Oracle bags BEA

The international world of ICT was dominated last week by Oracle's buyout of BEA Systems for a sum significantly in excess of its original offer made in Q4 last year. The local ICT scene was exceptionally quiet, with only a handful of announcements.

* Excellent interim numbers from Beget Holdings, with revenue up over 100% and back in the black.
* ConvergeNet acquired Future Cell, a mobile communications company, for R68.4 million.
* SecureData Holdings bought UK-based MIS Corporation Defence Solutions, an information security solutions provider, for £14.2 million.
* DVT purchased Offline Digital, a provider of software for publishing personalised content over a range of channels, for R1.4 million (66.7%).
* Connection Telecom and Digital Connect merged, and will trade under the name of the former.
* President Thabo Mbeki announced his approval of the Electronic Communications Amendment Act and the Infraco Act.
* Kim Jenkins was appointed country manager for Experian.

* Millicom International announced it will spend $1 billion in Africa during 2008.
* David Murray, CEO of Celtel Kenya, resigned.

Telecom IT spending will exceed $46 billion this year and will reach $7 trillion by 2013.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Oracle acquired BEA Systems ($8.5 billion), a major middleware provider, as well as Captovation, a document capture software developer.
* Sun Microsystems bought MySQL, an open source database software company, for $1 billion.
* Very good quarterly figures from LG Philips LCD (back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from IBM, Intel, Logitech International and Seagate Technology.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from ASML Holdings and Oce.
* Mediocre quarterly results from China Netcom, Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson.
* Quarterly losses from AMD.
* Bob Keller, CEO of APAC Customer Services, retired.

* Telecom IT spending will exceed $46 billion this year and will reach $7 trillion by 2013, according to Insight Research.
* The PC market in Q407 grew by 13.4%/15.5% over Q406 to 75.9 million/77.4 million units respectively, according to Gartner and IDC.

* JSE All share index: Down 3.1%
* Nasdaq: Down 4.1%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-11.3%), Altron (-11.1%), Beget Holdings (-20%), Digicor (-16.7%), DVT (-9.8%), Ifca Technologies (-10%), Infowave (-10%), Simeka (-15.3%), Spescom (-12.5%) and Zaptronix (-17.6%)

Although there have only been a handful of Q407 results released, the indications from these are not too good, although as always, there are exceptions. The next two weeks could be informative and interesting as the bulk of the results for this period are released.