Acer CEO steps down

The international ICT market was dominated by the shock resignation of Acer's CEO, and a raft of multibillion-dollar acquisitions and investments.

At home, the failed launch of the New Dawn satellite - a venture between Convergence Partners and Intelsat - and the news that Telkom has finally disposed of its Nigerian Multi-Links CDMA business, stole much of the local ICT media space.

* An interim loss from Poynting Antennas, although revenue up 5%.

* Excellent year-end numbers from Cape Empowerment, with revenue up 169% and back in the black.

* Mixed year-end figures from Dialogue Group, with revenue down 17.5%, but back in the black.

* Mediocre year-end figures from MICROmega Holdings, with revenue down 9% and profit down 56%.

* Dialogue Group is to be wound up and de-listed.

* The New Dawn Intelsat satellite launch was aborted due to a “technical hitch”.

* Telkom shares gained nearly 2% on Friday after the news that it had sold part of its Multi-Links business in Nigeria for R345.7 million.

* The Tunisian government acquired 51% of Orange Tunisia, the share owned by the son-in-law of the recently ousted president.

* Visaphone bought the CDMA business of Telkom SA's Multi-Links Telecommunications for $52 million.

* Orascom Telecom (Egypt) is seeking to raise its capital and divide the company into two.

* Orascom Telecom is looking to reduce its stake in Telecel Zimbabwe to 49% from 60%.

The New Dawn Intelsat satellite launch was aborted due to a “technical hitch”.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Advantest (Japan) purchased Verigy for $1.1 billion, in a move that allows the Japanese maker of testing systems for memory chips to diversify and reduce its dependence on the often volatile demand for PCs.

* Cisco acquired NewScale, a self-service IT software provider.

* eBay bought GSI Commerce, a provider of e-commerce and interactive marketing services, in a deal worth $2.4 billion.. The purchase moves eBay into Amazon's turf.

* Philippine Long Distance Telephone bought Digital Telecommunications Philippines, a mobile player in that country, for $1.7 billion.

* Research In Motion acquired tinyHippos, a Canadian start-up that has created a cross-platform mobile application development and testing tool, Ripple.

* Salesforce.com purchased Radian6, a Canadian start-up that eavesdrops on what people are saying about its customer's product on social media, blogs and boards, and also spots influencers. The deal was worth $340 million.

* Vodafone bought out Essar Group's 33% stake in its Indian joint venture for $5 billion.

* Wipro purchased SAIC's energy IT services business, which provides consulting, systems integration and outsourcing to that industry, in a deal worth $150 million.

* Microsoft has filed an anti-trust complaint against Google, with the European Commission.

* Good quarterly numbers from Tibco Software.

* Satisfactory quarterly results from Lawson Software, Progress Software (back in the black) and VimpelCom.

* Mixed quarterly figures from China Unicom, with revenue up but profit down.

* Quarterly losses from Foxconn International (Taiwan).

* The appointments of Jack Dorsey as executive chairman and head of product development at Twitter (he was the company founder); JT Lang as CEO of Acer (he is already chairman); and Mike Lunsford as interim CEO of RealNetworks.

* The resignations of Robert Kimball, CEO of RealNetworks, and Gianfranco Lanci, president and CEO of Acer.

* The death of Henry Taub, who founded ADP in 1949.

* A planned IPO in the UK from UK payments company, Skrill Holdings.

* An excellent IPO on the NYSE by China's Qihoo 360, a company that owns the country's second most popular browser and is the third most popular Internet organisation.

International:
* A possible bid by Oracle for Lawson Software, the latter having already received a $1.8 billion offer from Infor and Golden Gate Capital.

South Africa:
* The landing in SA this month of the West African Cable System (WACS), which is due to be commercially launched in Q1 2012.

* Worldwide IT spending is forecast to grow 5.6% in 2011 to $3.4 trillion, according to Gartner.

* The smartphone market is expected to grow 49.2% in 2011 to more than 450 million units, according to IDC, with the Android operating system accounting for a market share of 39.5% versus a market share of 20.9% for Symbian.

* JSE All share index: Up 2.5%

* Nasdaq: Up 1.7%

* Top SA share movements: AdaptIT (+15.4%), Cape Empowerment (+8.7%), Dialogue Group (-30%), FoneWorx (-10.5%), Gijima (+14.5%), Ifca Technologies (-10%), Labat Africa (-18.9%) and Poynting Antennas (+28.6%)

Fortune magazine recently published its annual World's Most Admired companies list. From a technology perspective, Apple and Google retained the number one and two positions, followed by Amazon at number seven, Microsoft at nine and IBM at 12. Also in the top 50 were Accenture, Cisco, Intel, Netflix, Oracle, Samsung Electronics and Sony.