Where to for Palm?

The international and local ICT markets were quiet last week. Much of the focus last week internationally was on Palm and its future, after the company posted yet another quarterly loss.

At home, it was Altech's expansion plans that seemed to capture local media attention.

* Excellent quarterly numbers from Tencent Holdings, the Chinese Internet company. Naspers is its largest shareholder. Both revenue and profit were up over 70%.
* Very good interim numbers from EOH, with revenue up 40.6% and profit up 36.3%; and Poynting Antennas, with revenue up 32% and back in the black.
* Good interim figures from FoneWorx, with revenue up 16.2% and profit up 11.6%.
* Mixed interim numbers from SecureData, with revenue down 5% but profit up almost fourfold.
* Negative trading updates from DTH and MICROmega.
* UCS acquired the outstanding shares of Argility that are not currently owned by the former and its subsidiaries.
* Altech intends expanding into Brazil, China and India.
* Lars Gustavsson was appointed group CIO of Standard Bank; and Douglas Ramaphosa was named CEO of Bytes Healthcare Solutions.
* Zodwa Manase was reappointed chairman of SITA.
* Michael Jacobus, CEO of African Legend Indigo, resigned.

* A quarterly loss by Orascom Telecom (Egypt).
* BSNL (India) is no longer interested in taking a stake in Zamtel, leaving a shortlist of three companies: Altimo (Russia), LAP Green Networks (Libya) and Unitel (Angola).
* Ernest Ndukwe, executive vice-chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, resigned.

The number of Internet users in SA has now topped the five million mark.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Pegasystems, a BPM software solutions company, bought Chordiant Software, a provider of CRM software and services.
* Ericsson will acquire a controlling stake in LG-Nortel, the joint venture between Nortel Networks and LG Electronics.
* Verizon Communications will also list on Nasdaq; it is currently listed on the NYSE.
* Very good quarterly figures from alibaba.com.
* Satisfactory year-end results from China Mobile.
* Mixed quarterly figures from VimpelCom, with revenue down but back in the black.
* Quarterly losses from Palm.
* Gina Bianchini, company founder and CEO of Ning, resigned.

* International:
* A possible spin-off by Siemens of its restructured SIS IT unit.
* Africa:
* Further developments regarding Nitel.
* South Africa:
* The SITA CEO appointment.

* The number of Internet users in SA has now topped the five million mark and is expected to reach 10 million in 2014, according to World Wide Worx. However, SA is now only the fourth largest nation in Africa behind Egypt, Mauritius and Morocco in terms of Internet penetration.
* The total number of South Africans accessing the Internet through ADSL has overtaken those connecting by wireless means, according to World Wide Worx.

* JSE All share index: Up 1% (highest weekend close since June 2008)
* Nasdaq: Up 0.3% (highest weekend close since August 2008)
* Top SA share movements: CompuClearing (-11.1%), EOH (+10.6%), Faritec (-25%), FoneWorx (+12%), Huge (-12.6%), Stella Vista (-14.3%) and TCS (-42.9%)

At last week's IDC-hosted CIO conference in Johannesburg, Steven Frantzen, senior VP, EMEA region, presented IDC's top 10 predictions for Africa. They are, in no priority order:

* The global economic uncertainty will continue to impact new investments in 2010, although growth is set to resume, with a 10%-11% increase in IT spending projected for Africa this year.
* There will be a greater focus on data centre efficiency, with consolidation, standardisation and automation driving improved utilisation rates.
* Cautious optimism towards IT cloud services, with CIO interest being driven by the cloud model's advantages of lower capital outlay and operating costs.
* The growth and changing dynamics of the telecommunications industry, for instance, with submarine fibre connectivity driving major drops in bandwidth pricing that will boost Internet adoption.
* Further focus on application modernisation and consolidation.
* Enterprise information integration that will allow better access to critical information.
* Governance and regulatory compliance, which will become a growing part of IT strategy and operations.
* Security, which remains at the top of the CIO agenda in Africa.
* A data explosion that will force companies to address the storage management crisis.
* A continued emphasis on transformation, ie the acceleration of electronic administration in several African countries.