PeopleSoft in software alliance with IBM

The acquisition of MGM by Sony in a $4.85bn deal and the two $1bn+ deals involving Rogers Comms dominated the international IT and telecoms scene during the last three weeks; at home the various Telkom activities, the SNO news and a raft of local results stole much of the local ICT headline space.

* Very good annual results from Digicore (revenue up and profit up nearly 50%); EOH (revenue and profit both well up) and Tracker (no revenue figures but profit significantly up);

* Good year-end numbers came from ERP.com (revenue static but income well up), Grintek (revenue marginally down but earnings up nearly 400%) and Pinnacle Technology (both revenue and profit well up);

* Mediocre annual numbers from CompuClearing (revenue up a little but earnings down slightly) and Psitek (no revenues figures but profit well down) and Venfin (no revenue numbers but profit down);

* A full-year loss by Faritec (but revenue up);

* Very good interim numbers from Uniserv (no revenue figures quoted); and positive trading updates from Datacentrix and Jasco Electronics.

Other local news included:

African listings

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* A share re-purchase announcement from Telkom SA;

* The granting of a licence to the SNO;

* The publication of the abridged prospectus regarding DataPro`s AltX listing;

* A revised and increased offer to IST shareholders;

* The acquisitions of BI Planning Services (51%) by Life Line Technologies, Global Technology Business Intelligence by EOH, Nanoteq`s commercial security division by Faritec and Spec Systems by Xantium;

* The disposal by Faritec of its contracting business to Paracon;

* The announcement by Telkom SA and Intel re plans to test WiMax next year;

* The allocation by Masterskill of 26% of its shares for black employees;

* A 50/50 empowerment deal between VenFin subsidiary, CommsCo, and Circle Capital;

and the appointment of Lyndall Shope-Mafole as the new DG of the Department of Communications.

*Annex Distribution awarded Tyan Computer distributorship.

Furthermore, on the local front, look out for the next 'episode` in the SNO saga, i.e. the legal issues emanating from Nexus Connexion going to court this week over the two consortia involved in the shareholding of the SNO.

On the African scene look out for a possible listing in London by Celtel, the third largest mobile operator in Africa; and also a possible listing by MTN of its Nigerian operation, maybe on the Nigerian Exchange.

We saw Computer Associates agreeing to pay out $225m to shareholders as part of the settlement in their long-running accounting scandal, which also sees their former CEO, Sanjay Kumar, being charged with fraud and conspiracy;

* The formation of a joint venture by Canon and Toshiba to manufacture advanced flat panel displays;

* The name change of I-Net VLC Plc to Chrysalis C VCT Plc.

* Job loss announcements from Commerce One, CoSine Comms, Dex Media, EDS, Manugistics, MDSI and Plexus.

Look out for the winner in the take-over battle for ISP, Song Networks Holdings AB, with Sweden`s Tele2 AB joining Denmark`s TDC A/S in this bidding war that is likely to see an acquisition price of over $600m; the take-over of Spatial Wireless by Alcatel; and for a possible bankruptcy application by Commerce One.

Proposed IPOs: Hutchison Telecomms International is planning to list Hutchison Whampoa`s Indian mobile phone operations on the NYSE for; Jamdat Mobile and mobile carrier StarHub are to list on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

We saw a very good IPO from automated fingerprint identification systems company, Cogent; and a withdrawn IPO from CellStar for its China operations.

Locally

AST (+29%)
Beget (-25%)
Casey (+66.7%)
CompuClearing (+43.5%)
Datacentrix (+21.1%)
Digicor (+40%)
Elexir (-25%)
Faritec (-23.1%)
Pinnacle (+55.6%)
Stella Vista (-50%)

Internationally

Celltalk Group (+70%)
Commerce One (-71.1%)
FiberMark (-63%)
Maisha (+60%)
Merisel (+51.9%)
Previo (-66.7%)
Read-Rite (-50%)
SEMX (-46.7%)
SiRF Technology (+49.5%)
Warthog (-61.2%)
Yoomedia (+48.4%)

Last week saw the announcement that PeopleSoft had entered a software alliance with IBM. Initially, this seems to be an alliance that will enable closer integration of PeopleSoft`s software with IBM`s middleware and hardware, but maybe it is the start of a process that could lead to an acquisition of the former?

If key industry sources are suggesting that a few players such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP will dominate the corporate software business over the next few years, IBM`s possible take-over of PeopleSoft takes on a new and possibly sinister perspective and certainly could scupper any thoughts and actions by Oracle to obtain PeopleSoft for itself.

The next few months could be very interesting, especially as IBM has indicated several times that it doesn`t want to re-enter the application software business!