Telkom talks strategy

The international ICT world was fairly quiet last week, with the highlights being a handful of small acquisitions by some of the major players, together with a few quarterly results.

At home, the inane announcement from Telkom SA stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Mixed year-end figures from Cape Empowerment Trust, with revenue down 12% but profit up nearly 75%; and Square One Solutions Group, with revenue down about 5% but profit up 50%.
* Mediocre year-end numbers from Dynamic Cables, with revenue and profit both down.
* Positive trading announcements from Altech, Altron, Datacentrix and Jasco Electronics.
* The R214.1 million investment (34%) by Jasco Electronics in BEE company, Malesela Taihan Electric Cable, and the 34.9% BEE investment (R99 million) in Jasco by AfroCentric Investment.
* Neotel reached $1 billion in revenue for the full year to March 2008.
* Telkom SA said the disposal of it, or any of its subsidiaries, joint ventures or any parts thereof will not be considered without a compelling strategic rationale. (Shouldn't all deals have a compelling strategic rationale?) In addition, it stated the potential sale to Saudi Arabia's Oger Telecommunications had been declined and that it was investing in building a fixed-wireless (voice and data) and a mobile data network. It also announced it would look at ways to substantially reduce its investment in pay-TV licensee, Telkom Media. Nevertheless, look out for a revised offer from Oger for Telkom SA.
* The appointments of Stephen Davidson as chairman of Datatec and Bill Gradwell as GM of Annex Distribution.
* The death of Leslie Boyd, chairman of Datatec.

Telkom SA said the disposal of it, or any of its subsidiaries, joint ventures or any parts thereof will not be considered without a compelling strategic rationale. (Shouldn't all deals have a compelling strategic rationale?)

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Accenture acquired Sopia, a Japanese company specialising in integrating Oracle solutions.
* The $832 million acquisition by Ansys, a software simulation company, of Ansoft, another software simulation company that focuses on electronic design automation.
* China Telecom's $793 million purchase of Beijing Telecom.
* EMC acquired UK-based Conchango, a technology consulting company specialising in the design, development and delivery of custom applications and digital experiences.
* HP bought Tower Software, an Australian software company that developed software to help businesses manage records and comply with industry regulations. Tower Software is handled in SA through SecureData Content, a member of the SecureData Group.
* EDS purchased UK-based Vistorm Holdings, a provider of information assurance and managed security services.
* The £21 million acquisition by Sage Group (UK) of Tekton, a UK-based construction software company. Sage owns SA's Softline.
* ISO has approved Microsoft's new Office file format.
* Excellent quarterly results from Research In Motion.
* Good quarterly numbers from Lawson Software (back in the black).
* Mediocre year-end results from China Telecom and Oc'e.
* Quarterly losses from Corel and Micron Technology.
* The appointment of Leo Apotheker as company CEO of SAP, alongside Henning Kagermann.

* The acquisition of Tiscali SpA by one of the major European telecommunications companies such as BT Group, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia or Vodafone.
* The sell-off by Spice Communications, an Indian wireless communications services company, to a Gulf-based telecommunications operator such as Emirates Telecommunications.

* Worldwide business intelligence spending will grow 11.2% in 2008, to reach $5.8 billion, says Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.4%
* Nasdaq: Up 4.9%
* Top SA share movements: Beget (+16.7%), Dialogue Group (+11.1%), DVT (-9.9%), Ideco (-12.5%), Jasco (+22.3%), SAB&T Ubuntu (+11.1%), TeleMasters (+12.2%) and Zaptronix (+13.3%)

The Financial Mail has published its latest Top Empowerment Companies list for 2008. From an ICT perspective, Paracon is number one (and number 12 overall) and GijimaAst is second (number 13 overall). Also in the top 10 are AdaptIT, Business Connexion, Datacentrix, Dimension Data, Faritec, MTN, Mustek and Telkom.

In addition, the US BusinessWeek published its Best Performers of 2008 list. From a technology perspective, Verizon Communications came in fourth, Apple at sixth, MEMC Electronic Materials at 10 and Cognizant Technology Solutions at 19. Other entrants in the top 50 included AT&T, Autodesk, CenturyTel, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia.