Oracle changes begin

Last week was very quiet from a local perspective, with most organisations still struggling to return to normality following the festive season.

Overseas, the market is still very active from an ICT perspective with the latest round of quarterly results starting to emerge this week.

* Alltel`s $5.8 billion acquisition of Western Wireless, creating the fifth largest wireless network operator in the US. This is yet another part of the consolidation in the wireless world over the past few months and comes hot on the heels of the Sprint Nextel deal.

* The $5.69 billion buy-out of Amadeus, Europe`s top travel reservation firm, by two UK-based private investment funds.

* Oracle will lay-off 5 000 people, 9% of the total Oracle/PeopleSoft combined workforce, in the first of several consolidation moves expected following Oracle`s acquisition of PeopleSoft.

* HP combines its printing and PC divisions, in a move that ends speculation, at least for now, re the split up of HP and/or the sell-off of its PC unit.

* A positive trading update from Prism Holdings.

* Jan Nel appointed as CEO of Zaptronix.

* Telkom SA failed to win its court appeal against Orion Telecom.

* The closure of Apple`s local office and the subsequent transfer of its responsibilities to The Core Group. This is the second time Apple has closed its local subsidiary and I suspect the local market won`t react favourably to this decision.

* Shareholders approved the disposal and subsequent liquidation of Global Technology.

HP combines its printing and PC divisions, in a move that ends speculation, at least for now, re the split up of HP and/or the sell-off of its PC unit.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

Pete da Silva appointed as country CEO for Siemens Southern Africa.

Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou appointed as Intelsat`s local MD and head of its South African regional support centre.

A Nigerian court ruled that VMobile cannot alter its company`s shareholding structure until its dispute with Econet Wireless International is resolved.

* Surprisingly good quarterly numbers from Apple and well-received and positive figures from Intel.

* Nortel Networks, at long last, filed its re-stated results for 2001 and 2002, as well as its revised numbers for 2003.

* Albert Case was named as CEO of DuoCash, Alex Estevez as president of Datastream, Harold Hughes as CEO of Rambus, Douglas Hutcheson as president of Leap Wireless International, Tim Leisman as president and CEO of BorderWare, Jude Panetta as president of Satellite Comms, and Geoff Tate as chairman of Rambus (was CEO).

* Mike Zafirovski resigned as president and COO of Motorola.

* James Green, founder of PECO II, resigned as president and CEO.

* The death of Rocco Flamingo, co-founder, vice-chairman and CTO of Tollgrade Comms.

* Analyst upgrades for Alaska Comms, Alltel, Apple, Ask Jeeves, BEI Technologies, C-NET Networks, CACI, CDI, Cognizant Technology Solutions, DreamWorks Animation, Exar, Flextronics, Google, Harris, Hyperion, Intel, Jamdat Mobile, M-Systems Flash, MTC Technologies, Network Appliances, Network Equipment Technologies, Nokia, Novell, Opnet Technologies, Power Integrations, QLogic, RSA Security, Salesforce.com, SanDisk, Seagate Technologies, SpectraLink, SupportSoft, Synaptics, Valassis Comms and Volt Information Sciences.

* Analyst downgrades for AMD, Cadence Design Systems, Cree, Dobson Comms, EchoStar Comms, Embratel Participacoes SA, Ericsson, HP, InfoSpace, Knology, Leadis Technology, Mobility Electronics, NCR, RF Microdevices, Rogers comms, SafeNet, SAP, Tier Technologies, TiVo, Verizon Comms, Verisity and Western Wireless.

* Positive results announcements from Captiva Software, Extended Systems, Intellisync and Microgen.

* Negative result warnings from AMD, C-COR, Concord Comms, Cypress Semiconductor, Datalink, Epcos AG, HickoryTech, Infineon, LaserCard, LookSmart, Microtune, Mobility Electronics, SBC Comms, Siebel Systems, Sypris Solutions and Unisys.

* Job loss announcements from Enterasys Networks, Infineon, Level 3 Comms, Nokia and Oracle.

* Private funding obtained for Action Engine, a mobile applications infrastructure provider; Applied Identity, an identity management company; CEYX Technologies, a company that develops and licenses software-enabled control systems for LEDs; DivXNetworks, a developer of video compression technology; FishNet Security, a network security company; Netezza, a data warehousing application developer; NextIO, an enterprise-class server chip developer; Vertical Circuits, a semiconductor and electronic products provider; and Visage Mobile, a platform provider for mobile virtual network operators.

* Stock offering announcement from Seagate Technology.

* A share split announcement from ProsoftTraining (reverse 6:1).

* Media adaptation software company Adamind plans an initial public offering on the LSE.

* IPO filings from IBuyDigital.com, an Internet seller of high-end consumer electronics; Sybari Software, an anti-spam software provider; and VeriFone, a payment technology company.

* Ultimate Electronics filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

* The proposed name change of ProsoftTraining to Prosoft Learning.

* Today`s server announcements from HP.

* A possible buyer for Sun Microsystems.

*A 35% growth in the security information management software and service sector, according to Datamonitor, with the sector reaching $575 million by the end of 2008.

* The JSE All Share index was up 0.5% for the week.

* Nasdaq was down 0.03% for the week.

* Top SA share movements: Elexir (-50%), I-Solutions (+20.4%), Labat Africa (-17.9%), Paracon (-10.5%), Pinnacle (+45.8%), Prism (+19.4%), Synergy (-46.2%), Telkom SA (+11.7%), Trematon (+38.9%) and UCS (+10.2%).

* Top international share movements: Applied Imaging (+54.5%), Creative Computer Applications (-37.4%), Elcom International (+100%), Entrada Networks (+31.9%), Extended Systems (+27.5%), Geoworks (+25%), Network Computing Devices (-27.8%), Read-Rite (+200%), Scan-Optics (-25.2%), Silverline Technologies (-25%) and Ultimate Electronics (+52.7%).