Panasonic bags Sanyo

UK cellular network operator Vodafone signed a R22.5 billion deal to purchase an additional 15% of Vodacom from Telkom. The Department of Communications also suffered another court defeat this week.

Internationally, Panasonic made headlines by purchasing Sanyo, and Siemens' withdrawal from the Fujitsu Siemens Computers joint venture was also the talk of the international ICT town.

* Excellent interim numbers from Alliance Mining, with revenue up over 80% and profit up over 150%.
* Satisfactory interim figures from ISA, with revenue and profit both slightly up.
* Mediocre interim numbers from TCS, with revenue and profit both slightly down.
* An interim loss from Ansys, with revenue also significantly down.
* Good Q1-end figures from Net 1 UEPS Technologies, with revenue up 13% and profit up 46%.
* A positive trading update from African Cellular Towers.
* A negative trading update from Zaptronix.
* 3fifteen, a subsidiary of Britehouse/Dimension Data, acquired BMO Software, a CRM specialist, creating one of the largest Microsoft CRM consultancies in South Africa
* Sekunjalo made a R27 million (30%) investment in BT Communications Services South Africa, the South African operations of the BT Group.
* The Pretoria High Court ruled against the communications minister regarding an interdict it wanted against ICASA, in order to prevent it issuing a telecommunications licence to VANS.
* MTN's subscriber base is now in excess of 80 million, and it showed a 9% growth in Q3 over the numbers extant at the end of Q2.
* Mardia van der Walt-Korsten, CEO of T-Systems SA, was named the CSSA IT Personality of the Year.
* Rabelani Dagada, manager of the ICT and KM division of Royal Bafokeng Administration, has been named IT Visionary of the Year.
* StreamServe opened a South African office, based in Cape Town and headed by Birger Lundgren, one of the original founders of StreamServe.
* Steve Bailey was appointed CEO of Virgin Mobile SA, and Joe Fana Nalane as non-executive chairman of Beget Holdings.
* Peter Boyd resigned as CEO of Virgin SA. He will take up a new position in the UK with Virgin Mobile.

Siemens has sold its stake in the 50/50 joint venture of Fujitsu Siemens Computers, to Fujitsu.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Good quarterly figures from Mobinil (Egypt). The company also had a 38% growth in its subscriber base from the same period last year.
* Satisfactory nine-month figures from Maroc Telecom.
* Mediocre nine-month figures from Gabon Telecom and Mauritel (Mauritania).

* AT&T bought Centennial Communications, a provider of regional wireless services in the US, for $944 million.
* AT&T purchased Wayport, a provider of managed WiFi services in the USA, for $275 million.
* Oracle acquired Tacit Software, a company that focuses on an automated profiling technology for expertise location, in order to help organisations uncover new opportunities for collaboration.
* Panasonic bought Sanyo Electric in a deal estimated to be worth $8.7 billion.
* Siemens has sold its stake in the 50/50 joint venture of Fujitsu Siemens Computers, to Fujitsu. This will be effective from 1 April 2009. The deal was worth about EUR450 million.
* Google and Yahoo have abandoned their advertising agreement.
* Good quarterly numbers from Cognizant Technology Solutions, Deutsche Telekom and Open Text.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Acer (although revenue up 31%), AML Communications, Perot Systems, Trend Micro, US Cellular and ViaSat.
* Mediocre quarterly results from ADP, Amdocs, Atos Origin, Cisco, Iron Mountain, Lenovo (profit down 78%), Nvidia, Pitney Bowes, Qualcomm, Sanyo Electric (profit down over 65%), Telephone & Data Systems (profit down over 50%) and Time Warner.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Quanta Computer (Taiwan's second-largest IT company), with revenue slightly down but profit up over 35%.
* Quarterly losses from Borland Software, Rackable Systems, Sprint Nextel, VeriSign and Vonage.
* Kai Flore was appointed president and CEO of Fujitsu Siemens Computers as Bernd Bischoff resigned; Charles Giancario as chairman of Avaya (currently CEO); and Kevin Kennedy, currently CEO of Juniper Networks, as CEO of Avaya from 1 January 2009.
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* Panasonic may invest in Sanyo's digital camera business.
* A possible investment in PCCW (Hong Kong), a major telecommunications operator, by China Netcom in conjunction with Richard Li, who already has an investment in PCCW.

* Worldwide PC processor shipments grew 15.8% in Q308, with Intel taking a market share of over 80% for the first time, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Down 4.6%
* Nasdaq: Down 4.3%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (-18.7%), Beget Holdings (-33.3%), Celcom (-11.8%), Ideco (+26.7%), Ifca Technologies (-23.1%), Labat Africa (+50%), MICROmega (+23.1%), Mustek (-11.4%), Sekunjalo (+13.1%) and TCS (-13%)

The Sunday Times has published this year's 'Top 100 Companies' list. From a technology perspective, Digicore is at number two, Pinnacle at number four and MTN at 27. Also listed in the Top 100 are Altron, Datatec, EOH, Jasco, Paracon, Reunert, Telkom SA and UCS.