New ERP giant is born

The "resolution" of the US West/Qwest Comms/Frontier /Global Crossing battles, the acquisition of JBA by Geac Computer and the flood of quarterly results dominated the international world of IT last week; while at home, yet again, it was a very quiet week.

Now that most of the dust has settled, US West is merging with Qwest Communications to create a new company called Qwest Communications, which will have a market capitalisation of about $65 billion. Global Crossing ended up acquiring only Frontier Corp.

The move by Canada`s Geac Computer Corp. to acquire JBA catapults the new software group into the top three in the ERP space with only SAP and Oracle ahead of them and leaves PeopleSoft and Baan trailing in their wake. The local situation will also change since Geac`s outlet in South Africa is via Millsoft, a member of the Comparex Group, while JBA South Africa is a subsidiary of the UK-based parent company, but serves much of the rest of the continent.

• we saw the announcement of a profit warning (loss) from Elexir;

• and the "interesting" cautionary jointly issued by I-Fusion and PentaCom. Maybe this is another merger attempt following the unsuccessful one by PentaCom and Secure Data earlier this year.

[Local]

Local Cautionary Notices (see attachment).

Local Listing calendar (see attachment).

Other local news included:

• the announcement that Data General has opened a local office; and CSS Distribution named as a local reseller. They were the local distributors for DG prior to this new development.

• additionally, Mitsubishi Corp. and Anglo-American have become equity partners of Netsys International, the weather data software developer.

• On the international scene we had the news from Cable & Wireless that they are talking to NTL regarding a possible merger which I`m sure will have a positive outcome very shortly.

[International]

Other international news included:

• the appointment of Carly Fiarina, ex-Lucent, as CEO and President of HP following the retirement of Lew Platt;

• the appointment of Jack Messman as the new CEO and President of Cambridge Technology Partners;

• the appointment of Michael Capellas as the new boss at Compaq;

• the news that Ceridian had named Ronald Turner as its new CEO;

• rumours that Deutsche Telekom is buying into AOL;

• the news that Groupe Bull is likely to sell the French Government`s stake in the company to the private sector.

We saw excellent figures from Alliance Semiconductor (back in the black), ARM Holdings, Citrix Systems, Clarify, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Dassault Systemes, ESS Technology, Micromuse, Nokia, RF Micro Devices, SCO (back in the black), Sapient, SS Group (back in the black and revenues more than doubled), Xilinx and Zomax.

Losses came from Ancor Comms, Applied Digital Access, Applied Microsystems, Ardent Software, Ariba, Asyst Technologies, Cadence Design Systems, CBT Group, CellNet Data Systems, Cirrus Logic, Clarus, Computer Associates, Concentric Network, Cybersource, Data General, Diamond Multimedia, Digital River, Documentum, DoubleClick, E*Trade Group, Edify, Excite@Home, Exodus Comms, Flycast Comms, Forte Software, Genesys, Gentia Software, Globix, Hutchinson Technology, Informix, Infoseek, Insignia Solutions, Intevac, Juniper Networks, Lattice Semiconductor, Level 3 Comms, M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers, Madge Networks, Maxtor, Microware Systems, Netegrity, Network Associates, Network Peripherals, New Era of Networks, Omtool, ON Technology, Onyx Software, Open Market, Persistence Software, Premisys Comms, PRI Automation, Prodigy Comms, RealNetworks, Redback Networks, Sagent Technology, SCM Microsystems, Secure Computing, Syntellect, Tower Semiconductor, USWeb/CKS, Vantive, Varian Semiconductor, VeriSign, Westell technologies, Western Digital and Xicor.

Good numbers were recorded by Alltel, Ameritech, Ansys, AOL, APC, Applix, Artesyn Technologies, Atmel, Brio Technology (back in the black), Business Objects, Check Point Software, Citation Computer Systems, CommScope, Compuware, Cypress Semiconductor (back in the black), Diamond Technology, EMC, Entrust Technologies (back in the black), Exchange Applications (back in the black), Gateway, General Instruments, Harbinger, i2, IBM, i-Cube Kronos, L-3 Comms, Landmark Systems, Legato Systems, Lexmark (better than expected), LHS Group (back in the black), Lucent Technologies, MapInfo, Microsoft, Misys, National Data (back in the black), Photon Dynamics, Pinnacle Systems, PSDI, Qualcomm, Quantum, Sanmina, SDRC, Siebel (back in the black), Sierra Wireless, STMicroelectronics, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Synopsys, Tandy, Texas Instruments, Triquint Semiconductor, Ultimate Software (back in the black), Visio, Xircom and Zebra Technologies.

Satisfactory figures came from ACX Technologies, Adaptec (back in the black), Atos SA, Bell & Howell, Bell Microproducts, Broadcom, Cognex, Computer Horizons, COMSAT, Diebold (back in the black), DSP Comms, Eastman Kodak, FileNET, Genesis Microchip, IKOS Systems (back in the black), Linear Technology, LSI Logic, MIPS, Proxim, MySoftware Company, Phoenix Technologies, SAGA Systems, Sanchez Computer Associates, SBC Comms, Siemens, Sybase, Symbol Technologies, Tellabs, Teradyne, US West and Xerox (back in the black).

Mediocre returns came from Ameritech, Banyan (back in the black), CompuCom, Data Systems Network, ENCAD, Ericsson, General Semiconductor, Hyperion Solutions, Infinium Software, Innovex, Input Software, JDA Software (back in the black), NCR, Novellus Systems, PeopleSoft, Philips, Pitney Bowes, SAP, SCT, Simtek, Sipex, Sprint, Spyglass, Technology Solutions, Tricon and TRW; whilst very poor results came from ASM Lithography, Data I/O (but back in the black), ETC, PSW Technologies (but back in the black - just), Rogers Comms and TMSSequoia.

Other financial news included profit warnings from Inso, Interactive Magic (loss expected), IXC Comms and Mentor Graphics; and share split announcements from Cognitronics, Exodus Comms, Legato, Lycos, RF Micro Devices and Zomax.

Locally

Core (-19.6%)
EC-Hold (-17.1%)
Elexir (-25%)
Faritech (-17.3%)
nfinity (-24.1%)
Ixchange (-17.2%)
JemTech (-33.3%)
NetActive (-21%)
Paradigm (+32%)
Wentech (+40%)
Zaptronix (-17.6%)

Internationally

BMC Software (-20.9%)
Cadence Design Systems (-32.6%)
Citrix Systems (-20.2%)
Compuware (-25.2%)
Hutchinson Technology (-20.4%)
IKOS (-29.1%)
ISS Group (-39%)
JBA (+33%)
Mentor Graphics (-30.2%)
Olicom (+25%)
Tower Semiconductor (+22.4%)

It is now only six weeks to go before the "Cobol" crunch date of the 9th September 1999. There has been very little publicity given to this critical date and its possible effects in programs written in a language that still dominates today`s world! I wonder how many large corporates are taking this event seriously?