Microsoft, mergers make IT headlines

The latest judgement against Microsoft and the $2.1 billion merger of Peregrine Systems and Harbinger dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.

The merger of Peregrine Systems and Harbinger creates one the industry`s largest providers of e-business software and systems, with a base of some 40 000 customers that now includes over 90% of the Fortune 500 companies.

My personal view is that the lack of bandwidth, coupled with extremely high telecommunications charges, is a key factor inhibiting advancement, empowerment, upliftment and growth in the local market.

Inhibitor

One of the other major acquisitions of the week was that of Admiral by Anglo-Dutch CMG. This brought together two of the larger IT services companies in Europe, and created a giant with over 11 000 employees across some 13 countries, and puts to rest rumours that Admiral was being courted by both Cap-Gemini (which recently took over the IT consultancy arm of Ernst & Young) and Computer Associates.

At home, the action by AT&T re Telkom`s alleged "flouting" of international trade agreements in not supplying additional bandwidth stole much of the local headlines and made waves overseas. My personal view is that the lack of bandwidth, coupled with extremely high telecommunications charges, is a key factor inhibiting advancement, empowerment, upliftment and growth in the local market.

• we saw the ousting of various directors at Planit Technology Holdings and the appointment of Dale Packham as the new CEO; and

• the announcement that the proposed merger and privatisation of the IT interests of Eskom, Ariel Technologies and TransNet had been put "on hold".

[Local]

[Cautionary]

[Listing]

[Result]

Other local news included:

• the placement of Cape-based Ndizani in provisional liquidation;

• the announcement that AST-A will revert to trading as AST Group; and

• the setting up by Johnnic of an Internet business division (Johnnic e-Ventures).

• we saw the announcement that Tera Computers, following its acquisition of the Cray vector supercomputer business unit, is to change its name to Cray, and that Aspec Technology is changing its name to Ingenuus;

• SBC and Bell South are combining their US wireless operations to create the second largest wireless corporation in the US, serving 16.2 million subscribers;

• Vodafone Airtouch and Bell Atlantic, which are creating a joint venture for their combined US cellular and paging businesses, Verizon Wireless, are planning an IPO that will be one of the largest ever undertaken; and

• PC Week, one of the US`s leading IT news weeklies is changing its name in May to eWeek.

[International]

Other international news included:

• the

  appointments

  of Jack Iacobucci as CEO of Rogue Wave Software, Beatriz Infante as president and CEO of Aspect Communications, Edward McVaney as president and CEO of JD Edwards, and Joseph Zell as president and CEO of Convergent Comms;

• the

  resignations

  of Fernand Sarrat, CEO of Linuxcare and David Weiss, chairman, president and CEO of StorageTek; and

• job losses announced at Activision, CompUSA and NCD.

We saw excellent figures from Yahoo.

Losses came from Aspec Technology, Intasys, Intelligent Environments, Semiconductor Laser International, Softbank and TMSSequoia.

Good numbers were recorded by Avery Comms, Cognos, Evercom, FaceTime Comms, Metron Technology and Oce.

Satisfactory results were reported by Forsythe Technology and Standard Microsystems.

Mediocre returns came from MSB International (but back in the black), and Telecom Italia.

Very poor results came from Acorn (but back in the black) and TSR.

Other financial news included profit warnings from Applied Microsystems, BindView, CE Software Holdings, Data I/O, Datastream Systems, Exabyte, Mapics, MSB International, NTS, Parametric Technology, Quad Systems, Symix, Telemate.Net Software, Tellabs and Unisys.

Share split announcements from BEA Systems, Cognos, Elantec Semiconductor, KPN NV and Nokia; and successful IPOs from I3 Mobile (telecomms), Numerical Technologies (chip-design software), Saba Software (Internet software), Uticom (telecomms) and Vyyo (telecomms). Additionally, Legato is to re-state last year`s earnings; CHS Electronics and SSA have applied for Chapter 11 protection; and Olicom has been de-listed from Nasdaq

Locally

Acuity (-30%)
Contlan (-33.3%)
Digicor (-39%)
E-data (-25%)
Ixchange (-22.3%)
JemTech (+66.7%)
SecData (-76%)
Y2KTec (+166.7%)

Internationally

Activision (-33.2%)
Applied Imaging (+42.3%)
Applied Microsystems (-50.4%)
BEA Systems (+32.7%)
Documentum (-30%)
Exabyte (-37.8%)
Frontline Comms (-35%)
Infosys (+43.5%)
Legato (-50.7%)
Mapics (-48.7%)
NCD (-39.4%)
Parametric Technology (-46.6%)
SSA (-84%)
Symix (-48.1%)

Many of the traditional enterprise resource planning companies are in the news again.

SSA, which has been struggling for the past many months, is being acquired by Gores Technology Group as part of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that have been filed.

Meanwhile, Mapics has issued a major profits warning, and Baan is approving a major restructuring plan, which includes the abandonment of its fight against SAP and the floatation of its Aurum (CRM) unit.