The world in crisis

In the midst of the current worldwide financial crisis, international ICT activity in the last two weeks was mainly focused on the quarterly financial results that were announced during this time.

At home, the DOC's battle regarding the self-provisioning for VANS is still a hot topic; the industry is waiting for the outcome of this ongoing scuffle, which will take place later this week.

* Excellent year-end numbers by non-listed XON, with revenue up 80% and profit up 140%.
* Good interim numbers from Datatec, with revenue up 18% and profit up 13%.
* Mixed year-end figures from SecureData, with revenue up 83% but profit down 66%.
* Good year-end figures from Poynting Antennas, with revenue up over 27% and profit up almost three times.
* Positive trading updates from Alliance Trading and Spescom.
* ConvergeNet Holdings acquired 74% of Chrystalpine, a supplier of infrastructure technology products, which in turn holds 100% of Contract Kitting. The deal was worth R143 million.
* MTN has created a joint venture with Amaracos Holdings that will give its Cyprus operations an expanded distribution network.
* Peet van Rooyen was appointed MD of LG Electronics SA.

* France Telecom signed a joint venture with Hits Telecom Uganda to create Orange Uganda, which will be 53% owned by France Telecom.
* Steen Lomholt-Thomson was appointed VP and GM of HP Software's EMEA region.

I'm surprised by the persistence of the local owners to continue with Futurex, since this is contrary to the overseas trends.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Intel bought NetEffect, a producer of Ethernet products, for $8 million.
* Novell purchased Managed Objects, a leader in the business service management field.
* IBM made a 20% investment in China-based Hisense TransTech Company (HTT), a subsidiary of Hisense Group, which offers traffic management, telecommunications infrastructure and BPO services.
* Micron Technology made a $400 million (35.6%) investment in Taiwan-based Inotera Memories, which is jointly owned by Qimonda and Nanya. The deal is the result of a sell-off by Qimonda, majority-owned by Germany's Infineon Technologies, of its holding in Inotera.
* Motorola sold off its biometrics unit to France-based Safran SA, part of Motorola's disposal of its non-core units.
* The discussions between SanDisk and Samsung have been terminated.
* Toshiba intends to buy 30% of the production capacity in its semiconductor venture with SanDisk, with the companies sharing the remaining 70%.
* Very good quarterly figures from Apple, ASML, Google, Infosys Technologies (India), Juniper Networks, Satyam Computer Services (India), VMware and ZTE (China).
* Good quarterly numbers from China Mobile, Etisalat, Logitech and Millicom International.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from AT&T, IBM, Intel, NCR, Sybase, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Xerox.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Arrow Electronics, China Netcom, China Telecom, Citrix Systems, EMC, Ericsson, HCL Technologies (India), Lexmark, Electronics, Nokia, Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Seagate Technologies, Texas Instruments and Yahoo.
* Quarterly losses from AMD, Ariba, SanDisk, Sony and Sony Ericsson.
* Ed Turney, one of the company founders of AMD, died.

* The possible entry of MTN, under its own steam, into the Indian market.

* Third quarter worldwide shipments of PCs grew 15.8%, with strong results in EMEA, according to IDC. Acer remained in the number three slot, but significantly closed the gap on both Dell and HP. Acer took over the top spot in the EMEA PC market.
* Worldwide SaaS revenue in the enterprise applications markets will grow 27% this year to $6.4 billion, predicts Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 10.4%
* Nasdaq: Down 5.7%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-31.8%), Blue Label Telecoms (-28.4%), Dialogue Group (+20%), Datatec (-36.8%), Dimension Data (-23.2%), Faritec (-21.1%), Labat Africa (-33.3%), MTN (-26.4%), Stella Vista (-34.4%) and Vox Telecom (-33%)

I'm surprised by the persistence of the local owners to continue with Futurex, since this is contrary to the overseas trends that suggest focused events, rather than generic ones, are the way forward (although there will still be a place for the few majors, such as CeBIT and Computex). Having just attended Biometrics 2008 and Storage Expo 2008 in the UK as a small part of my recent overseas trip, this message was strongly confirmed.