Major IT players disappoint

The ICT market, both internationally and locally, was fairly quiet last week. From the quarterly results that were published, most of the major players, such as Microsoft, NEC, Seagate Technology, Siemens, Unisys and Xerox, produced disappointing numbers.

* Naspers invested in Mail.ru and MXit.
* IBM sold off its printer business to Ricoh.

* Excellent interim numbers from Simeka BSG, with both revenue and profit up over 100%.
* The de-suspension of Cyberhost's shares.
* Naspers' 30% investment in Russia's Mail.ru, an Internet service provider, and MXit, an instant messaging service provider.
* The strengthening of UCS's empowerment profile through a share swap with Tactical Software Systems that will give the latter a 9.8% stake in the JSE-listed UCS company.
* The R484 million cash injection into Neotel by Nexus Connexion, its BEE partner.
* The appointments of Craig Alexander as CEO of Square One Solutions Group and Brett Parker as MD of SecureData.
* The resignation of Trevor James as CEO of Square One Solutions Group.

* Safaricom, Kenya's mobile operator, plans an IPO within the next six months in Kenya. It would be the largest IPO in Kenya's history.
* Telecom Kenya announced significant job losses.

IBM sold off its printing division to Ricoh in a $725 million deal.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* IBM sold off its printing division to Ricoh in a $725 million deal. InfoPrint Solutions will be created initially as a joint venture, but the company will eventually control IBM's entire Printing Systems Division over a three-year period.
* Siemens' $3.5 billion purchase of UGS.
* Positive results announcements from KDDI and OSI Systems.
* Negative result warnings from Alcatel-Lucent, Elpida Memory, Qualcomm, SAP, Scisys, STMicroelectronics and Telephone Maintenance Group.
* A stock repurchase announcement from TSMC.
* Job loss announcements from OSI Systems and Symantec.
* Private funding obtained for Achronix Semiconductor; Actelis Networks, a developer of copper pair technology for delivering Ethernet services; InovaWave, a server virtualisation performance developer; Mobidia, a mobile multimedia software developer; Stoke, a fixed-mobile convergence developer; and Veracode, a security software vendor.
* A planned IPO from Neutral Tandem, a provider of tandem switches.
* An IPO filing from VeriChip, a RFID tag maker.

* The bidding war between Ebix and Skywire Software for Docucorp.

* Over 1 billion mobile phones were sold in 2006, up 22% over 2005, says IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.8% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Down 0.6%

* Top SA share movements: Alliance Data (+12.1%), DataPro (+11.3%), FoneWorx (-25.7%), Labat Africa (-13.6%), Silverbridge (+8.9%), Simeka BSG (+22.5%), Spescom (+18.8%) and Zaptronix (+14.3%).
* Top international share movements: ADP (+17.9%), Ariba (+20.3%), BackWeb Technologies (-18.5%), Cicero (+66.7%), Exabyte (-50%), Hyperion Solutions (+20.1%), NeoMagic (-22.1%), Rainmaker (+28.1%), Synergx Systems (+21.2%) and Westell Technologies (-21.5%).

The increasing dominant role of the private equity companies is patently evident worldwide. However, in the technology sector alone in 2006, global merger and acquisition levels broke through the EUR100 billion mark for the first time since the height of the dot-com boom in 2000.