Profit warnings flood in

The flood of profit warnings ahead of the quarterly results that are due to start reporting in heavy numbers this week, and the two Borland acquisitions dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.

At the Forge Ahead BMI-T African Achievers 2002 awards function held at Gallagher Estate on Saturday, the overall winner as well as the winner of "The Top Woman in IT" award, was Sharoda Rapeti, technology MD of the SABC

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

At home, the Dimension Data 'sting` from its acquisition of Plessey in 1998 and the numerous local results stole much of the local ICT headline space.

• we saw good full-year figures from EOH (revenue and net profit both up);
• full-year losses from Cycad Financial Holdings and Prism (revenue also down);
• very good interim numbers from Jasco Electronics (earnings up over seven-fold) and Synergy Holdings (revenue up nearly 75% and earnings also well up);
• satisfactory half year numbers from Allied Technologies (revenue and earnings both up); and
• the de-listing of Dectronic, following a reverse take-over and its new appearance as AVASA (yet another technology company bites the dust).

[Local]

Other local news included:

• a share re-purchase announcement from Compu-Clearing; and
• the R294 million+ 'sting` of Dimension Data from its original acquisition of Plessey in 1998 and the exercising of an option included in the deal at that time.

• we saw Merrill Lynch becoming a major shareholder in Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor, following a rights issue that fell flat;
• the collapse of Liberty Media`s second attempt to acquire the US cable group of Deutsche Telekom;
• Sony`s investment into Palm`s software unit;
• the dissolution of the components unit of Philips Electronics NV;
• the FCC`s rejection of the EchoStar Comms/Hughes Electronics deal; and
• the name change of Superior Networks to L.Air Holding.

Additionally, look out for a possible acquisition of CMG by Logica, which if successful, would create Europe`s fifth largest indigenous IT services company; the possible integration of the flash-memory units of Fujitsu and AMD; and the possible re-listing by Seagate through a new IPO.

[International]

Other international news included:

• the appointments of Gregory Ballard as CEO of SONICblue, Richard Bueschel as acting CEO of Infodata, Dennis Chateauneuf as president and CEO of Pelago Networks, Dave Cote as president and CEO of Packeteer, James Crook as CEO of IDX Systems, Gary Flood as CEO of Metawave, Jay Fulcher as president and COO of Agile Software, Scott Grout as president and CEO of RadiSys, Ronald McIntyre as chairman and CEO of telcoBlue, Katrina Roche as president and COO of NONSTOP Solutions, and Jeff Shell as CEO of Gemstar-TV;
• the resignations of Bob Hunsberger as CEO of Metawave, Malcolm Miller, CEO of Pace Micro, and Henry Yeun, CEO of Gemstar-TV; and
• job loss announcements from AT&T Broadband, Eyretel, Fonix, Inktomi, Lucent Technologies, Metawave, Philips Electronics, Spirent and T-Systems.

We saw excellent figures from Echelon.

Good numbers were recorded by First Data, Infosys Technologies, Network Associates (back in the black) and Yahoo (back in the black); and satisfactory ones by Audiovox, Inforte and PanAmSat.

Mediocre returns came from Accenture, CellStar (back in the black), Imergent (back in the black), Nu Horizons and Rambus; while very poor results were posted by Powerwave Technologies (back in the black) and Printronix.

Losses were reported by ANGOSS Software, Covista Comms, IndigoVision Group, Juniper Networks, NMS Comms, Numerical Technologies, Oak Technology, Paradyne Networks, Plumtree Software, Redback Networks, Sonus Networks and VNCI.

Other financial news included share buy-back announcements from 3Com, Capita Group, Covansys, Imagistics, InterTAN, KLA-Tencor, LOGIC Devices, MCSi, Trintech and Viacom; and profit warnings from AltiGen Comms, Arrow Electronics, Aspen Technology, Autonomy, BCE, Hypercom, Inktomi, JDA Software, McData, MIPS Technologies, MSC.Software, SpeechWorks, Spirent and ValiCert.

There were share split announcements from Blue Martini Software and Stratos Lightwave. Additionally, Flag Telecom has successfully emerged from Chapter 11 with its network intact; and Integrated Telecom Express is to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Locally

CCI Holdings (-60%)
Crux (-50%)
Dectronic (+27.3%)
EC-Hold (-42.9%)
Elexir (+100%)
FrontRange (-31.4%)
Global Technology (-25%)
Jasco (+18.5%)
ShawCell (+25%)
Synergy (+33.3%)

Internationally

Aspen Technology (-62%)
Compass Software (-70.5%)
CTC Comms Group (-42.5%)
Dice (-50%)
MSC.Software (-40.7%)
NCD (-70%)
Proxim (-64.7%)
SBA Comms (-46.1%)
Spirent (-62.5%)

At the Forge Ahead BMI-T African Achievers 2002 awards function held at Gallagher Estate on Saturday and attended by well over 1 300 industry leaders, the overall winner as well as the winner of "The Top Woman in IT" award, was Sharoda Rapeti, technology MD of the SABC. Other winners included Choice Technologies and Cornastone Technology Holdings sharing the "Top Black ICT Company of the Year" award, and Lyndall Fanisa Shope-Mafole, chairman of the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development, winning a Lifetime ICT Achievers award.