SAP buys Sybase

The SAP acquisition of Sybase dominated the international ICT world over the last two weeks, along with numerous other small acquisitions. At home, the fate of Faritec and Square One, together with Vodacom's results and its associated issues regarding iBurst and the DRC, stole much of the local ICT headline space.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Dimension Data, with revenue up 11% and profit up 8.6%; and Paracon, with revenue and profit both up a little.
* Mixed interim numbers from Spescom, with revenue down slightly but profit up 40%; TeleMasters, with revenue up slightly but profit down 48%; and UCS, with revenue down 11% but profit up nearly 400%.
* Mediocre interim figures from Reunert, with revenue marginally down and profit down 4%; and Sekunjalo, with revenue down 8.5% and profit down 74%.
* Excellent year-end figures from Silverbridge, with revenue up 51% and profit up over 120%.
* Mixed year-end numbers from Vodacom, with revenue up 5.6% but profit down 32%.
* Mediocre year-end figures from Datatec, with revenue down 11% and profit down 47%.
* A full-year loss from African Cellular Towers, with revenue down over 50%; and Ansys, with revenue also down.
* A negative trading update from Telkom SA.
* The suspension on the JSE of the shares of Square One.
* The suspension of trading on the JSE of the shares of Cape Empowerment Trust (CET) following its merger with Dynamic Cables.
* The listing of the shares of Cape Empowerment, the new 'shares' of a new entity, following the merger of CET and Dynamic Cables.
* Columbus Technologies acquired its two major shareholders, Mustek and Sizwe Africa IT Group.
* Digicore made a 25% investment in UK-based MPS 2010, a provider of fleet management systems, and a subsidiary of Minorplanet System, an AIM-listed company.
* Faritec Enterprise Solutions, the wholly-owned subsidiary of JSE-listed Faritec, is to be liquidated.
* Square One is to apply for liquidation of its JSE-listed entity, although, it seems, the subsidiary companies would continue to operate in some way or other.
* Siemens Enterprise Communications has changed its name to Nashua Communications.
* Stuart Hardy was appointed MD of Africa.inx.
* Laurentius Human was named CEO of Inala Technologies, suppliers of telecommunications, broadcast and audio visual solutions.
* The resignations of Garth Coetser, chairman of Square One Solutions Group; Karl Gribnitz, chairman of Zaptronix; and Jan Nel, CEO of Zaptronix.
* Frans Dreyer, founder of VASTech, a network recording company, died in the Afriqiyah Airways crash.

* Satisfactory quarterly figures from Maroc Telecom.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Orascom Telecom Holding, with revenue slightly up but profit down; and Telecom Egypt, with revenue down slightly but profit up.

* Accenture purchased the retail software sector assets of CadenceQuest, a customer analytics company.
* America Movil proposed a $21.8 billion acquisition of Carso Global Telecom and Telmex International. America Movil is controlled by Carlos Slim, the world's wealthiest individual, according to Forbes magazine.
* Cisco purchased CoreOptics, a company that designs signal processing technology for high-speed computer networks, for $99 million.
* Cisco bought Moto Development Group, a design consulting company that develops products and product strategies for the consumer industry.
* The CGI Group purchased Stanley, a provider of information technology services and solutions, for $1.07 billion.
* Google bought Global IP Solutions, a Norwegian Internet telephony company, for $68.2 million.
* Lexmark acquired Perceptive Software, a provider of enterprise content management software, for $280 million.
* Oracle purchased Secerno, a provider of database firewall solutions for Oracle and non-Oracle databases.
* SAP acquired Sybase for $5.8 billion, a deal that still might be challenged by a counter-offer from HP.
* Symantec bought the authentication business of VeriSign for $1.28 billion.
* Value Team, a member of the Value Partners Group, bought Nokia Siemens Network's Radio Access activities.
* Yahoo purchased Associated Content, a Web site that hires freelance writers and video producers to share their expertise on a wide variety of subjects.
* CA is changing its name to CA Technologies.
* CenturyTel is changing its name to CenturyLink, its brand name adopted after it acquired Embarq last year. CenturyLink is also in the process of merging with Qwest Communications.
* Software AG has been ranked by Gartner as number one in the SOA governance technologies market, a position it also held in 2009.
* Samsung will invest $23 billion this year to cement its leadership in semiconductors and flat panel displays. This number is larger than that planned by IBM, Intel and Sony combined.
* Microsoft is to pay VirnetX, a maker of real-time security technology, $200 million in a patent case.
* Excellent quarterly results from Applied Materials (back in the black) and Tencent Holdings, a company with Naspers as its major shareholder.
* Very good quarterly figures from Alibaba.com, Cisco, EchoStar (back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from Dell, HP, Intuit, Software AG, Tech Data and Toshiba (back in the black).
* Satisfactory quarterly results from CA, Hitachi (back in the black), Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn Electronics - Taiwan), Telefonica and Vodafone (profit up over 100%).
* Mediocre quarterly results from Compuware, NTT and Reliance Communications (India).
* Mixed quarterly figures from Brocade Communications Systems, with revenue down but back in the black; CSC, with revenue up but profit down; Deutsche Telekom, with revenue down but back in the black; Dish Networks, with revenue up but profit down; NTT, with revenue down but profit up; Nvidia, with revenue up over 50% but profit down; Salesforce.com, with revenue up but profit down; Trend Micro, with revenue up but profit down; and Zain, with revenue up but profit down.
* Mixed full-year numbers from BT Group, with revenue slightly down but back in the black; and NEC, with revenue down but back in the black.
* Quarterly losses from Aruba Networks, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (India), Nuance Communications, Opera Software and Panasonic.
* A planned IPO from Jive Software, a social networking company.
* IPO filings from Velti, a mobile marketing group currently listed on the UK's Aim market.
* A good IPO on Nasdaq by TeleNav, a mobile navigation services provider.
* The listing on the Taiwan Stock Exchange of its first foreign company, Integrated Memory Logic, a Silicon Valley chip maker.

Many large corporates are already well down the road to cloud computing.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* International:
* A possible EUR5.7 billion bid by Telefonica for Portugal Telecom's 50% stake in Brasilcel NV, an investment vehicle that owns 60% of Brazilian mobile phone company, Vivo Participacoes SA.
* The potential purchase by France Telecom of an Iraqi mobile operator.
* Africa:
* The possible acquisition by Telecom Egypt of Vodafone's 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt Telecommunications.
* A move by Leo Mugabe, nephew of Robert Mugabe, to acquire a 20% stake in Telecel (Zimbabwe), that country's second largest mobile phone operator.
* Additional moves by France Telecom to increase its presence on the African continent.
* South Africa:
* The buyer of Vodacom's investment in iBurst.

* According to Coda Research Consultancy, worldwide sales of smartphones will total 2.5 billion units in the period 2010 to 2015, with a CAGR in Middle East and Africa of 21%.
* Mobile handset sales will grow 17% this year to 11 million units, according to Strategy Analytics.
* The notebook PC market is expected to grow 22.1% this year to 153 million units, according to Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting.
* According to Gartner, vertical market IT spending will grow 4.1% this year, with the highest growth expected in the public sector and the least growth in the healthcare sector.
* Worldwide mobile phone sales grew 17% in Q110 to 54.3 million units, with LG Electronics and RIM claiming the number three and four slots behind Nokia and Samsung, reports Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 2.7%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.6%
* Top SA share movements: AdaptIT (-10%), African Cellular Towers (-15.1%), Beget Holdings (+50%), Dialogue Group (+10%), Ifca Technologies (-20%), MICROmega (-33.3%), Net 1 UEPS (-17.2%), Poynting Antennas (-33.3%), Vodacom (+11.3%) and Zaptronix (+33.3%)

Many individuals and organisations have been talking for some time about cloud computing and that it will be an extremely important part of a company's strategy going forward. However, it wasn't until I attended this year's EMC World event, in Boston, that I fully appreciated that this is a phenomenon that will manifest itself sooner rather than later, and that there are vendors already in situ with the capabilities of providing the infrastructure technologies to support such a move.

The consensus is that current computer infrastructures have become too inefficient, too complex and too costly, with 72% of IT budgets being spent on maintenance and only the majority of the remaining 28% on new innovation. In addition, the information explosion expected over the next few years that will see the digital universe move from 0.8 zettabytes (a trillion billion) in 2009 to 35.2 zettabytes by 2020, a 44% growth factor that will create a situation that will be impossible to manage in the conventional manner, and thus will necessitate a completely new approach.

In the light of the above, many large corporates are already well down the road to cloud computing, a path that seems to begin with the virtualisation of their current data centre infrastructures. As more and more organisations embrace this 'new wave of computing', it will be fascinating to watch to see who will be the early adopters in this part of the world, and reap the financial returns that this technology is sure to bring.