MySpace shops online

A handful of small acquisitions took place in the international arena last week, including one by MySpace. At home, the additional delay regarding the possible MTN/Bharti deal, and the year-end results from Business Connexion were prominent in the media.

* Mixed year-end figures from Business Connexion, with revenue up 8%, but profit down 34%.
* MTN and India's Bharti Airtel have again extended the period of exclusivity discussions to the end of next month.
* A mixed trading update from Dimension Data.
* Negative trading updates from Dialogue Group and Mustek.
* First Data acquired CashAxcess, a South African ATM deployment company.
* Europe-based Beta Layout, a PCB supplier, has opened a local operation in Cape Town.
* Prithvi Information Solutions, an Indian IT services organisation, has entered the South African market and is looking eventually to list on the JSE.
* Specialised Exhibitions' IP Expo was canned. Originally it was planned for the end of September, and was the so-called replacement for Computer Faire.
* Intuate Group, a technology solutions and people resources integrator, was appointed the distributor in the SADC region for Noble call centre products.
* Mamodupi Mohlala was named DG of the Department of Communications (although this has been denied in some quarters).

* Satisfactory quarterly figures from Meditel (Morocco).
* Altech, through its subsidiary Kenya Data Networks, has made an $11 million (8.5%) investment in The East African Marine System.
* Metrofile has opened an office in Nigeria in conjunction with Golden Sceptre, which had taken 40% in the local company.
* Togo's second mobile operator, Atlantic Telecom-Togo (owned by Etisalat and using the Moov brand), has had its operations suspended over non-payment of licence renewal fees.

South African consumers are ahead of the pack when it comes to convergence, according to a survey by KPMG.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Alibaba.com, the Chinese e-commerce company, bought Alisoft's business management software division from the Alibaba Group, for $30.5 million.
* MySpace purchased iLike, a leading social music discovery service.
* Virage Logic (USA) acquired UK-based ARC International, a provider of consumer IP to OEM and semiconductor companies globally, for $41 million. In the last 12 months, Virage Logic had annual revenue of about $50 million and ARC about $24 million.
* Oracle invested in ComAbility, an Israeli start-up that is developing technology for managing telecommunications and Internet subscriber services.
* Very good quarterly figures from Qatar Communications and ZTE (China).
* Good quarterly numbers from salesforce.com.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from China Mobile.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Autodesk and HP.
* Mixed quarterly figures from NetApp (revenue down, but profit up), Open Text (revenue up, but profit down) and PCCW (Hong Kong) (revenue up, but profit down).
* The appointments of Sandip Basu as CEO of Loop Mobile (India); Tom Georgens as CEO of NetApp; Bert Nordberg as CEO of Sony Ericsson; and Howard Stringer as chairman of Sony Ericsson.
* The resignations of Sanjeev Chachondia, CEO of Loop Mobile; and Dan Warmenhoven, CEO of NetApp.

* Africa:
* The successful bidder for the African assets of Zain
* The outcome of the talks between New Artel (Rwanda) and Seacom
* South Africa:
* The possible bail-out of Choice Technologies by Chenzira Holdings International

* South African consumers are ahead of the pack when it comes to convergence, according to a survey by KPMG. Consumers exploit new technologies such as Mxit to a far greater extent than most other countries.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.3%
* Nasdaq: Up 1.8%
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (-33.3%), Dialogue Group (+10%), FoneWorx (-12.6%), Labat Africa (+25%), Mustek (+27.4%), Spescom (+9.1%) and TCS (+66.7%)

Fortune magazine has published its 'fastest growing' companies list. From a technology perspective, the list included Research In Motion at number one overall. Sigma Designs came in at number two; Sohu.com at three; Millicom Cellular International at 14; Open Text at 15; and Apple at 39.