Microsoft pays up

The take-over of Satyam, and several smaller acquisitions by some of the 'big boys', stole much of the international ICT media space during the last two weeks. At home, Faritec, iBurst and Telkom/AT&T all made the headlines.

* Poor year-end figures from Square One, with revenue up over 20%, but profit almost halved.
* Positive trading updates from Alliance Mining and Altech.
* A negative trading update from Spescom.
* Huge Group acquired African Paradigm Communications, which trades as One Communications and VoCall, providers of LCR services. Last month, Huge took over Eyeballs Mobile Advertising and is currently under a cautionary that could see a strategic investor taking a major share in the business, coupled with a possible de-listing of the group.
* Shoden Data Systems made a R29 million provision of working capital (investment) in Faritec that will see the former acquiring a controlling interest in the latter.
* Galela Telecommunications (iBurst Africa and iBurst SA) reverse listed its assets into S&J Land Holdings, a cash shell, whose shares are currently suspended on the JSE.
* A strategic agreement will be signed by Telkom SA and AT&T, which will allow both companies to explore ways to provide global seamless communication and technology solutions and services to multinational customers, either based in or seeking to extend their operations in sub-Saharan Africa.
* Thami Msimango was appointed MD of Telkom International, a division of Telkom SA.
* Mohamed Kajee resigned as group CEO of Sekunjalo, following a restructuring of the group.

* Alan Knott-Craig Jr resigned as MD of iBurst.

* A consortium of Zimbabwean businessmen acquired a $1.8 million stake in Zellco Cellular, the country's second-largest mobile operator. The stake was originally held by Net*One.
* France Telecom made a EUR530 million acquisition (51%) of ECMS (Egypt), following the resolution of a legal dispute with Orascom Egypt. The deal means France Telecom now owns 100% of Mobinil, which in turn owns the 51% stake in ECMS.
* France Telecom made a 9.87% investment in Sonatel (Senegal), bringing its stake to 52.2%.
* The West African Cable System (WACS) consortium has signed a deal with Alcatel-Lucent for a new submarine cable network that will provide the first direct connection between southern Africa and Europe. The 11 parties in the consortium are Angola Telecom, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, MTN, Portugal Telecom, Sotelco, Tata Communications, Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.
* Econet Wireless Kenya changed its name to Essar Telecommunications Kenya.
* The appointments of: Hatem Dowidar as CEO of Vodafone Egypt; Frans Joubert as CEO of MTN operations in Liberia; Themba Khumalo as CEO of MTN Uganda; Anthony Masozera as CEO of MTN Guinea Bissau; Khaled Mikkawi as CEO of MTN Rwanda; Wim Vanhelleputte as CEO of MTN C^ote d'Ivorie; and Erik van Veen as CEO of MTN Zambia.
* Richard Daly resigned as CEO of Vodafone Egypt.

Look out for a possible de-listing of Huge Group, if a private-equity deal is accepted by shareholders.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Aeronautics, an Israeli company, purchased Motorola's Government Electronic Department.
* Cisco bought Tidal Software, a company that makes software that monitors the performance of applications running in data centres, for $105 million.
* US-based Image Holdings acquired In Focus, a pioneer in digital projection, for $39 million.
* Ingram Micro purchased New Zealand-based Value Added Distributors, a move that strengthens its presence in the server storage market.
* Inmarsat bought Stratos Global, a communications solution provider.
* NTT DoCoMo acquired Oak Lawn Marketing, a direct marketing firm, for $308 million acquisition (51%). The move strengthens its wireless e-commerce business.
* PricewaterhouseCoopers Japan bought BearingPoint's business in Japan for $45 million.
* Open Text purchased Vizible, a provider of digital media interface solutions.
* Thoma Bravo, a private equity company, acquired Entrust, a provider of digital security solutions, for $114 million.
* Venturbay Consultants, a subsidiary of Tech Mahindra, made a $578 million (51%) investment in Satyam. It will initially acquire a 31% stake, and the additional 20% through a public offer for the same share price. BT Group has a 31% stake in Tech Mahindra.
* eBay is to hive-off its Skype unit via an IPO early next year.
* Microsoft has paid out $388 million, in a patent lawsuit, to a Singapore software company for infringing its intellectual property.
* Microsoft and Yahoo are in talks.
* Very good quarterly figures from Infosys.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Google.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Atos Origin, AU Optronics, HTC (Taiwan) and Intel.
* Quarterly losses from ASML International, LG Display, Philips Electronics (revenue also down) and Sony Ericsson (revenue also down).

International:
* The acquisition by Nokia Siemens Networks of parts of Nortel Networks, which could include the latter's carriers network unit and a research unit developing a next-generation wireless technology.
* The merger of NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology that would create the largest Japan semiconductor business.

South Africa:
* A possible de-listing of Huge Group, if a private-equity deal is accepted by shareholders.

* Twenty percent of the commercial e-mail market will use a SaaS platform by the end of 2012, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide semiconductor revenue totalled $255 billion in 2008, down 5.4% from 2007, reports Gartner.
* Handset shipments will be down 20% in 2009, according to In-Stat.
* EMEA virtualisation software will increase 55% in 2009 to EUR512 million, Gartner predicts.
* Worldwide shipments of PCs in Q109 were down 6.5% to 67.2 million units reports Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.8%
* Nasdaq: Up 3.2%
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (+50%), Digicor (+13%), EOH (+12.5%), Faritec (-54.6%), ISA (+14.3%), Jasco (+18.5%), MICROmega (+28.6%), Poynting (+16.7%), Sekunjalo (+22.5%) and TCS (+14.6%)

BusinessWeek has just published its latest list, The 25 Most Innovative Companies. From a technology perspective, Apple is number one, followed by Google at number two, Microsoft at four and Nintendo at five. Also in the list are AT&T, HP, IBM, Nokia, Research In Motion, Samsung Electronics, Sony, Tata and Vodafone.