Profit for Lenovo

Lenovo`s profits following its acquisition of IBM`s PC division, which never made a profit while in IBM hands, stole much of the international ICT space during a quiet week.

Locally, the Econet/Altech and second national operator issues dominated the local headlines.

* Deutsche Telekom acquired Austria`s Tele.ring for EUR1.61 billion with the intention of folding the company into its T-Mobile Austria unit.
* Taiwan`s Chunghwa Telecom sold14% of its shares for $2.56 billion, marking the end of its privatisation process and leaving the government with less than 50%.
* Nedbank offloaded its shares in Internet Solutions and Net1 UEPS Technologies (ex-Aplitec).

* Mediocre full-year numbers from Zaptronix. Revenue significantly down but only just back in the black; second six months virtually a break-even situation.
* A negative trading update from Prism.
* Dimension Data bought Nedbank`s 20% shareholding in Internet Solutions.
* DataPro acquired @lantic Internet Services.
* iFind 34600, the cellphone directory services company, acquired Network SMS, one of its rivals.
* The cancellation of Square One`s potential BEE deal with Utho Technologies.
* The resignation of Ndaba Ntsele, chairman of Digicore.
* The death of Martin Baak, MD of Bytes Communications Systems, in a car accident.

* Malawi suspended the sale of its national operator, Malawi Telecommunications.

* Scott Sullivan, ex-CFO of WorldCom, was sentenced to five years in prison for his part in orchestrating the accounting fraud at WorldCom.
* Yahoo paid $1 billion for a 40% stake in China`s Alibaba and the transfer of its China business to the latter.

Deutsche Telekom acquired Austria`s Tele.ring for EUR1.61 billion with the intention of folding the company into its T-Mobile Austria unit.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Israel`s Gilat Satcom started trading on London`s AIM.
* The appointments of Cary Deacon as president and COO of Navarre, Yorgen Edholm as acting president and CEO of I-Many, Tan Tong Hai as president and CEO of Singapore Computer Services, Brian Hilton as chairman of Sipex, Patrick Jones as chairman of Lattice Semiconductor, John Rade as chairman of I-Many, and Stephen Skaggs as CEO of Lattice Semiconductor.
* The resignations of Menachem Hasfari as CEO of Magic Software and Leigh Powell as president and CEO of I-Many.
* Analyst upgrades for Agile Software, AMD, Chordiant Software, Crown Castle International, F5 Networks, Flextronics, GrafTech, JDS Uniphase, Maxwell Technologies, Micro Technology, Network Equipment Technologies, Qualcomm, Sonus Networks, STMicroelectronics, Telephone & Data Systems, Transmeta and Varian Semiconductor.
* Analyst downgrades for ADC Telecommunications, Amazon.com, Broadcom, Dell, EchoStar Communications, Fairchild Semiconductor, Freescale Semiconductor, II-VI, Intel, Jamdat Mobile, Novellus Systems, SemTech, Silicon Image, Telefonica, Tier Technologies, Tripath Imaging and Unova.
* Negative result warnings from DataMirror Group, InTechnology, Interchange, KPN and Telstra.
* A stock repurchase announcement from KPN.
* Job loss announcements from Birch Telecom and Kintera.
* Private funding obtained for Cortina Systems, a provider of integrated, high-speed digital and analogue silicon technology; Funambol, an open source mobile infrastructure software vendor; PacketHop, a mobile mesh networking software provider; Persystent, a desktop auto-repair and configuration management vendor; StarGen, a systems area interconnects supplier; Tentoe, a product information management software company; and Ziptronix, a semiconductor technology company.
* A private placing of stock by Zix.
* Share split announcements from Tetra Technologies (3:2) and THQ (3:2).
* A planned IPO from Heartland Payment Systems, a supplier of payment services.

* Yahoo`s possible acquisition of Alibaba.com, a Chinese e-commerce company.
* The buyer of UK`s Marconi, with China`s Huawei Technologies being thought as the frontrunner.
* The buyer for Telewest Communications` Flextech unit.

* JSE All share index: Up 2% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Down 1%
* Top SA share movements: Alliance Data (+50%), Elexir (+100%), FrontRange (-9.8%), GijimaAST (+14%), ISA (+28.6%), Metrofile (+27.9%), Square One (-45.9%), Stella Vista (-25%), Synergy (-43.1%) and Vesta (-10%)
* Top international share movements: Elcom International (-27.3%), Feedback (+40%), Hummingbird (+27.1%), Nortel Networks (+25.7%), PNC Telecom (+104.5%), Rural Communications (+40.9%), Scan-Optics (-42.9%), Transmeta (+44.7%), Ultrasis (+79.7%) and Ultimate Electronics (-28.6%)

CBR has published its CBR 50 IT Giants list. Heading the `highest growth rates` sub-list was Atos Origin followed by AMD, while Adobe Systems topped the `highest profit margin` sub-list, followed by Oracle.