Lenovo ousts Dell

The main news last week from the international ICT market was Lenovo taking the number two slot in Q3 regarding PC shipments.

At home it was also fairly quiet, except for the announcement from Telkom that it is in discussions with Korea Telecom.

Worldwide social media revenue is expected to reach $10.3 billion this year.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Good interim numbers from Datatec, with revenue up 14.3% and profit up 134.1%.
* Mixed half-year figures from ISA, with revenue up 12.1% but profit down 6.4%.
* A full-year loss from SecureData, with revenue also down 11.4%.
* A half-year loss by Ifca Technologies, with revenue also down 62.5%.
* A positive trading update from Ansys.
* Negative trading updates from Ifca Technologies and Vox Telecom.
* The suspension of the listing of UCS shares on the JSE.
* Lindi Shortt was appointed MD of Rectron.

* Etisalat has delayed the listing of its Egyptian subsidiary (Etisalat Misr) in Cairo until the political turmoil has calmed down.

* ADP also bought Wallace, a training tax credit company.
* Arris Group purchased BigBand Networks, a video networking service provider, for $172 million.
* Citrix Systems acquired ShareFile, a cloud computing company.
* Equifax bought eThority, a provider of analytical software.
* IBM purchased Platform Computing, a company that specialises in cluster, grid and cloud management software.
* KDDI (Japan) acquired CDNetworks, a Korean provider of high-speed data communications services.
* Netflix has abandoned its plan to split into two companies.
* Good quarterly numbers from Infosys.
* Mediocre quarterly results from ASML Holding NV and Sony Ericsson.
* Quarterly losses from Spotify.
* Half-year loss from Elpida Memory.
* The appointments of William Brown as president and CEO of Harris; and Amnon Yacoby as chairman of Alvarion.
* The resignations of Michael Lovett, CEO of Charter Communications; and Anthony Maher, chairman of Alvarion.
* The dismissal of Michael Woodford, CEO of Olympus.
* The retirement of Howard Lance, CEO of Harris.
* The death of Robert Galvin, long-time CEO of Motorola.
* A very good IPO on Nasdaq by Ubiquiti, a maker of wireless networking products.

* International:
* The acquisition by Am'erica M'ovil of the shares of Telmex (Mexico) it doesn't already own.
* The sell-off by Alcatel-Lucent of its call centre unit (Genesys) to Permira, in a deal valued at $1.5 billion.
* Africa:
* The break-up by year-end of Orascom Telecom into two units.
* South Africa:
* The outcome of the discussions between Telkom SA and Korea Telecom, which could see the latter taking a 20% stake in a deal valued at over R3 billion.

* Worldwide social media revenue is expected to reach $10.3 billion this year and $14.9 billion in 2012, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide PC shipments grew 3.2% in Q3 to 91.8 million units, with Lenovo ousting Dell from the number two slot, and Acer and Asus taking the number four and five slots, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 2.9%
* Nasdaq: Up 7.6%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+29.6%), ConvergeNet Holdings (+14.3%), Huge Group (-12.5%), Ideco (-37.5%), Ifca Technologies (-10%), Labat Africa (-10.5%), Poynting Antennas (+36.4%), SecureData (-16.7%), Sekunjalo (+11.5%) and Zaptronix (-33.3%)

Interbrand recently announced its Top 100 Best Global Brands for 2011. From a technology perspective, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Intel and HP remain as numbers two, three, four, seven and 10. However, HTC becomes the first-ever Taiwanese brand to make the top 100 list, and enters at 98. Other major upward movements include Apple at eight (was 17), Amazon at 26 (was 36), eBay at 36 (was 43) and Adobe at 80 (was 88). The major downward movements include Nokia at 14 (was 8), Nintendo at 48 (was 38) and Yahoo at 76 (was 66).