Rengen plans IPO

Both the international and local ICT markets were very quiet last week, with the proposed IPO by China's social networking site Rengen.com being one of the key pieces of news. At home, the shock resignation of the CEO of Infraco Broadband stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Blue Label Telecoms, with revenue up 8% and profit up 2.7%; and Mustek, with revenue up 1.4 and profit up 11.7%.
* Good interim numbers from Simeka, with revenue up 10% and back in the black.
* Positive trading updates from EOH and SecureData.
* The Europe India Gateway cable has been unveiled for commercial use. It has been funded by a consortium that includes AT&T, Bharti Airtel, MTN and Telkom SA.
* BCX has liquidated about 60 dormant group entities over the past two years, as part of its plan to simplify the group structure.
* World of Avatar, Alan Knott-Craig's investment company, is coming to the rescue of FireID, the Cape Town-based mobile security start-up that was dumped by Reinet last month.
* Huawei Symantec has opened a subsidiary office in Johannesburg.
* Derek Kudsee was appointed SAP's COO for sub-Saharan Africa; and Logan Naidoo was named chairman of Sentech.
* Dave Smith, CEO of Infraco Broadband, resigned.

Dave Smith, CEO of Infraco Broadband, resigned.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Huawei will unwind last year's take-over of US-based 3Leaf, following the recommendations of a secret US government panel that reviews foreign transactions.
* Very good quarterly figures from Applied Materials and Opera Software.
* Good quarterly numbers from American Tower and Autodesk.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from HP and Logica.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Garmin.
* Mixed quarterly figures from France Telecom, with revenue down but profit up; Iron Mountain, with revenue up but profit down; Salesforce.com, with revenue up but profit down; Telefonica, with revenue up but profit down; and Turkcell, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Deutsche Telekom and Leap Wireless.
* A planned IPO in the US from Rengen.com, China's largest social networking service, with more than 160 million registered users.

* International:
* A possible $1.91 billion take-over of Mentor Graphics, a provider of software and hardware design-automation tools, by Carl Icahn, a billionaire investor.
* The winner in the bidding for Polkomtel, a Polish mobile phone operator. Bidders are thought to include TeliaSonera and several private equity companies. Vodafone is a shareholder in Polkomtel.
* South Africa:
* Clarification regarding the landing in South Africa of the Ace cable later next year, following rumours that it was now terminating in West Africa.
* The announcement of the new CEO of Telkom SA, following the recent appointment of its new chairman.

* Worldwide PC microprocessor shipments in Q4 2010 were flat, although for the full-year 2010 they grew by 17.1% to $36.3 billion, according to IDC.
* The 2010 worldwide server market grew 17% regarding shipments and 13% regarding revenue, with no changes among the top five vendors, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.7%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.9%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-16.7%), Ansys (-12.5%), Dialogue Group (-23.5%), Gijima (+15.1%), Ideco (-31.6%), Ifca Technologies (-16.7%), Jasco (-9.3%), Labat Africa (-18.2%), MiX Telematics (+10%) and SecureData (-8.4%)

Last week, Gartner hosted its CIO and IT Executive Seminar that included Gartner's Top Predictions for 2011:

* By 2015, a G20 nation's critical infrastructure will be disrupted and damaged by online sabotage.
* By 2015, 'information-smart' businesses will increase recognised IT spending per head by 60%.
* By 2015, tools automation will eliminate 25% of labour hours associated with IT services.
* By 2015, most external assessments of enterprise value and viability will include explicit analysis of IT assets and capabilities.
* By 2015, 80% of enterprises using external cloud services will demand independent certification that providers can restore operations and data.
* By 2015, new revenue created by IT will determine annual compensation for most new Global 2000 CIOs.
* By 2015, 20% of non-IT Global 500 companies will be cloud service providers.
* By 2013, 80% of businesses will support a workforce using tablets.
* By 2014, 90% of organisations will support corporate applications on personal devices.
* By 2015, companies will generate 50% of Web sales via their social presence and mobile applications.
* By 2015, 10% of your online 'friends' will not be human.