Two buys for Google

The international ICT market was quiet last week; a couple of acquisitions by Google was one of the main stories.

It was also quiet at home, with the additional losses revealed by Telkom relating to its Multi Links debacle being one of the key stories.

Asher Bohbot, CEO of EOH, won the CSSA 2011 IT Personality of the Year award, and Sandi Macfie, CIO of Southern Sun Hotels, won the 2011 Visionary CIO title.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Vodacom, with revenue up 7.6% and profit up 2.8%.

* Mixed interim numbers from Amecor, with revenue up 18.3% but profit down 0.2%.

* Mixed year-end figures from Business Connexion, with revenue up 6.3% but profit down 30%.

* Neotel has indicated that in the first half of 2011, revenue grew by 25%, and that for the first time the latest quarterly EBITDA figures were in positive territory.

* A negative trading update from Telkom SA.

* Datatec's Westcon acquired Sentronics SD, a South African VAD of IT physical security and video solutions.

* Clear Voice, a VOIP communications company, merged with iConnect, an independent provider of converged voice and data solutions.

* The Department of Communications has gazetted the draft Electronic Communications Amendment Bill for public consultation. It includes a strengthening of the powers of the ministry and ICASA.

* Gateway Communications, part of the Vodacom Group, has opened an office in Beirut, Lebanon.

* Asher Bohbot, CEO of EOH, has won the CSSA 2011 IT Personality of the Year award, and Sandi Macfie, CIO of Southern Sun Hotels, won the 2011 Visionary CIO title.

* Andries Lombaard was appointed SA country manager for IDC.

* Best Buy also purchased its British partner, Carphone Warehouse Group's share in their US mobile phone 50:50 joint venture, for $1.3 billion.

* Google acquired Apture, a company whose technology adds contextual links when surfing the Web.

* Google also purchased Katango, a company that develops social algorithms that improve people's online social interaction.

* Platinum Equity acquired Kodak's Image Sensor solutions business.

* Rakuten (Japan) bought Kobo, the maker of a popular e-reader in Canada, for $315 million.

* A consortium, led by Siris Capital Group, acquired Tekelec, a mobile broadband vendor.

* Chinese officials will investigate China Telecom and Unicom China regarding alleged monopolistic activities.

* Very good quarterly figures from Nvidia and Rackspace.

* Good quarterly numbers from Capgemini, Mahindra Satyam and Tencent Holdings.

* Satisfactory quarterly results from Sykes Enterprises, Telus, Trend Micro and ViaSat.

* Mixed quarterly figures from Amdocs, with revenue up but profit down; Cisco, with revenue up but profit down; Deutsche Telekom, with revenue down but profit up; and NTT, with revenue up but profit down.

* Mixed half-year figures from Vodafone, with revenue up but profit down.

* Quarterly losses from CSC, Renren, Sina, SMIC and Telefonica.

* Carlos Rodriguez was appointed CEO of ADP.

* Gary Butler resigned as CEO of ADP.

* Tudor Brown retired as president and company-founder of ARM Holdings.

* A planned IPO in Japan from Nexon, a South Korean online games developer, which could raise as much as $1.3 billion.

* A planned IPO, possibly early in 2012, by Yelp, an online consumer-review company.

* Three possible IPOs in Iraq - Asiacell, Korek and Zain Iraq.

* A very good IPO on the NYSE by Imperva, a data security software company.

International:
* The impact of the floods in Thailand that could cause a shortage of hard disk drives, and hit the supply of PCs by companies such as Dell and HP.

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the future of Business Connexion.

* Mobile data traffic is expected to grow tenfold by 2016, mainly driven by video traffic, according to Ericsson.

* Enterprise IT spending in EMEA will reach EUR604 billion this year, predicts Gartner. This is a 1.4% decline from 2010, although a growth of 2.3% is expected in 2012. The MEA portion (20%), however, should experience a small growth in 2011.

* Worldwide online music revenue from end-user spending is on track to reach $6.3 billion this year, according to Gartner.

* The worldwide security services market will reach $35.1 billion in 2011 and is forecast to reach $38.3 billion in 2012, says Gartner.

* Africa is now the world's second largest mobile market by connections after Asia, and the fastest growing market in the world, according to the GSMA Africa Mobile Observatory 2011 report. In Q4, the number of connections reached 649 million.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.1%
* Nasdaq: Down 0.3%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (+12.5%), Ansys (+17.1%), BCX 'A' (-8.5%), CompuClearing (-7.7%), Huge Group (-11.8%), MICROmega (+18.8%), Morvest (+9.5%), Poynting Antennas (-12.5%) and Stella Vista (+100%)

AfricaCom was held last week in Cape Town and is the largest ICT event to be held on the African continent. The show had over 6 000 pre-registered participants from over 100 countries and from over 1 500 companies.

Some of the recent research undertaken by the Informa Group includes the following:

* By the end of 2011, SIM penetration will reach 60%;

* By 2015, 20% of Internet traffic will be carried by cellular networks, as compared to 3% globally;

* South Africa ranks number one in the African mobile readiness index, followed by Kenya and Egypt, although the indications are that the take-off here is far slower than in many countries in East Africa; and

* Mobile and fixed broadband connections in Africa will reach over 350 million by 2016 as compared to 30 million today.

In addition, many companies have turned their attention to the continent and are investing heavily, including SES, one of the world's top satellite operators. One of the reasons behind these initiatives is the world deadline for the digitisation of all TV broadcasts that has been set for 2015, as satellites can play an important role in ensuring the maximum number of homes can watch digital TV once the deadline for the switchover has passed.

The challenge on the African continent is seen as more acute than elsewhere, as only 82 million homes of an estimated 234 million households in sub-Saharan Africa have a TV set, and many of the 82 million are unlikely to be digitally enabled.

SES has planned for an additional 13 satellites in orbit over the next four years, with three of them by the end of 2012, which will be dedicated to fast-growing economies in Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific.