Western Digital goes shopping

Western Digital's multibillion-dollar takeover of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was the highlight of the international ICT market last week.

At home, the Gijima settlement with government stole much of the local ICT space in the media.

* Good interim numbers from CompuClearing, with revenue up 13% and profit up 18%; Metrofile, with revenue up 11.5% and profit up 34%; and Mvelaserve, with revenue up 18.2% and profit up 34%.

* An interim loss by Gijima, with revenue also down 15%.

* Mixed year-end figures from MTN, with revenue up 2.5% but profit down 2%. Subscriptions rose 22% to 141.6 million.

* A positive trading update from Datatec.

* Negative trading updates from Jasco and Poynting Antennas.

* Altech announced a BEE deal (25% + one share) for three of its subsidiaries, ie, Altech Alcom Matamo, Altech Alcom Radio Distributors and Altech Fleetcall, with Southern Palace Group of Companies, an industrial holding company that has interests in telecommunications, transport, automotive, equipment manufacturing and scrap metal recycling.

* Government and Gijima have settled the matter of the Who Am I Online Home Affairs project that will see the latter continuing the project, although incurring certain manageable losses.

* The name change of Simeka Business Group to Morvest Business Group is now in place.

* Biodata Westcon Security was appointed the South African distributor for SonicWall products.

* Cable & Wireless is re-branding its African operations under a new name, ie, Afinis Communications.

* The appointments of Ahmed Faroukh as MTN's VP for its West and Central Africa region; Brett Goschen as CEO of MTN Nigeria (was CEO MTN Ghana); and Michael Ikpoki as CEO of MTN Ghana.

Government and Gijima have settled the matter of the Who Am I Online Home Affairs project.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* UK-based Digia, a technology services company, acquired Nokia's Qt commercial licensing and services business.

* Facebook bought Beluga, a mobile messaging software vendor.

* Google purchased UK's BeatThatQuote.com, a price comparison Web site, for £37.7 million.

* Google also acquired Next New Networks, a video Web site start-up.

* Lawson Software, a US-based provider of business software, received an unsolicited $1.8 billion cash buyout offer from Infor Global Solutions and Golden Gate Capital Partners.

* NetApp acquired LSI's external storage systems unit for $480 million.

* Open Text bought weComm, a UK-based developer of a robust and scalable software platform that provides the infrastructure essential for successful mobile content-driven applications.

* Sony purchased UK-based Hawk-Eye, the ball tracking technology utilised by tennis and cricket.

* Western Digital bought Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, for $4.3 billion.

* Good quarterly numbers from Gemalto and QAD.

* Mixed quarterly figures from Inmarsat, with revenue down but profit up; and National Semiconductor, with revenue down but profit up.

* Kazuo Hirai was appointed executive deputy president of Sony, in a move that appears to make him a potential successor to current CEO Howard Stringer.

* Bill Morrow resigned as CEO of Clearwire.

* A planned IPO from Micromax Infomatics, India's mobile handset maker, on India's stock market.

* A planned IPO on the NYSE by Fusion-io, an enterprise server storage solution provider.

* A successful IPO on the NYSE by MagnaChip Semiconductor.

International:

* The possible sell-off by Deutsche Telekom of T-Mobile to Sprint Nextel, in exchange for a share of the enlarged group.
* The plan by Telmex (Mexico) to split into two companies, one of which will serve rural and marginalised areas where competitors haven't invested.

Africa:

* The possible termination of the privatisation of Nitel, a move that could also see a merger with Nigerian Communications Satellite that has a 15% stake in Nitel.
* The possible nationalisation of Orange Mobile in Tunisia.

South Africa:

* The possible acquisition by MTN of NetOne (Zimbabwe).

* The worldwide disk storage systems market grew 14.3% in Q4 2010 to reach just under $8.3 billion, with EMC maintaining its number one position but Hitachi replacing Dell for the number five slot, according to IDC.

* The worldwide software storage market grew 10.6% in Q4 2010 to reach $3.4 billion, with the top five players (EMC, Symantec, IBM, NetApp and Hitachi) remaining in those positions, reports IDC.

* The worldwide external controller-based disk storage market grew by 18.1% in 2010 to more than $19.4 billion, with EMC retaining its number one slot, but NetApp taking the number three slot from HP, according to Gartner.

* The worldwide hardcopy peripheral market grew 7% in Q4 2010 to 36.5 million units, the highest level seen since 2007, according to IDC.

* Almost 18 million media tablets were shipped in 2010, with Apple capturing an 83% share, says IDC, and almost 12 million e-book readers shipped with Amazon taking a 48% share.

* JSE All share index: Down 3.6%
* Nasdaq: Down 2.5%

As I am in the US on business, my next column will appear on Monday, 28 March, and will cover the two-week intervening period.