Spotlight falls on 'ailing` empowered IT firms

For a supposedly quiet period, the last two weeks have been active on both the international and local scenes, with numerous international acquisition activity and a local focus in particular on some 'ailing` empowered IT companies in the form of Choice Technologies, Elexir and Labat Africa. This week will see the start of the usual quarterly results flood.

* Elexir 'throws in the towel`; Choice Technologies also looks as if it is in trouble; and arivia.kom awaits government moves re its future. The Elexir situation won`t come as much of a surprise. According to press reports, the Choice situation is being caused by a 'squeeze` from Dimension Data. As regards arivia.kom, it seems that significant black empowerment plans are in the offering but little concrete news is available.
* Sun Microsystems makes a further acquisition with the take-over of SeeBeyond Technologies. Sun views this deal, following its recent acquisition of Storage Technology, as one that would now position it as offering the industry`s most complete offering for the development and management of enterprise applications and SOAs.
* Olivetti re-emerges as a 'brand`. Telecom Italia, the owner of Olivetti since 2003, re-launched the Olivetti brand with a series of announcements including some inkjet printers.
* AMD sues Intel for anti-trust violations, in a multibillion action that is likely to drag on for several years.
* Privately-held Concerto Software`s $1 billion acquisition of Aspect Communications, a deal that creates the world`s largest company solely focused on call centre software and services.

* A full year (18 months) loss from Elexir with revenue down significantly; and an announcement that the company will look for an orderly close down of all its assets.
* A mediocre set of full-year numbers from arivia.kom with profits up but revenue down.
* The acquisition of Biometrics.co.za by Nasdaq-listed Sequiam Constellation Biometrics.
* The 30% investment by Italy`s SIA, a financial infrastructure services provider, in Perago, creating a joint venture for future financial infrastructure development projects.
* Sekunjalo`s 30% investment in Sharenet Group.
* MTN acquires the remaining 40% shareholding in MTN Network Solutions it doesn`t already own, from Johnnic Communications.
* The J&J Group`s further investment (5%) in Faritec.
* DVT, a business solutions provider, acquires Solutional, a Microsoft certified partner.
* The appointments of Debbie Hill as MD of COSA SA, Paris Mashile as chairman of ICASA, and Dali Mpofu (ex-chairman of the BEE ICT charter group) as CEO of the SABC.
* The appointment of Dimension Data as VMware`s first authorised consulting partner in SA.
* The suspension of Labat Africa`s shares on the JSE.
* The resignation of Theo Rutstein as deputy chairman of Jasco.

* Namibia hopes to sell-off a 34% stake in its state-owned monopoly by year-end.
* Moroccan regulator ANRT has announced three contenders for new fixed-line licences. They are M'edi T'el'ecom, a domestic cellular company; Maroc Connect, an ISP; and Egypt`s Orascom Telecom.
* Mauritius is aiming to become the world`s first country to deploy a complete nationwide high-speed wireless network. It expects the network to be operational by year-end and the deployment will take advantage of next-generation 802.16e-based WiMax.
* MTN Group acquires a 51% stake in Loteny Telecom that trades under the name Telecel Cote d`Ivoire, and 100% of Telecel Zambia.
* Celtel Zambia to offer 10% of shares to Zambian investors.
* The appointment of Eleftheria Lewins as chairman of Internet Technologies Namibia.
* Excellent year-end results from Safaricom with both revenue and profits up substantially.

Watch out for a major announcement this week from HP re its printer and imaging unit.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* The European Parliament rejects the proposed software patent law.
* Google makes the top 100 in the latest rankings of FT`s Global 500, created at the end of the half-year.
* KPN acquires mobile provider Telfort BV in a $1.3 billion deal, thus eliminating a major competitor.
* Oracle buys ProfitLogic to bolster its retail solutions following its acquisition of Retek.
* Cisco acquires NetSift, a developer of hardware technology designed to protect enterprises from attacks by worms, viruses, etc.
* Computer Associates snaps up Tiny Software, a provider of personal firewall technology.
* Microsoft pays IBM $775 million to settle the latter`s anti-trust claims against it.
* The convicted Bernard Ebbers, ex-CEO of WorldCom, is to place assets worth $45 million into a liquidation trust in order to settle some class-action lawsuits. His sentence hearing is scheduled for 13 July.
* France Telecom plans to phase out the Wanadoo Internet brand and use its Orange brand for all international mobile, broadband and commercial services.
* Shareholders voted in favour of a deal that would privatise Hutchison Global Communications Holdings.
* The appointments of Alfred Amoroso as president and CEO of Macrovision, Clay Brendish as chairman of Anite, Mark Burton as CEO of Longview Solutions, Bruce Diamond as president and CEO of WJ Communications, David Dobson as CEO of Corel, Mark Feilder as president of BellSouth, Greg Forrest as president and COO of Xeta Technologies, Amish Mehta as chairman of Corel (was CEO), Arwin Rasyid as president of Telekomunisaki Indonesia, Tom Rogers as CEO of TiVo, Ralph Schmitt as CEO of Sipex, Meir Srebernik as CEO of Matav-Cable Systems, and Patricia Sueltz as CEO of SurfControl.
* The suspension of CamAxys Group`s shares on the LSE.
* The resignations of Karl Fielder as CEO of Red-M, Mike Farese as president and CEO of WJ Communications, Dale Fuller as CEO of Borland, Jack Ingram as president of Xeta Technologies (stays on as chairman and CEO), James McNerney as chairman and CEO of 3M, and Vivek Paul as the president and CEO of Wipro.
* Analyst upgrades for Asyst Technologies, August Technology, BMC Software, CACI, California Micro Devices, Ceradyne, Chordiant Software, Cognos, EFI, Hypercom, Infineon Technologies, Merix, Motorola, Paychex, Philips Electronics, Pixar, Quality Systems, Red Hat, SonicWALL, Sony, STMicroelectronics, Symantec, Take-Two Interactive Software, Time Warner Telecom, Unova, Viisage Technologies and WebSense.
* Analyst downgrades for 3M, AMIS Holdings, Anixter International, Aspect Communications, AT&T, Borland, Broadcom, Check Point Software, China Mobile Hong Kong, China Telecom, CSG Systems International, Intersil, Intrado, Ixys, Lexmark, Micron Technology, MTC Technologies, Plexus, Polycom, Sanmina-SCI, Seagate Technology, SeeBeyond Technologies and WebMethods.
* Positive results announcements from Arc International, Axsys Technologies, Incat International, InfoVista and StatPro Group.
* Negative result warnings from Adaptec, Airspan Networks, Altiris, Alvarion, Borland, Callidus Software, Ciber, Computacenter, Creative Technology, Diebold, GTSI, IDT, Iona Technologies, Mattson Technology, Mercury Interactive, Nanometrics, Pixar, Radware, Rogers, SGI, Siebel Systems, Singapore Computer Systems, Somera Communications, Superscape, Symbol Technologies and Vitria Technology.
* Stock repurchase announcements from Convergys, Newport, SigmaTel and Verity.
* Job loss announcements from PalmSource, Sanyo, Spirent, Symbol Technologies and Vitria Technology.
* Private funding obtained for GripAdd Systems, a database management software developer; Netcordia, a provider of network analysis and diagnostic tools; Pannaway Technologies, an IP-based technology vendor; and Xceive, a semiconductor company.
* Stock offering announcements by 8x8 and Bottomline Technologies.
* Planned IPOs from Consolidated Communications, a telephone service provider; IntraLinks, a company that provides on-demand workspaces; and Treehouse Partners, an investment company looking for acquisitions of late-stage technology companies.
* A postponed IPO by Red-M Group.

* The possible sell-off by Deutsche Telekom of its T-Mobile USA cellphone operations, a move that could generate about $30 billion.
* Microsoft`s possible acquisition of Claria, an adware company, originally known as Gator.
* Telecom Italia`s sale of its stake in Brasil Telecom.
* A major announcement this week from HP re its printer and imaging unit.

* Q105 external controller-based disk storage revenue totalled $3.54 billion, up 11% over the same quarter last year, says Gartner.
IDC expects growth of hard disk drives through 2009 for consumer electronics and external drive/home storage segments to increase at CAGR rates of 15.5% and 10.1% respectively.
* The worldwide conferencing and team collaboration software market will exceed $1.1 billion by 2008, says Gartner.
* Knowledge process outsourcing could be worth $16 billion worldwide by 2010, according to a new study by Baring Private Equity Partners (India).
* Datamonitor says customer relationship management analytics is showing 7.1% CAGR growth and is likely to make a $2.5 billion sub-segment of the BI software market this year.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.5%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.7%
* Top SA share movements: Beget (-17.7%), CompuClearing (+22.5%), Elexir (+100%), Faritec (+20%), Infowave (+13.9%), Jasco (+14.5%), Metrofile (-17.5%), Square One (+50%), Stella Vista (+90%) and Vesta (-30%).
* Top international share movements: AICX (+74.2%), ALSC (+36.2%), Flightstore (-39.5%), Incat International (+35.4%), Surface Technology (+42.3%), TripleArc (-56.9%), Volex (+38.1%), Vtech Holdings (+43.8%), Wegener (-43.3%) and Yoomedia (+43.5%)

BusinessWeek has published its annual Infotech 100, with America Movil occupying the number one slot (number two last year). Other significant moves include Google at four (first entry), Apple at six (up from 74); the new entries of High Tech Computers, Tata Consultancy Services and BT Group at 11, 12 and 13 respectively; and Turkcell at 14 (was 97). Dropouts from the list include AMD, China Unicom, eBay, HP and Lexmark.