Shareholder battle rages at VimpelCom

The international ICT world was dominated by the privatisation of JDA Software, and the shareholder battle raging regarding dominance at VimpelCom last week.

At home, the acquisition by AdaptIT and another e-commerce investment by Naspers were the highlights of a quiet week.

* A positive trading update from Sekunjalo.
* Negative trading updates from Ansys and ConvergeNet Holdings.
* AdaptIT acquired Swicon360, a SAP services partner, for R11.7 million.
* Naspers invested in Souq.com, a Middle Eastern e-commerce site that is owned by UAE-based Al Jabber Internet Group.
* TeleMoto, a new joint venture between Telemasters (49%) and the Retail Motor Industry (51%), will provide communications services to the vehicles sector.
* Following the 2011 census results, it was revealed that 35.2% (18 million) of the population have access to the Internet.
* Nick Vlok was appointed executive chairman of Digicore (was non-executive chairman).
* Rudi Barnard resigned as CEO of Ansys.

* Satisfactory half-year numbers from Econet Wireless, with revenue up 17% and profit up 4.5%.

* Avnet acquired Genilogix, an HP reseller.
* Brooks Automation bought Crossing Automation, a provider of automation products to the global semiconductor front-end markets, for $63 million.
* EMC purchased Silver Trail Systems, a provider of real-time Web session intelligence and behavioural analysis.
* RedPrairie, a privately-owned maker of warehouse management software, acquired JDA Software, a supply chain software company, for $1.9 billion.
* Riverbed Technology bought Opnet Technologies, a provider of optimising software for corporate networks, for $993 million.
* Altimo made an additional investment in VimpelCom, in a move that raises its stake to 47.85%, with Telenor still holding a 42.95% chunk.
* A Federal Trade Commission (USA) said Google would be sued for violating US anti-trust laws.
* Wipro is to hive-off its consumer care division.
* The International Data Corporation (IDC) and Ovum have been named joint winners of the 2012 Global Analyst Firm of the Year by the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations.
* Excellent quarterly results from Baidu and LinkedIn (back in the black).
* Very good quarterly figures from AVG Technologies and Yandex.
* Good quarterly numbers from American Tower (back in the black), CommVault, Equinix, Guidance Software, Hon Hai Precision Industry, Satyam Computer Services, Seagate Technology and Wipro.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from ADP, Asustek, Compal Electronics, DST Systems, Fiserv, Gartner, MetroPCS, Telesat (back in the black) and Teradata.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Atmel, BMC Software, L-3 Communications, Pitney Bowes, Softbank, Software AG and TomTom.
* Mixed half-year numbers from Kyocera, with revenue up but profit down.
* Mixed quarterly figures from BCE, with revenue up but profit down; BT Group, with revenue down but profit up; CACI International, with revenue up but profit down; China Telecom, with revenue up but profit down; Garmin, with revenue up but profit down; Iron Mountain, with revenue down but profit up; MicroStrategy, with revenue up but profit down; Open Text, with revenue up but profit down; Plantronics, with revenue up but profit down; and Sanmina-SCI, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Alcatel-Lucent, Electronic Arts, Harris, Imperva, Interactive Intelligence, JDS Uniphase, Panasonic, RealNetworks, Sharp and Sony.
* The appointments of Thomas Madison as interim CEO of Digital River; and Phil Pead as interim CEO of Progress Software.
* The resignation of John Chen, CEO of Sybase, which is now owned by SAP.
* The retirement of Joel Ronning, CEO and subsequently chairman of Digital River (as from 31 December).
* A satisfactory IPO in Frankfurt by Telefonica Deutschland.

International:
* A bid by France Telecom for Spain's smallest mobile network, Yoigo.
* A possible sell-off by Telenor of its stake in VimpelCom.
* The future of Sharp, as indications are that it may not survive for much longer.

Africa:
* The proposed sell-off by VimpelCom of its stake in Telecel Zimbabwe and maybe its units in Burundi and CAR.
* The tender for the fourth mobile licence in Zambia.

South Africa:
* A possible link-up between Cell C and Telkom SA.

* The IDC expects the South African government is set for IT growth over the next few years, after revealing a 7.1% growth in 2011 to $12.91 billion, and a CAGR of 11.6% through 2016 is predicted for this sector.
* Total Android smartphones shipped in Q3 reached 136 million units, 75% of the total 181 million shipments, according to IDC. iOS accounted for a 14.9% market share.

* JSE All share index: Up 2.1% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Down 0.2%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (-20%), ConvergeNet Holdings (-11.5%), Digicore (+15.6%), Huge Group (-18.5%), MICROmega (-12.1%), Muvoni (-38.9%), Poynting (-25.7%), Sekunjalo (-12.3%) and Stella Vista (+33.3%)

Fortune magazine has just published its '40 under 40', the young stars of business. From a technology perspective, the following are included:
* 1: Larry Page, co-founder and CEO of Google
* 2: Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook
* 3: Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo
* 4: Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google
* 15: Salar Kamangar, SVP at Google
* 18: Kevin Systrom, co-founder and CEO of Instagram, now part of Facebook
* 19: Victoria Ransom, co-founder and CEO of Wildfire, now part of Google
* 20: Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify
* 24: Hosain Rahman, co-founder and CEO of Jawbone
* 36: John Hering, co-founder and CEO of Lookout