Last week was quiet on the international ICT front, with much of the headline space focused on the disappointing results from some of the major players, such as Apple, IBM, Intel and Motorola.
The local ICT market was also quiet, with two empowerment deals being the main stories.
Key local news of the past week
* The 25.1% investment by Dieco Investments, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Diebold Trust Fund, in Diebold SA.
* The 20% investment in DataPro by BEE consortium, Lereko Metier Capital Growth Fund.
* The appointment of Ali Bacher as chairman of Stella Vista and Robert Gumede as executive chairman of GijimaAst.
* MB Technologies is to open a security division headed by Guy Whitcroft, former-CEO of Tarsus Technologies.
* The resignation of Hans Smith as chairman of GijimaAst.
Key international news
The local ICT market was also quiet, with two empowerment deals being the main stories.
Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners
* Tata Consultancy Services became the first Indian services company to record sales of over $1 billion in a quarter, just four years after it was the first to achieve $1 billion of sales in a 12-month period.
* Cognos acquired Celequest, a provider of operational business intelligence solutions.
* A job loss announcement from Motorola.
* A planned IPO on London's AIM from 2Ergo for its mobile payment product.
* IPO filings from Cellcom, Mellanox Technologies and Switch & Data.
Look out for
* The winner in the battle for African Lakes subsidiary, Africa Online, with the main contenders being Wananchi Online and Telkom SA.
Research results and predictions
* HP was the number one PC vendor in Q406 and finished almost tie with Dell for the top spot for all of 2006, says Gartner. Acer topped the growth rate category with 33.1% for Q406 and 37.1% for the full year.
Stock market changes
* JSE All share index: Up 0.1% (although it reached an all-time high during the week)
* Nasdaq: Down 2.1% (mainly as a result of the disappointing results coming from some of the major players)
* Top SA share movements: Altron (+8.4%), DataPro (+9.5%), SAB&T Ubuntu (+28.6%) and Silverbridge (-13.5%)
* Top international share movements: Adept Technologies (-19.9%), Exabyte (+100%), Forgent Networks (-18.5%), Ion Media Networks (+155.5%), Pegasus Wireless (-32.1%), PixelPlus (+20.1%), Rackable Systems (-41%), SEMX (+20%) and Silverline Technologies (+25%)
Final word
This week will see the publication of the bulk of the remaining quarterly results. For many companies the numbers are likely to be disappointing.
Share