Neotel arrives

The international ICT industry last week was comparatively quiet; however, the local scene was dominated by the official launch of Neotel.

* The formal launch of Neotel, the South African second fixed-line national operator.

The important ingredient in this contest is service, a commodity that has been significantly lacking from the current incumbent.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Very good interim numbers by Investcom (being acquired by MTN), with revenue up 52% and profit up over 30%.
* Good full-year figures from Metrofile, with revenue up nearly 10% and profit more than double.
* Good interim numbers from MTN, with revenue up 18% and profit up 23%.
* Good Q4 figures from Net-1 UEPS, with revenue up 16% and earnings up over 50%.
* Mediocre year-end numbers from Mustek, with revenue up about 7.5% but profit down over 22%.
* Positive trading updates from ISA and Pinnacle.
* Labat Africa to list its subsidiary, Labat Traffic Solutions, on AltX.
* Telkom, via Telkom Media, has in conjunction with the SABC and Sentech applied for a pay-TV licence.
* Datatec`s Logicalis purchased German services supplier, Reichert Network Solutions GmbH.
* The establishment of a local presence by Zebra Technologies, a provider of rugged and reliable printing solutions.
* The appointment of Chris Norton as regional manager of VMware`s sub-Saharan operations.
* The resignations of Wallace Mgoqi as chairman of Sekunjalo and Chris Norton as SA country manager of Citrix Systems.
* The appointments of BTG as the South African distributor for Centennial Software and Lefatshe Technologies as the Sub-Saharan distributor for Webroot`s SpySweeper product.

* The appointment of Saleh El Abdooli as CEO of the third network operator in Egypt.
* Very good interim figures from Orascom Telecom.
* The resignation of Jose Ferreira, CEO of Mascom, Botswana. He is joining MTC Namibia.
* Zimbabwe`s Technopak changed its name to Omni Africa.

* Nokia bought out gate5 AG, a supplier of mapping, routing and navigation software and services.
* Intergraph acquired by private equity groups for $1.3 billion.
* Morse to spinout its secure mobile banking applications operation, Monitise, as a separate business.
* Wireless Services changed its name to SinglePoint.
* Alcatel acquired the 3G assets of Nortel Networks.
* Tandberg Data ASA purchased Exabyte.
* The launch of NXP, the ex-Philips chip unit sold off to private investors.
* New Zealand Telecom to sell its yellow pages business.
[PQ* Job loss announcements from Intel, Openwave and Siemens.
* A planned IPO on London`s AIM by Rubicon Software.
* A planned IPO on Nasdaq by CommVault Systems, a backup and data replication software developer.

* The outcome of the battle for UK`s Radstone Technology by Italy`s Eurotech SpA.
* The buy-out of some of Tele2 French operations by Vivendi`s mobile phone subsidiary, SFR.

* Q2 saw revenue gains in both the enterprise and service provider VOIP markets, says Infonetics Research.
* The total disk storage market grew to $5.9 billion for Q206, up 6% from the same quarter last year, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 2% (all time high)
* Nasdaq: Up 2.5%
* Top SA share movements: Alliance Data (+18.2%), Beget Holdings (+33.3%), ISA (+19%), Labat Africa (+92.3%), Metrofile (-9.5%), MICROmega (+17.5%), Sekunjalo (+8.5%), Simeka BSG (-10.7%), Stella Vista (-10%) and Zaptronix (-10%).
* Top international share movements: Applied Imaging (+35.3%), Bell Canada (+34.6%), Canon (-30.6%), Credence Systems (+23.7%), Epicus Communications (+88.9%), Exabyte (-75%), InfoNow (+25%), Micros Systems (+25%), Peerless Systems (-28%) and Pegasus Wireless (-57.2%)

Neotel is finally with us. However, the jury is still out on whether the new entity will be genuine competition for Telkom. The first wholesale services are now available to certain customers, although services for businesses and consumers are still a few months away, with the latter not being brought under the Neotel umbrella until March 2007.

The pedigree of the major investor, Tata, is not in doubt, with its vast experience of VNSL in India. The planned investment is large - R11 billion over the next 10 years - although heavily front-ended re timescales. The opportunities are also enormous, with the potential of at least a market share of 15% up for grabs.

To my mind, the important ingredient in this contest is service, a commodity that has been significantly lacking from the current incumbent, which seems more concerned with its bottom line than with spending money that would keep its customers satisfied.