Quiet on the home front

The international ICT world saw the start of a flood of quarterly results, and a number of acquisitions by some of the majors last week. At home there was little significant ICT news.

* A positive trading update from MICROmega.
* Business Connexion acquired SiloFX Enterprise Integrators, a consulting company specialising in software integration.
* Datatec purchased ReView Video, a US-based video conferencing and VOIP distributor, for $25 million.
* Altron's Powertech acquired the minority shareholders' 25% interest in Cables de Comunicaciones Zaragoza, its Spanish cable manufacturing subsidiary, for R81 million.

* MTN's cellular network in Benin was switched off following a dispute with that country's government.
* Kenya allowed Econet to proceed with the construction of the country's third mobile network.

* Accenture bought the George Group, another US-based consulting firm specialising in the manufacturing and products sectors.
* BMC Software purchased RealOps, a provider of run book automation solutions. This deal, when combined with BMC's Atrium Configuration Management database, enables the company to offer organisations the ability to integrate and automate operational activities across a number of IT management functions.
* Dell acquired SilverBack Technologies, a service delivery platform provider for remote monitoring and management of IT infrastructure, such as servers, storage, desktops and notebooks. This is only the third acquisition made by Dell.
* IBM purchased DataMirror, a data replication software maker, for $161 million. The latter made an unsuccessful and hostile bid for Idion Technology two years ago, prior to Idion's purchase by private equity groups.
* Oracle bought Bharosa, a provider of software that helps combat online identity theft and fraud. Oracle and many other major software companies are beefing up their security offerings.
* Philips Electronics proposed the off-loading of its remaining shares in TSMC and most of its stake in NXP, Europe's third-largest chipmaker. In addition, Philips intends to reduce its stake in its JV, LG Philips LCD.
* SunRocket, the number two pure-play VOIP provider in the US, has had its operations suspended. SunRocket had about 200 000 customers.
* Ronald Rittenmeyer, president and COO of EDS, has been appointed as its CEO. Michael Jordan, CEO of EDS, resigned.
* Very good quarterly figures from Google and Tata Consultancy Services, with revenue and profit both up over 25%.
* Good quarterly numbers from Juniper Networks (back in the black), Citrix Systems and Wipro (but revenue up 34%).
* Satisfactory quarterly figures from Ericsson, IBM; Intel (revenue up 8% but income up nearly 45%), LG Electronics (well back in the black), Microsoft, Satyam Computer Services (but revenue up over 25%) and Seagate Technology (but earnings up significantly).
* Mixed quarterly numbers from Philips Electronics, with revenue down but profit sharply up on the back of its disposal of its shares in TSMC.
* Mediocre quarterly numbers from Amdocs, ASML NV, LogicaCMG, Logitech, SanDisk, SAP and Yahoo.
* Quarterly losses from AMD, Imation and Motorola.

* A private equity buy-out of 3Com.

It looks as if Samsung Electronics will oust Motorola from the number two slot regarding unit sales of mobile handsets.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* It looks as if Samsung Electronics will oust Motorola from the number two slot regarding unit sales of mobile handsets when the latest figures are released.
* Mobile World has just published its top MEA mobile markets by customer base, with SA at number one, Nigeria at number two, Algeria at three, Saudi Arabia at four and Egypt at five.
* According to IDC, worldwide PC shipments grew 12.5% in Q207 compared to Q206 with 58.8 million shipments. HP remained number one, followed by Dell, Lenovo and Acer. Gartner's figures for Q207 are similar.

* JSE All share index: Down 0.9%
* Nasdaq: Down 0.7%
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (+25%), GijimaAst (+11%), Labat Africa (+16.7%), Stella Vista (+20%) and TeleMasters (-9.8%)

Forbes has published its Global 2000 listing, which is a composite ranking, based on sales, profit, assets and market value. From a technology perspective, the top companies are AT&T at number 29, Verizon Communications at 38, IBM at 42, Telefonica at 46 and HP at 55. Also in the top 100 (alphabetically) are China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft, NTT, Samsung Electronics, Siemens and Telecom Italia.

I am in Taiwan this week on business, so my next column will appear on Monday, 6 August.