WorldCom aftershock

The acquisition of PayPal, which had its initial public offering only a few weeks ago, by eBay for $1.5 billion, and the continued reverberations following the WorldCom scandal, dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.

Only two technology companies made the top 10 of Business Week`s Global 1000, a rating that is calculated by market value.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

At home, arivia.kom`s maiden results and the continuing battle between AT&T and Telkom stole much of the local IT/telecoms headline space.

* we saw satisfactory maiden year-end (15 months) numbers from arivia.kom;

* poor year-end figures from Connection Group (revenue up but profit significantly down);

* a full-year (15 months) loss from Acuity (revenue also well down); and

* a half-year loss from E-Data (no revenue).

[Local]

Other local news included:

* share re-purchase announcements from Mustek;

* the reverse listing into E-Data by John Daniel Containers, thus terminating yet another technology stock listing;

* Fisher Hoffman PKF`s filing of a complaint with the Public Accountants` and Auditors` Board, against the directors of Elexir;

* the appointments of Mthunzi Mdwaba as non-executive chairman of Sourcecom Technology Solutions and Teryl Schroenn as MD of Accsys;

* the resignation of Eric Molobi, chairman of Telkom;

* the final closure and failure of DataMirror`s hostile bid for Idion; and

* EDS`s loss of the Standard Bank card processing services contract.

* we saw the closure of Virgin Mobile Singapore, the joint venture between Virgin and Singapore Telecomms;

* the "nomination" of David Dorman as the expected successor to AT&T`s Michael Armstrong following the latter`s departure to become chairman of Comcast-AT&T; and

* yet another financial numbers change by Xerox, the second this month.

Additionally, look out for a possible $4.6 billion bid by Vodafone for Vivendi`s 44% stake in French Telecomms company Cegetal SA; the possible sell-off by Deutsche Telekom of its IT services arm; the possible merger of VoiceStream Wireless and AT&T Wireless, a deal that if consummated would create the US`s second largest cellular company behind Verizon Wireless; the possible resignation of Ron Sommer, CEO of Deutsche Telekom; the possible closure of one of Inktomi`s operating units; and the final outcome of the scheme of arrangement for Bell Canada International.

[International]

Other international news included:

* the appointments of Bernard Bailey as CEO and president of Viisage Technology, Matthew Desch as CEO of Telcordia Technologies, Scott Dickson as acting CEO of Network Commerce, Ali Jenab as CEO of VA Software, Richard Jennings as CEO of Logistechs, Paul Shorthose as chairman of ATG, and Mark Young as CEO of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young North America;

* the resignations of Larry Augustin, founder and CEO of VA Software, and Dwayne Walker, CEO of Network Commerce; and

* job loss announcements from Accenture, Citrix Systems, Flextronics, Fujitsu, HP, i2 Technologies, Inktomi, Juniper Networks, Pace Micro, Read-Rite, Sprint and Terabeam.

Good numbers were recorded by eBay, IDS Scheer AG, McAfee.com (back in the black), Network Associates (back in the black), PentaSafe, Powerwave Technologies (back in the black) and Yahoo (back in the black).

Satisfactory figures were posted by Accenture, BCT International, First Data, Inet Technologies (back in the black), Infosys Technologies, infoUSA, PanAmSat, Printronix and Rambus.

Mediocre returns came from DoubleClick (but back in the black), High Tech Computers, Juniper Networks (but back in the black) and LG Electronics; while very poor results came from Alphameric (but back in the black) and Inforte.

Losses were reported by Active Power, Anite Group, BestNet Comms, CellStar, I-Many, ID Data, Minorplanet, NMS Comms, Numerical Technologies, Pace Micro, Retek, Rogue Wave Software, Salesforce.com, Sonus Networks, Telesoft, Transmation and Vasco Data Security.

Other financial news included share buy-back announcements from Maximus and Pericom Semiconductor; and profit warnings from ADC, Anite, Autonomy, Cable & Wireless, Caminus, Chordiant Software, Citrix Systems, Data I/O, Dot Hill Systems, DoubleClick, Exabyte, Exe Technologies, F5 Networks, Hummingbird, Iona Technologies, Mercator Software, Novadigm, Oracle, Pace Micro, Read-Rite, Redback Networks, Rogue Wave Software, Sanchez Computer Associates, SAP, SEEC, SGI, Symbol Technologies, Thus, VerticalNet, VeriSign and Vignette.

There were also share split announcements from AT&T (reverse) and Onvia (reverse). Additionally, the US Attorney`s office has started criminal investigations into Qwest Comms, and WorldCom says it will not pay an MCI dividend.

Locally

Aqua Online (-44.4%)
Cape Empowerment Trust (+33.3%)
Casey (-33.3%)
Crux (-60%)
Edutech (-50%)
Explorer (-20%)
Maxtec (-33.3%)
Pinnacle (-20%)
ShawCell (-26.3%)
Vesta (+42.9%)

Internationally

Agere Systems (+45.9%)
eXcelon (-46.7%)
Iona (-42.6%)
Lucent (+55.2%)
Nextel Comms (+41.9%)
Portal Software (-47.8%)
Rural Cellular (+43.9%)
Sanchez Computer Associates (-42.5%)
SGI (-42.5%)
WorldCom (-45.6%)

Last week Business Week listed its Global 1000, a rating that is calculated by market value. Only two technology companies made the top 10: Microsoft at number two as per last year, and Intel at number 10, up from 13.

The major technology movers in the top 100 were Oracle down from 38 to 88; AT&T down from 43 to 90; and Deutsche Telekom down from 37 to 77.