The international ICT market was dominated last week by Broadcom's multibillion-dollar acquisition of NetLogic, and the very poor quarterly numbers from Research In Motion.
At home, the very positive year-end results by EOH and Pinnacle stole much of the local limelight.
Key local news of the past week
Facebook is delaying its IPO until late 2012.
Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners
* Excellent full-year figures from Pinnacle Technology, with revenue up 57% and profit up 58%.
* Very good year-end figures from EOH, with revenue up 43.5% and profit up 51.8%.
* Mixed full-year numbers from Mvelaserve, with revenue up 12%, but profit down 17.5%.
* A positive trading update from Datatec.
* The suspension of the shares of Dialogue Group on AltX.
* Bytes Technology Group acquired UK-based Security Partnerships, an IT security specialist.
* iLAB, a software testing company, bought its joint venture partner in the US, WDD.
* An application for the liquidation of Valor IT has been filed. The company was originally involved with the enterprise content management system for the now-defunct Cipro. The contract was subsequently cancelled.
Key African news of the past week
* ICT company Burco Business Solutions (Zimbabwe) has changed its name to Burco Technologies.
* Ali Faramawy was named president MEA for Microsoft; and Miguel Milano was appointed head of Salesforce.com's EMEA division.
Key international news
* ADP purchased Asparity Decision Solutions, a supplier of benefits decision support tools.
* Broadcom bought its rival NetLogic Microsystems, another wireless chip company, for $3.7 billion.
* CSC acquired AppLabs Technologies, a pure-play software testing and quality management service provider.
* Google purchased over 1 000 patents from IBM.
* Teradyne, a supplier of automatic test equipment, acquired LitePoint, a provider of production line test equipment for wireless products.
* Softbank made a $200 million investment in InMobi, a mobile advertising network.
* Gina Bianchini, the original founder of Ning, is back with a new start-up called Mightybell.
* Samsung Card will sell off its 20.64% stake in Samsung Everland, an amusement park operator.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Research In Motion.
* Quarterly losses from Overland Storage.
* Haim Romano was appointed CEO of Orange Israel; and Erick Schonfield was named editor of TechCrunch.
* Michael Arrington resigned as editor and founder of TechCrunch, a technology blog started in 2005 and now owned by AOL.
* A planned IPO from Baidu's travel unit, Qunar.com, in 2012.
* Facebook is delaying its IPO until late 2012.
* An imminent (October) IPO by Groupon.
Look out for
* International:
* The possible acquisition by HTC of HP's WebOS.
* A possible buyer for Yahoo.
* The name change of France Telecom-Orange to Orange.
* Africa:
* The success or otherwise of Huawei's cheap ($100) smartphone marketing operation in Nigeria.
* France Telecom closing the deal with Congo China Telecom.
* South Africa:
* Further developments on the proposed de-listing/privatisation of several listed entities.
Research results and predictions
* Worldwide semiconductor sales will decline slightly this year to $299 billion, according to Gartner.
Stock market changes
* JSE All share index: Up 2%
* Nasdaq: Up 6.3%
* Top SA share movements: BCX 'A' shares (-9.6%), ConvergeNet Holdings (+19%), Jasco (-10%), MiX Telematics (+10.4%), MICROmega (+24%), PBT (+12.1%) Poynting Antennas (-9.1%) and Telemasters (+11.1%)
Final word
The 'Best Employers 2011' list has just been published and was great for local technology companies, with four appearing in the top 10 overall: Microsoft SA at number one; Accenture SA at number two; SAP SA at three; and Vodacom Group at six.
Also mentioned was Telkom at four in the 'large-sized employers' list; Cisco Systems SA at five in the 'small-sized employers' list; and SAS Institute at nine in the 'small-sized employers' list. MTN SA came top of the 'best empowered employers' list.
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