Reflections on a weak ruling

The launch of the iPhone dominated the international ICT world during the past two weeks. At home, the Competition Tribunal's ruling against the proposed Business Connexion (BCX)/Telkom merger stole much of the local ICT headline space.

* The Competition Tribunal refused to sanction the proposed merger of BCX and Telkom SA. This seems to be a weak and non-contentious decision and could result in Telkom SA looking for an IT services company outside SA, one that won't require it to gain approval from the Competition Commission. BCX will also struggle to quickly recover from this long saga and may pursue acquisitive activities of its own to help this process. The tribunal has yet to release its reasons for the decision.
* Mediocre full-year results from Naspers, with revenue up 24% but profit significantly down. Its electronic media division, excluding pay TV, made a loss.
* Altech acquired ComTech, a fleet management company, for R90 million.
* Vestor bought Telesto for R22.2 million. Telesto focuses on Avaya applications commonly used in outbound operations of call centres.
* The Celcom Group purchased Vodashop Kolonnade for R7.15 million and the issue of 1.85 million shares.
* Italy's Buongiorno, a player in the digital entertainment market, acquired iTouch, a company originally founded in SA in 1995 and a leader in the distribution of mobile entertainment products and services. Following the deal, Buongiorno becomes the number one provider of mobile entertainment, information, messaging and marketing services.
* Mvelaphanda Holdings, on behalf of a consortium, invested in Labat Traffic Solutions, a subsidiary of Labat Africa.
* Fios merged with Synergy's Johannesburg operations (both are part of the Sekunjalo empire) to create the first Cognos Corporate Performance partner in SA.
* Oger Telecom decided not to sell Cell C, despite previous statements to the contrary; and Telecom Italia sold its 10.36% stake in Oger Telecom.
* The National Empowerment Fund sold off its 1.5% shareholding in MTN at a 20% discount. This move was expected some time ago.
* Canal Square, a BEE company, sold off 8.3 million of its shares in Faritec.
* Shareholders approved DataPro's name change to Vox Telecom.
* MTN laid a fixed-line cable between Sandton and Rosebank.
* Areeba Syria was re-branded MTN Syria, the former being one of the entities bought by MTN through its purchase of Investcom last year.
* BenQ appointed Ingram Micro to distribute its products.
* EnGenius Networks appointed Pinnacle Micro to distribute its wireless networking products.

* AccessKenya Group acquired Todays Online, an ISP.
* Very good year-end numbers from Kenya's Safaricom, with revenue up over 35% and profit up 40%.
* Altech Stream Rwanda was granted a licence to deliver broadband Internet services in that country.

* Google bought GrandCentral Communications, a company that provides services for managing voice communications. This is a natural extension of Google's reach into organisations' voice networks, further locking in its product penetration into these companies.
* A private equity group purchased Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), the largest Canadian communications company, for $48.5 billion. BCE has been in static mode for some time and needed an injection of money and other resources this deal should facilitate.
* German-based Infineon bought out the DSL unit of Texas Instruments, a move that bolsters the former's core telecommunications business and provides it with an end-to-end DSL offering.
* AT&T, the second largest telecommunications player in the US, acquired Dobson Communications for $2.8 billion, increasing the former's coverage in suburban and rural territories in 17 US states.
* CommScope, a provider of infrastructure solutions for communications networks, purchased Andrew, a major communications provider of wireless equipment, for $2.6 billion. This deal follows similar ones over the past year or so, such as Alcatel and Lucent, and Nokia and Siemens AG; and is part of the consolidation happening within this sector.
* The French government sold off about 7% of its stake in France Telecom, mainland Europe's second largest telecommunications company behind Deutsche Telekom, still leaving the former with about 27%. The revenue obtained will be used to reduce public debt.
* The Greek government sold off about 10.7% of its stake in Hellenic Telecom, possibly leading the way to a sell-off of the total company.
* Saudi Telecom invested $3 billion in Malaysia's Maxis Communications (25%) and Indonesia's NTS (51%), both mobile network operators. This is part of the strategic drive by Middle East telecommunications companies to gain strong footholds in both Africa and Asia.
* Singapore Telecom invested 30% ($758 million) in Pakistan's Warid Telecom, a deal which was also being chased by MTN and Vodafone. Warid is the third largest mobile operator in that country and is part of the Abu Dhabi Group.

* The private equity buy-out of Virgin Media for about $10 billion.
* The potential acquisition of Netherlands-based IT services company, Getronics, by a major US company, rumoured to be one of CSC, Dell, EDS, HP or IBM.

* According to the Semiconductor Industry association, worldwide sales in May hit $20.3 billion, 2.4% up from the previous year.
* ComputerWire states the level of funding in free and open source-related vendors rose over 33% in Q2 this year, compared to Q2 of 2006.
* Nasscom predicts the Indian IT software and services market will be worth $50 billion by the end of 2008.

The UK's FT Global 500 listing has just been released, ratings that are largely based on market value. From a technology perspective, Microsoft remains the highest at number three, the same position it had last year. Other significant ranking moves within the top 100 include AT&T at number five (up from 37), China Mobile Hong Kong at number 16 (38), Intel at 46 (33), Telefonica at 47 (64), Google at 51 (60), Nokia at 62 (46), Oracle at 65 (77) and Apple at 85 (124).