VimpelCom, Weather Investments merge

In the last two weeks, the international ICT market saw the announcement of the VimpelCom's deal with Weather Investments, which includes Orascom Egypt and Wind.

There were also rumours surrounding EMC and Oracle, Microsoft and Adobe, Yahoo and Seagate Technology.

At home, the launch of Telkom's 8ta and the increased offer by Datatec for Comztek, which has now been rejected by the latter's board, were two of the major items that took up local ICT media space.

* Good interim figures from Datatec, with revenue up 19% and profit almost double.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Datacentrix, with revenue up 22% and profit up 4%.

* Mixed interim figures from Altron, with revenue down 3% but profit up 5%; and ISA, with revenue up 2.5% but profit down 11%.

* An interim loss from Ifca Technologies, although revenue up slightly.

* Mixed year-end figures from SecureData, with revenue down 1% but profit up more than double.

* A positive trading update from Ansys.

* A negative trading update from Silverbridge.

* Datatec acquired the last remaining 2.6% of Westcon it doesn't already own, for $14.2 million.

* Dimension Data bought New Zealand-based Axon Computer Systems, an IT services company.

* Datatec has upped its offer for Comztek to R101 million, a deal that has now been rejected by the Mustek board.

* Telkom SA unveiled its new mobile service - 8ta.

* Jacques de Villiers was appointed CEO of African Cellular Towers; and Steve Tredoux was named non-executive chairman of Huge Group.

* The resignations of Lorna Hardie, country manager of HP Networking; Chris Kruger, CEO of African Cellular Towers (stays on as executive chairman); and Anton Potgieter, chairman of Huge Group (stays on as a director and MD of Huge Media).

* The Nigerian government has approved the sale of Nitel to a consortium that includes China Unicom.

* Ignatius Sehoole was appointed VP of the South and East Africa regions of MTN.

* Accenture purchased Ariba's outsourcing business for $51 million.

Telkom SA unveiled its new mobile service - 8ta.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

** BMC bought Neptuny, an Italian IT company.

* Broadcom purchased Beceem Communications, a 4G chipmaker, for $316 million.

* CSC acquired Vulnerability Research Labs, a cyber threat intelligence company.

* IBM bought PSS Systems, a company that helps organisations analyse, automate and implement information governance policies.

* Nokia Siemens Networks purchased Iris Telecom, a Turkish telecommunications and engineering services company.

* Oracle acquired Passlogix, a provider of security sign-on solutions.

* Softbank purchased Willcom, a Japanese provider of so-called handy-phone systems.

* Yahoo acquired Dapper, a display advertisement creation and optimisation company.

* The $6.8 billion merger of VimpelCom (Russia) and Egypt-based Weather Investments will create the world's fifth largest telecommunications carrier by subscribers and with operating revenue in excess of $21 billion. After the finalisation of the deal, VimpelCom will own, through Weather, 51.7% of Orascom Telecom, and 100% of Wind Italy.

* Excellent quarterly results from ASML Holding NV, HTC and Micron Technology (back in the black).

* Very good quarterly figures from Google.

* Good quarterly numbers from AU Optronics, Infosys Technologies and Intel.

* Mediocre quarterly results from Atos Origin.

* Mixed quarterly figures from Sony Ericsson, with revenue down but back in the black.

* Quarterly losses from AMD.

* The appointments of Tony Bates (ex-Cisco) as CEO of Skype; and Dick Costolo as CEO of Twitter.

* The resignations of Harvey Chang, CEO and president of Taiwan Mobile (as of 31 December); Thomas Tieman, CEO of Synaptics, a touch-screen technology provider; and Evan Williams, CEO and co-founder of Twitter.

* Planned IPOs from TDS AS, the Danish telecommunications operator that is currently owned by a number of private equity companies; and TPK (Taiwan), a supplier of touch-screens for Apple.

* A possible IPO by Russia's Mail.ru, an Internet company that has Naspers among its major shareholders, in a deal that could raise $750 million.

International:

* A possible take-over of Adobe by Microsoft.

* A possible acquisition of Comverse Technology, a telecommunications software maker. Amdocs, HP, and IBM and Oracle are some of the names associated with this deal.

* A possible take-over of F5 Networks by Cisco, HP, Juniper or Oracle.

* The possible privatisation of Seagate Technology.

* The possible acquisition of Yahoo by private equity groups.

* The possible buy-out of EMC by Oracle. EMC's market capitalisation is almost $44 billion, so any deal would be a very large one, although Oracle has at least 50% of this available in cash if necessary.

Africa:

* The opening of offices by SecureData in Kenya and Nigeria.

South Africa:

* A possible de-listing by Vox Telecom.

* Worldwide PC shipments in Q3 grew 7.6%, well below expectations, according to Gartner. Lenovo had the largest growth percentage and Asus replaced Toshiba for the number five slot.

* Worldwide media tablet sales are expected to reach 19.5 million units this year, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.4% (highest weekend close since June 2008)

* Nasdaq: Up 2.8%

* Top SA share movements: Cape Empowerment (+11.1%), Datacentrix (+9.6%), Dialogue Group (+42.9%), Ifca Technologies (-12.5%), Labat Africa (-14.3%), MiX Telematics (-11.6%), MICROmega (-26.2%), Naspers (+9%), Stella Vista (-14.3%) and TeleMasters (-10.9%)

A recent survey by TNS, a market research organisation, shows the emerging markets are overtaking Western Europe and North America in social networking, and reveal sharp regional differences in patterns of behaviour. The top social network countries by users shows Egypt and Saudi Arabia at joint number one, with 56% of the online population being 'highly engaged', followed closely by China (55%). South Africa was in joint sixth place, with Kenya, at 51%. France was the highest placed Western nation, with 48%, and the UK and US trailed at 42%.