Rackable Systems racks 'em up

In international news, Rackable Systems acquired SGI. At home, the buy-out of Technology Concepts was one of the most highly visible events in the local ICT media space.

* Mixed full year figures from Jasco, with revenue up 16%, but profit down 2%.
* A full year loss from Cape Empowerment Trust, although revenue up 13%, and Dynamic Cables (revenue also down).
* An interim loss from Poynting Holdings (revenue also slightly down).
* Excellent year-end figures from MICROmega, with revenue up 75% and profit up 49%.
* A positive trading update from Datacentrix.
* Altech acquired Technology Concepts, a second tier corporation Internet technology and services business, for R45 million.
* Convergent Holdings purchased the remaining 26% of Telesto Communications, for R7.8 million.
* PrimeTel has been liquidated, following the death of its MD, Michael Alter.
* Simeka has restructured its Adcheck investment in a move that sees Mint Net SA, a subsidiary of Simeka, disposed of to Adcheck. Simeka takes an additional shareholding in Adcheck, thus making its new holding as 50% plus one share.
* The e-Googlethu Cape Access Centre opened in Cape Town, a joint venture between Microsoft and the Western Cape provincial government.
* Molaodi Khutsoane was appointed CEO of the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (as from 1 August); and Pieter Pretorius was named chairman of SecureData.
* Peter Sneddon resigned as chairman of SecureData.

* Cisco has opened its first office in Tunisia.
* Econet Wireless has started its operations in Burundi.
* The successful IPO by Onatel (Burkina Faso), which saw the government sell off a 20% stake worth $59.6 million.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers has ceased existing as a separate entity as from 1 April, and has become Fujitsu Technology Solutions, a subsidiary of the Fujitsu Group.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Patriarch Partners, a private equity company, bought the assets of Polaroid, in a bankruptcy court auction, for $52.7 million.
* Rackable Systems, a provider of storage systems, acquired Silicon Graphics (SGI), a provider of high-performance computing, for $25 million. SGI has applied for Chapter 11 to facilitate the deal. Rackable Systems has annual revenue of about $250 million, while SGI latest annual revenue was at the $350 million level.
* Toshiba purchased Panasonic's stake in its LCD joint venture, Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology.
* Western Digital bought SiliconSystems, a US-based maker of solid-state disk drives, for $65 million.
* Fujitsu Siemens Computers has ceased existing as a separate entity as from 1 April, and has become Fujitsu Technology Solutions, a subsidiary of the Fujitsu Group.
* Research In Motion is to open BlackBerry stores `a la similar activities by Apple and Microsoft.
* Very good quarterly figures from Research In Motion (BlackBerry).
* Mediocre quarterly results from Lawson Software.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Acer, with revenue down 8.3%, but profit up 17%.
* Mixed full-year figures from China Unicom, with revenue down 1.2% but profit up 58.2%.
* Quarterly losses from Corel (revenue also down).

International:
* The sell-off by Qwest Communications International of part of its network.
* The sell-off by Telecom Italia of its stake in the German fixed-broadband business, Hansenet.

South Africa:
* The signing of the West Africa Cable System agreement by Infraco, MTN, Neotel, Telkom SA and Vodacom.
* The possible investment involvement of China Mobile with MTN.

* IT spending will decline 3.8% in 2009 to $3.2 trillion, according to Gartner.
* The worldwide enterprise software market will only grow 0.3% in 2009 to $221.9 billion, reports Gartner.
* The worldwide total disk storage systems market will decline 6.7% in 2009, but will grow 1.5% in 2010 over the 2009 figure, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 5%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.6%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+21.2%), Beget Holdings (-33.3%), Datacentrix (+19.2%), Dialogue Group (+20%), Dynamic Cables (-40%), Huge (+22.7%), Ifca Technologies (+40%), MICROmega (+55.6%), SecureData (+21.4%) and TCS (-46.7%)

BusinessWeek has just published its annual US 50 Best Performing Companies list. From a technology perspective, Microsoft came in at number eight and Apple at 15. Also in the top 50 were AT&T, Autodesk, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Google, MEMC Electronic Materials and Verizon Communications.

As this weekend is Easter, my next column will be published on Monday, 20 April, and will cover the intervening two weeks.