Telkom Media suitors emerge

The international and local ICT world was quiet last week, with Motorola's new appointment as one of the more interesting news items.

At home, the speculation about Telkom Media's new investor took pride of place.

* Positive trading updates from Digicore, Faritec and GijimaAst.
* Vodacom acquired a 75% stake in Internet Solutions Gated Services (ISGS), a move intended to help the former deliver voice and data services to cluster homes and office parks. ISGS was only created last year following Internet Solutions' majority investment in Cape-based InCite Smart Services.
* Enterprise Content and Wireless has renamed its mobile unit, previously known as Lava Systems Mobile, as Bhyve Technologies, in order to avoid any confusion in the market, since the name Lava is often used in conjunction with its various enterprise content management activities. The mobile unit has been involved in creating cellular software developments, although its focus going forward will be oriented around the exploitation of these developments and the strategic partnerships that have been put in place to handle them.
* ICASA has issued Telkom Media a pay-TV licence. A consortium, including a fund connected to the PIC, has emerged as a possible candidate for a stake in Telkom Media, which is 66% owned by Telkom SA.
* The appointment of Femke Pienaar as acting CEO of SITA.

It's been said before, but maybe this time it is for real, that Siemens is totally pulling out of the ICT market.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Google acquired Omnisio, an online video start-up that enables users to annotate videos, combine clips and synchronise Slideshare presentations to videos.
* The $26 million acquisition by LG-Nortel of Novera Optics, a developer of fibre-optic access solutions that extend high-speed carrier Ethernet services from optical core networks to customers' premises. LG-Nortel is a joint venture between LG Electronics and Nortel Networks, established in 2005 to provide telecommunications equipment and network solutions, spanning wired and wireless technologies.
* SAS bought IDeaS Revenue Optimisation, a provider of enterprise revenue optimisation solutions and consulting.
* Sony purchased Bertelsmann AG's 50% stake in its joint venture, Sony AG. The new company, Sony Music Entertainment, will become a subsidiary of Sony.
* Symantec acquired nSuite Technologies, a virtual workspace management company that will add presentation virtualisation and connection brokering technologies to the former's virtualisation portfolio.
* Good quarterly numbers from CSC and Lenovo (although profits up 65%).
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Affiliated Computer Services, Cisco, NTT and Sage (owner of Softline).
* Mediocre quarterly results from BCE, BT Group, Deutsche Telekom (profit down 35%), MicroStrategy, NEC (profit down 50%), Nikon (profit down 23%), Pitney Bowes, Qwest Communications, Softbank and Time Warner.
* Mixed quarterly figures from HCL Technologies (India), with revenue up 27% but profit down 72%.
* Quarterly losses from Borland Software, NetSuite, Rackable Systems, Tiscali and VeriSign.
* The appointment of Sanjay Jha as co-CEO and head of Motorola's mobile device business, in a move seen as one that prepares Motorola for the spin-off of this unit as a separate company.

* The announcement by Globacom (Nigeria) that it has acquired licences for operations in Gambia and Libya.
* Siemens' announcement that it is pulling out of its nine-year-old joint venture with Fujitsu. The latter has the right of first refusal re buying Siemens' 50% stake in Fujitsu Siemens Computers, which had sales of over $10 billion in its latest fiscal year.

* According to the Market Intelligence Centre, Taiwan, worldwide low-price mini notebook PC shipments are expected to reach just over eight million units in 2008 and 18.3 million units in 2009.
* Worldwide mobile phone sales will reach 1.28 billion units in 2008, 11% up on 2007, says Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 1%
* Nasdaq: Up 4.5%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (+16.7%), Ansys (+27.3%), Faritec (-13.8%), GijimaAst (-25.4%), Ifca Technologies (+16.7%), ISA (+13.8%), Labat Africa (+200%), Spescom (+36.4%), Stella Vista (-39.4%) and Zaptronix (-25%)

It's been said before, but maybe this time it is for real, that Siemens is totally pulling out of the ICT market. Two weeks, ago Siemens sold off the reminder of its interests in the telecommunications space and last week it was rumoured that it was going to pull the plug on its joint venture with Fujitsu. If this happens, its presence in the ICT space becomes minimal, with only the company's outsourcing, services and consultancy capabilities remaining. In its half-year report, for the period ending 31 March 2008, the Siemens IT Solutions and Services unit for Q2 was in the red, with revenue also down compared to the previous year. The unit accounted for only 7% of the total Q2 revenue.