, but profit down over 90%.
* A year-end loss from Dialogue Group, although revenue up over 60%.
* A positive trading update from MICROmega.
* Negative trading updates from Cape Empowerment Trust, Dynamic Cables, Jasco, Poynting Antennas and Silverbridge.
* Huge Group acquired 52% of Eyeballs Mobile Advertising (EMA), a company delivering rich media advertising to cellular smartphones. The deal raises Huge's investment in EMA to 77%.
* Avusa said Computing SA will close at the end of this month.
* Nasdaq-listed F5 Networks will open an office in Johannesburg later this year.
* i-Kno Knowledge solutions announced a strategic partnership with Pentaho, an open source software business intelligence vendor.
* MTN is moving ahead with its BEE deal.
* Telkom SA intends to shut its pay TV venture, Telkom Media, in which it holds a 66% stake.
* Yeahpoint, an Australian interactive digital media company, opened an office in SA.
* Pinky Moholi was appointed MD of Telkom SA's domestic division; and Lars Reichelt was named CEO of Cell C.
* Jeffrey Hedberg resigned as CEO of Cell C (continues as chairman of Virgin Mobile SA).

* Mixed quarterly figures from Orascom Telecom, with revenue up 4%, but profit down 86%; and Telecom Egypt, with revenue slightly up, but profit down 27.7%.
* Zain made a $324 million (31%) investment in Wana Corporate (Morocco), a mobile operator in that country.
* A new IT services company was launched in Gambia, called Techton IT Solutions, which is Gambian owned and managed.
* Millicom Cellular International has bought out its joint venture partner in Chad, where it is the number two operator.

The number of users of mobile broadband services will increase from 181 million in 2008 to over two billion in 2014, predicts Ovum.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Ascom, a Swiss telecommunications equipment maker, acquired the TEMS business of Ericsson, for $169 million.
* Cisco bought Pure Digital Technology, a maker of pocket-sized camcorders, for $590 million.
* Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) purchased Sony subsidiary, So-net Entertainment Taiwan, for $1.76 million.
* Oracle acquired Relsys International, a provider of drug safety and risk management solutions.
* Nokia invested in US-based Obopay, a start-up that wants to make the mobile phone the credit card of the developing world.
* BearingPoint (the consulting arm of KPMG), which is in Chapter 11, is selling off its North American Commercial business to PricewaterhouseCoopers for $25 million, and its public services business unit to Deloitte for $350 million. In addition, the disposal of its consulting practice in Japan and its European and Latin America units is also close to finalisation.
* Printronix has acquired the US-based assets of bankrupt TallyGenicom.
* Very good year-end figures from ZTE (China), with revenue up 27.4% and profit up 32.5%.
* Good year-end numbers from China Mobile, with revenue up 15.5%, profit up 29.6% and subscriber numbers up 23.8%, to over 457 million.
* Satisfactory year-end results from Gemalto, with revenue up 3%, but profit up 72%; and SAIC, with revenue up 8% and profit up 21%.
* Mediocre quarterly results from 3Com (but back in the black), Adobe and Progress Software (income down 72%).
* Mixed quarterly figures from Accenture, Oracle, Red Hat, Tibco Software and Top Image Systems.
* Very poor year-end figures from China Telecom, with revenue up 3.3%, but profit down 96%.
* Quarterly losses from Intelsat, Palm (revenue also down 70%) and QAD.
* Sanjay Kapoor was appointed deputy CEO of Bharti Airtel; Takashi Kawamura was named CEO and president of Hitachi; Vincent Rouaix was appointed CEO of GFI Informatique; and Norio Sasaki was named president of Toshiba.
* Kazuo Furukawa resigned as CEO and president of Hitachi; Atsutoshi Nishida resigned as president of Toshiba; and Jacques Tordjman, founder and CEO of GFI Informatique, a French IT services provider, also resigned.
* An IPO next month by Vodafone Qatar that aims to raise $928.6 million.

* The potential acquisition of Congo-Chine Telecom (DRC) through the purchase of the 51% shareholding currently held by ZTE.
* The potential acquisition of Sun Microsystems by IBM. This potential move may have opened the door to other possible suitors for Sun, such as Dell.
* The successful bidder for the 51% stake in Satyam Computer Services. A shortlist of eight companies has supposedly been drawn up that includes Apax Partners, a private equity firm, IBM (although other reports suggest they have withdrawn from the race), Larsen & Toubro (an Indian engineering conglomerate), Spice Group (although other reports suggest they are undecided about their bid) and Tech Mahindra. A decision is expected by the end of next month.

* RFID revenue is expected to exceed $5.6 billion in 2009, according to ABI Research.
* Prices of services in outsourcing will decline by 5% to 20% through 2010, predicts Gartner.
* Cloud services revenue will grow 21.3% in 2009 to over $56.3 billion, according to Gartner.
* The number of users of mobile broadband services will increase from 181 million in 2008 to over two billion in 2014, predicts Ovum.
* The number of Internet users in SA reached 4.6 million in 2008, and is expected to grow to nine million by 2014, according to World Wide Worx.

* JSE All share index: Up 4.6%
* Nasdaq: Up 7.9%
* Top SA share movements: Dynamic Cables (+50%), Cape Empowerment Trust (+40%), Dialogue Group (-28.6%), Faritec (+44.4%), GijimaAst (+31.9%), Huge Group (-24.1%), Labat Africa (-33.3%), MICROmega (-40%), Poynting Antennas (-38%) and Vox Telecom (+68%)

The US-based Fast Company magazine's 'World's 50 Most Innovative Companies' listing has just been published. Google came in at number two, Apple at number four, Intel at six and Pure Digital Technologies at seven. Also in this top 50 list were Facebook, HP, IBM, L-3 Communications and Nintendo.

The UK's FT ArcelorMittal 'Boldness in Business' awards have also been announced. In the 'Entrepreneurship' category, Google took pride of place; while in the 'Emerging Markets' category, Huawei took first prize. In the short-list for the 'Readers' award for the boldest company of 2008, HCL Technologies (Taiwan), Nintendo and Twitter were three of the five companies nominated.