Local financial results impress

No single event dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week ahead of the quarterly flood of results expected to start this week.

The top technology companies in Europe by sales are Siemens at number six, Deutsche Telekom at 27, France Telecom at 30 and British Telecom Group at 49.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

At home, some good local results stole much of the ICT limelight during an exceptionally quiet week.

* we saw good annual numbers from Jasco (revenue up a little but earnings up over 150%);

* satisfactory year-end figures from IST Group (revenue and earnings both up a little);

* good interim numbers from EOH (revenue well up and profit also up); and

* the JSE`s announcement that there is an audit opinion on the annual financial statements of Vesta Technology Holdings.

Other local news included:

* the appointments of James Casey as CEO of Elexir Technology Holdings, John King as CEO of Atos KPMG Consulting, Claas Kuehnemann as MD of SAP SA, Cheslyn Moster as non-executive chairman of Elexir Technology Holdings and Stewart van Graan as MD of Dell SA;

* the resignations of Pierre Fourie as CEO of Atos KPMG Consulting and Graeme Victor as MD of Tiscali World Online;

* Hyperion renewed its distribution agreement with Global Technology Business Intelligence; and

* the emergence of IT and telecommunications outsourcing company CommsCo SA, a subsidiary of Swiss-based Comms Co International and part of the Venfin/Remgro/Richemont empire.

New local distributorships included that of Maxtec for the full line of networking products from SMC Networks, while a new strategic business alliance was announced between Atos KPMG Consulting and Microsoft.

• we saw UK-based Affinity Holdings entering administration; and
• the name change of WorldCom to MCI.

Additionally, look out for Apple`s acquisition of Vivendi`s music division.

Other international news included:

* the appointments of Alastair Crawford as CEO of Psion, Tom Doyle as president of Kana Software, John Ferraro as president and CEO of SeeCommerce, Jim Hjartarson as president and CEO of Catena Networks, Paul Lewis as president and CEO of Revivio, William McCormick as CEO of Incentive Logic, William Payne as president and CEO of Reasoning, and Paul Robinson as CEO-designate of Deloitte Consulting;

* the resignations of Doug McCracken, CEO of Deloitte Consulting and Ronald LeMay, president and COO of Sprint;

* the retirement of Ian McElroy, CEO of Psion; and

* job loss announcements from Applied Micro Circuits, Brocade Comms, Nokia, Onyx Software and Telstra.

We saw very good* numbers from Yahoo (back in the black).

Good figures* were recorded by First Data, Infosys Technologies, Juniper Networks (back in the black), Linedata and Micronas; and satisfactory* ones by Gtech Holdings, Maersk Data AS, PanAmSat, RSA Security (back in the black) and Sage Group.

Mediocre* returns came from APT Satellite Holdings, Creative Applications Group, Oce and Plumtree Software; while very poor results* came from Standard Microsystems (back in the black).

Losses* were posted by Extreme Networks, Fibernet Group, Financial Models, Global Med Technologies, GoAmerica, Merton Technology, Millicom International Cellular SA, Network Associates, Next Level Comms, NMS Comms, PlanetLink Comms, Powerwave Technologies, RELM Wireless, Shaw Comms, Sonus Networks, TeleCity, Universal Access and Utility Wireless.

Other financial news included a share buy-back announcement from MTS; shareholders rights plans from ITXC; results/profit warnings from Acxiom, Borland, Chordiant Software, CyberSource, Enterasys Networks, InFocus, Inter-Tel, Manhattan Associates, Matsushita Electric, Micronas, NEC, Neoware Systems, Nokia, Nortech Systems, Phoenix Technologies, Pomeroy Computer Resources, Proxim, RF Micro devices, S1, SeeBeyond, Sorrento Networks, Symbol Technologies and Viad; and the filing of an IPO from Netgear. Additionally, Ariba has re-stated virtually all its results since becoming a public company in 1999.

Locally

AST (+20%)
Beget (+33.3%)
Cycad (-50%)
Digicore (-7.1%)
FrontRange (+10%)
Global Technology (+20%)
IST (+8.6%)
Pinnacle (+11.1%)
Prism (+20%)
Spescom (+6.8%)

Internationally

ClickSoftware Technologies (+31.6%)
Enherent (-40%)
Entrada Networks (+37%)
Frontline Comms (+36.4%)
Imagination Technologies (+34%)
Infosys (-34.5%)
Madge Networks (-60%)
PCD (+75%)
Scipher (-45%)
Tarantella (+31.6%)

Europe also publishes its 'Top 500` in a similar way to that of Fortune magazine, but through the EuroBusiness publication. The top technology companies in Europe by sales are Siemens at number six, Deutsche Telekom at 27, France Telecom at 30 and British Telecom Group at 49. However, by market capitalisation, Vodafone is at number two and Nokia at number eight.

* NB

Guidelines for the categorisation of results are as follows. The figures are always in comparison with the equivalent period for the previous year; pro forma numbers are ignored (the terminology may vary slightly from country to country).

* Excellent: Both revenue and net income growth are in excess of 50%.

* Good: Both revenue and net income growth are in excess of 10%.

* Satisfactory: Revenue is within 10% of previous year and net income is up.

* Mediocre: Either revenue and/or net income is down.

* Very poor: Net income is less than 1% of revenue.

* Loss: A loss has been recorded.