Micro Focus goes shopping

The Micro Focus buy-out of Borland Software, and its purchase of some of the assets of Compuware, dominated the international world of ICT last week. At home, Telkom SA sold off its stake in Telkom Media.

* Very good year-end figures from AdaptIT, with revenue up 33% and profit up 34%.
* A 'good' set of year-end numbers from Cell C, with revenue up 14% and subscriber numbers up 34%. No profit figures are available.
* Mixed year-end figures from Altron, with revenue up 16%, but profit down 13%; and Silverbridge, with revenue up 18%, but profit down 37%.
* Mediocre Q3 figures from Net-1 UEPS, with revenue down 11% and profit down 47%.
* A positive trading update from Datatec.
* A mixed trading update from UCS.
* A negative trading update from Ansys.
* Ovations, a business transformation consultancy, acquired 51% of Agility Supply Chain Associates and their transport solutions division PlanForge.
* Shenzhen Media South Africa bought 75% of Telkom Media, thus Telkom SA disposed of its total shareholding.
* ConvergeNet Holdings made a R15 million additional 3.8% investment in Sizwe Africa IT, giving the former a 60% interest.
* MTN's subscriber numbers rose by 8% in Q109 to just over 98 million.

* Satisfactory quarterly figures from Zain (although revenue up 25%).

SaaS revenue will reach $9.6 billion in 2009, a 21.8% increase over 2008, according to Gartner.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Atos Origin purchased Shanghai Covics Business Solution, a Chinese SAP consultancy.
* Bell Canada acquired Virgin Mobile Canada for $121 million (50%).
* Carphone Warehouse bought the assets of Tiscali UK for £236 million.
* IBM purchased the assets of Exeros, a company that provides leading data discovery software.
* Microsoft bought BigPark, an interactive online gaming company.
* Micro Focus acquired Borland Software, a provider of application life cycle management products, for $75 million. Micro Focus has annual revenue in excess of $200 million.
* Micro Focus bought the application testing and automated software quality business of Compuware, for $80 million.
* Open Text purchased Vignette, a company that provides innovative and dynamic Web experiences.
* SAP bought France-based Highdeal, a provider of real-time billing solutions.
* Verizon Wireless sold off some of its assets to AT&T, for $2.3 billion. This follows the former's acquisition of Alltel. In a separate deal, Verizon purchased certain wireless assets of Centennial Communications owned by AT&T for about $240 million.
* Good half-year numbers from UK-based Sage.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from CGI, Colt Telecom (although profit up 99%), Open Text (although profit up nearly threefold), Perot Systems and VeriSign (back in the black).
* Mediocre quarterly results from ADP, Cisco, Garmin, Gartner and Pitney Bowes.
* Mixed quarterly figures from BCE (revenue down, but profit up) and MicroStrategy (revenue down, but profit up).
* Very poor quarterly figures from Diebold.
* Quarterly losses from Alcatel-Lucent, Deutsche Telekom, Epicor, NetSuite, Nvidia, Plantronics, Rackable Systems, Sprint Nextel and Symantec.
* A full-year loss by Fujitsu (revenue also down).
* The appointments of Catherine Livingstone as chairman of Telstra; Michael Long as CEO of Arrow Electronics, and David Thodey as CEO of Telstra.
* The resignations of David McGauchie, chairman of Telstra, and Solomon Trujillo, CEO of Telstra.
* William Mitchell, CEO of Arrow Electronics, retired.
* Vodacom Qatar made a very successful IPO, raising $1 billion. It's the world's largest IPO so far this year.
* The successful spin-off and listing by Hutchinson Telecommunications International of its Hong Kong and Macau operations (Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong).

* International:
* The possible sell-off by Deutsche Telekom of T-Mobile UK.

* Worldwide application infrastructure and middleware revenue reached $15.1 billion in 2008, up 6.9% from 2007, reports Gartner.
* SaaS revenue will reach $9.6 billion in 2009, a 21.8% increase over 2008, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 5.8%
* Nasdaq: Up 1.2%
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (+50%), MICROmega (-12.5%), Net-1 UEPS (-16.1%), Pinnacle (+16.3%), SecureData (+12.5%), Simeka (+16.7%), Spescom (+25%) and TCS (-10%)

Fortune magazine has just published its 2008 'Fortune 500' listing for the USA. From a technology perspective, the following are noteworthy:

* Highest climber was Western Digital, up 120 places to 319
* Worst faller was NCR, down 55 places to 446
* Newcomers and returnees included Broadcom and Freescale Semiconductor
* Displacements included Alltel (acquired by Verizon Communications), EDS (acquired by HP) and Lexmark