Telkom's bad tidings

The international ICT market was exceptionally quiet last week, especially in the US, which celebrated Thanksgiving Day.

However, the local ICT market "belonged" to Telkom, which not only had the Competitions Commission turn down its proposed take-over of Business Connexion (BCX) but also potentially lost the Telecordia dispute that has been ongoing for many years.

* The Competition Commission recommended to the Competition Tribunal that the Telkom/BCX deal should be vetoed on the grounds that anti-competitive behaviour by Telkom could result should the deal proceed.
* The Supreme Court of Appeal's ruling against Telkom regarding its dispute with Telcordia Technologies, that could cost Telkom over R2 billion.

* Excellent full-year figures from DataPro, with revenue up over 100% and profit up over three times.
* Good full-year numbers from Reunert, with revenue up 17% and profit up 29%.
* The listing of Celcom, a BEE telecommunications group, on the JSE's AltX.
* A positive trading update from Cape Empowerment Trust.
* Negative trading updates from Beget Holdings and Labat Africa.
* EOH acquired Bromide Technologies.
* A R1.1 billion BEE deal by Reunert that puts a 10% stake in the hands of Retona, a special-purpose vehicle set up to facilitate the transaction.
* Dimension Data acquired a 51% interest in Namibian ICT Holdings and, via its Merchants unit, entered a joint venture with TSYS to provide a range of managed services to financial institutions.
* Sekunjalo bought 50.1% of Saratoga, a software and services company.
* Lechabile purchased a majority stake in Knowledge Dimension, an applications software developer.
* The appointments of Peter Boyd as CEO of Virgin Mobile SA; and Tony van Marken as executive chairman of DataPro.
* The resignations of Klaus Lamer, a founder and director of Datacentrix; YT Moerane, chairman of DataPro; and Sajeed Sacranie, CEO of Virgin Mobile SA.
* The suspension of Khutso Mampeule, group CEO of SA Post Office.

* Good Q3 numbers from Orascom Telecom Holding, with revenue up 35% over September 2005, and net income up 12%.
* Nokia opened an office in Mozambique.

Telkom not only had the Competitions Commission turn down its proposed take-over of BCX, but also potentially lost the Telecordia dispute.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* The Australian government raised A$15.5 billion from the sale of part of its stake in Telstra, leaving the former with a 17% stake that it will transfer to an investment fund set up to pay government pension liabilities.
* Sony and NXP Semiconductor to form a company to focus on contactless IC-card operations.
* New World Mobile Holdings (HK) will sell its 23.6% stake in its joint venture with Telstra to its parent, New World Development.
* Oger Telecom, the major shareholder in Cell C, abandoned its planned IPO.
* Siemens is still struggling to sell its loss-making business telecommunications unit.
* The appointments of Glen Antle as chairman and interim CEO of Trident Microsystems; Rakesh Bhasin as CEO of Colt Telecom; Mark Floyd as chairman of Tekelec; Mike Lunsford as interim CEO of EarthLink; Charles McKenna as CEO of Ibis Technology; and Dave Shrigley as CEO of Wolfson Microelectronics.
* The resignations of Jean-Yves Charlier, CEO of Colt Telecom; Frank Lin, CEO of Trident Microsystems; and David Milne, CEO of Wolfson Microelectronics.
* The retirement of Jean-Claude Asscher, chairman of Tekelec.
* Analyst upgrades for Adobe, Brocade Communications Systems, Check Point Software Technologies, Dell, Juniper Networks, Mentor, Microsoft, Network Appliance, PortalPlayer, QLogic, Sonus Networks, Trident Microsystems and Verizon Communications.
* Analyst downgrades for Actuate, Adtran, Alaska Communications Systems, CDW, Cognos, Dycom, Essex, Harte-Hanks, Infineon Technologies AG, Kenexa, LAM Research, McData, Novell and RightNow Technologies.
* Negative result warnings from Esmertec AG, NEC and Sanyo Electric.
* Stock repurchase announcements from Key Technology and Matsushita Electric.
* A job loss announcement from AMD.
* Private funding obtained for KoolSpan, a wireless security vendor; Natural Convergence, a VOIP software maker; Optaros, an open source software integrator; and RipCode, an Internet video content business.
* A private placing of stock by Interplay Entertainment.
* A stock offering announcement by Gilat Satellite Networks.
* A planned IPO from Lombardi Software, a business process management software vendor; and an IPO on London's AIM by xG Technology, a 4G wireless technology vendor.

* A potential sell-off by Deutsche Telkom of some of the non-core parts of T-Systems.
* The spin-off by India's Reliance Communications of its telecommunications tower business.
* A possible investment in Telecom Italia by the Blackstone Group.
* A possible sell-off by Vodafone of its stake in Swisscom AG to the latter.
* A sell-off by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering to the Carlyle Group in a deal valued at between $5 billion and $6 billion.

* CRM software and services will continue to grow at about 7% per annum with customers concentrating on extracting more value from their existing software rather than investing in new licences, according to Forrester Research.
* Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached $10.97 billion in Q306, up 14% from Q206, says SEMI.
* The Q3 worldwide server market grew 3.5% from last year to $12.9 billion with HP number one from a shipment perspective, although by value IBM was tops, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 3.5% (highest ever weekend close).
* Nasdaq: Up 0.6% (highest weekend close for over five years).
* Top SA share movements: Alliance Data (+13%), Beget Holdings (-20%), Cape Empowerment Trust (+17.8%), Control (+11.5%), Dimension Data (+11.1%), Dynamic Cables (+11.8%), I-Solutions (-9.4%) and Simeka BSG (-11.7%).
* Top international share movements: Adept Technology (+27.1%), Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (+21.4%), Cray (+20.3%), Exabyte (-34.7%), InfoNow (-20%), Isonics (+33.5%), Micro Component Technology (-25%) and Terayon Communication Systems (+31.3%).

Total Telecom Magazine published its Global 100 list. At number one was NTT, followed by Verizon Communications, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and Vodafone Group. Telkom is at number 37 and MTN at number 58.