Buy, buy, buy

Welcome to my first column of 2011. As seems to be the norm over the year-end holiday season, the international ICT market was dominated by numerous acquisitions, including several by Dell and Salesforce.com.

At home, the Business Connexion/UCS deal and the appointments at MTN dominated the local ICT media space.

* Mixed full-year numbers from TeleMasters, with revenue up 2.5% but profit down 46%.
* A full-year loss from Ideco, although revenue up 53%.
* An interim loss from Labat Africa, with revenue also down slightly.
* Positive trading updates from Datatec, Metrofile and Simeka.
* Negative trading updates from Altech and Altron.
* The formal listing on the JSE of the PBT Group following a reverse takeover of the Wooltru cash shell.
* The formal de-listing on the JSE of the shares of Dimension Data.
* The suspension on the JSE of the shares of Spescom.
* Mustek may de-list from the JSE following a possible buy-out by David Kan (CEO) and the Trinitas Private Equity Fund.
* AdaptIT acquired the remaining 22.7% of its subsidiary, ApplyIT, which it doesn't already own.
* Allied Technologies purchased Swist Technology Solutions (STS), an ISV focusing on infrastructure and integration services, mobility services and software development, for R52 million. STS is also a major billing software vendor in the local market.
* Business Connexion bought certain assets of UCS, ie, Accsys, CEB Maintenance Africa, Destiny Electronic Commerce, UCS Solutions and UCS Technology Services. The deal was worth R614.2 million.
* Groupon purchased Twangoo, a local e-commerce provider, in a move that will see the local entity branded Groupon South Africa.
* ProScan Mobility acquired the RangeGate business unit of African Legend Indigo.
* Aegis BPO Holdings SA invested in Iningi Investments, a BPO start-up, which is an 83% black-owned SME.
* Datatec made a 30% investment in UK-based Cornwall Energy Associates, a research and consulting business focusing on the areas of electricity generation and distribution.
* Datatec also made a very small investment in UK-based Analysys Mason.
* World of Avatar, a technology investment company headed by Alan Knott-Craig Jnr, made a 50% investment in FSMS, SA's only free two-way SMS service.
* Kagiso Trust Investments (KTI) and Tiso Group intend to form a black-owned investment holding company, Kagiso Tiso Holdings. From a technology perspective, KTI already has a strong portfolio in the ICT sector, while Tiso has interests in Africa Cellular Towers.
* IFCA Technologies has announced an issue of shares that may result in a change in the control of the company.
* FireID, a promising start-up that was backed by Reinet, has announced its demise following the latter's decision not to extend its funding of the company.
* SA will use the European DVB-T2 digital standard to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting.
* The opening of a Johannesburg office by Outpost24, a supplier of on-demand vulnerability management solutions, which will be headed by Barry Gonsalves.
* The appointments of Sifiso Dabengwa as group CEO of MTN; JM Lee as CEO of LG Electronics SA; Blake Mosley-Lefatola as CEO of SITA; Phutuma Nhleko as non-executive chairman of MTN Group and non-executive chairman of MTN's international operations; and Gary Pickford as MD of Advanced Channel Technologies.
* The resignations of Jeffrey Hedberg, acting CEO of Telkom SA (as at end of contract in March); Anton Herbst, MD of Advanced Channel Technologies; Shameel Joosub, MD of Vodacom SA; and Peet van Rooyen, CEO of LG Electronics SA.
* Neill Schreiber, the doyen of the SA UPS industry, retired.

* American Tower Corporation (ATC) acquired part of MTN Ghana's infrastructure for $428.2 million. This deals follows close on the heels of a similar deal by ATC with Cell C locally.
* Helios Towers purchased 729 towers that belong to Millicom International's DRC subsidiary.
* Fanisi Capital made a Sh124 million investment in Elris Communications Services (Kenya), an enterprise firm that gives technical support to telecommunications companies.
* Tunisie Telecom has started procedures for a dual listing on the Paris and Tunis exchanges.
* Tunisiana (Tunisia) plans a listing on the Tunis exchange by mid-year.
* Al Madar and Libyana, two of Libya's mobile operators, will IPO on the Libyan exchange by the end of April.
* Bharti will de-list its Zambian unit from the local exchange.
* Vodacom is looking for options regarding its business interests in the DRC, ie, its 51% stake in the joint venture with Congolese Wireless Network.
* The Seychelles East Africa System cable has been commissioned, which will link Seychelles to Dar es Salaam and eventually on to the African international fibre backbone.
* ECI Telecom was unveiled in Uganda, a move that makes it the eighth telecommunications service provider in that country.

Look out for the appointment of a successor to Jeffrey Hedberg, the acting CEO of Telkom SA.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Advantest, the world's leading maker of memory-chip testers, acquired Verigy, a semiconductor testing company, for $730 million.
* AOL purchased About.me, a social networking site, and Pictela, a digital advertising company.
* Arrow Electronics bought Diasa Informatica, a European VAD of servers, storage, software and networking products in Spain and Portugal.
* Atos Origin acquired Siemens' IT Solutions and Services business, in a move that is intended to create a new European IT champion. The deal was worth EUR850 million.
* AT&T purchased wireless broadcast spectrum owned by Qualcomm, for $1.93 billion.
* Asustek bought Aaeon Technology (Taiwan), a maker of industrial computers, for $173 million.
* CDC Software acquired an un-named provider of SaaS event and membership management solutions.
* Citrix Systems purchased Netviewer AG, a software maker that allows online collaboration and video meetings.
* CSC bought Image Solutions, a global leader in regulatory submission implementation and outsourcing services for the life sciences sector.
* Dell purchased Compellent, a data storage company, for $960 million. In 2010, Dell was beaten to the punch by HP for the acquisition of 3Par, another data storage company, and EMC snapped up Isilion.
* Dell acquired InSite One, a cloud-based medical archiving company, and SecureWorks, a security firm.
* Dover, an industrial conglomerate, bought NXP Semiconductor's Sound Solutions business, which makes speaker and receiver components for the mobile handset market. The deal was worth $855 million.
* EarthLink acquired One Communications Corporation, a communications company, for $370 million. The deal follows closely on the former's acquisition of another communications company, ITC DeltaCom.
* eBay purchased Brands4friends, a private shopping club, and Critical Path Software, its mobile application developer.
* Epicor bought Spectrum Human Resource, a maker of Web-based HR systems, for $16 million.
* Ericsson acquired Optimi, a US-Spanish telecommunications vendor that provides products and services within the network optimisation and management sector.
* Google purchased eBook Technologies, an end-to-end e-book technology start-up, and Zetawire, a start-up that has been working on technology that turns a cellphone into a virtual wallet.
* Groupon bought SoSasta (India) and Grouper (Israel).
* Hitachi Consulting acquired Sierra Atlantic, an offshore enterprise applications and outsourced product development company.
* iGate and Apax Partners acquired Patni Computer Systems, the Indian outsourcing company, for $1.2 billion.
* Imagination Technologies, the group that designs chips for Apple's iPad, bought Caustic Graphics, the company that has patented ray-tracing technology that creates cinema-quality 3D images. The deal was worth $27 million.
* Juniper Networks purchased Altor Networks, a maker of security software for virtual data centres. The deal was worth $95 million.
* Lawson Software acquired Enwisen, an HR management software maker, for $70 million.
* Motorola Mobility purchased Zecter, a company that offers synchronisation and streaming technologies for on-demand digital media consumption.
* NetApp bought Akorri Networks, a provider of data centre management software.
* Nokia (Navteq) acquired Trapster, the speed trap and road hazard tracking company.
* Qualcomm purchased Atheros Communications, a provider of connectivity chips, in a move designed to fill a hole in the former's chip-making operations. The deal was worth $3.1 billion.
* Rackspace Hosting bought Cloudkick, a provider of Web applications for easy and efficient cloud-server management.
* Raytheon purchased Applied Signal Technology, a provider of surveillance and communications systems, for $490 million.
* Riverbed Technologies purchased Radware, the Israeli maker of networking products, for $895 million.
* Rovi bought Sonic Solutions, which owns the digital video player software DivX, in a move intended to broaden its footprint across the digital entertainment space. The deal was worth $720 million.
* Salesforce.com acquired Heroku, an Internet-based system for applications written in the Ruby programming language, for $212 million. It also bought Dimdim, a cloud computing company, in a move that allows Salesforce.com to add real-time communications to Chatter, its collaboration product; and Etacts, a contact management start-up.
* SAP purchased Disclosure Management Solutions, which comprises cundus Financial Statement factory and cundus intellectual property, customer contracts and certain employees; and the software and related assets of Secude, a security software provider.
* Skype acquired Qik, a mobile video company.
* SMSC purchased Conexant Systems, another chipmaker that will help strengthen the former's foothold in the automotive and industrial markets. The deal was worth $200 million.
* Teradata bought Aprimo, a marketing cloud computing and SaaS provider, for $525 million.
* Tibco purchased Loyalty Lab, a company that develops programs for retail companies.
* Toshiba acquired Fujitsu's stake in Toshiba's hard disk joint venture.
* France's state-backed Strategic Investment Fund made a EUR695 million investment in Areva's 11% stake in STMicroelectronics.
* Several investors made a $950 million investment in Groupon, including Russia's DST, a company in which Naspers has a stake. This appears to be the largest-ever single round of venture capital financing by a private company.
* Motorola has split into two entities, ie, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions.
* Steve Jobs has been voted CEO of the decade by MarketWatch, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Jones.
* Time magazine has named Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, as 2010 Person of the Year.
* LimeWire, one of the world's largest outlets for people to share music, movies and TV shows, has closed down.
* Grupo Iusacell, a Mexican network operator, has filed for pre-arranged bankruptcy and is seeking a second restructuring of its debt with creditors in just four years.
* The private equity owners of Telcordia Technologies announced that the company been put on the auction block, and is expected to raise close to $1.5 billion. The company was in a long-running dispute with Telkom SA that was only resolved last year, with the latter forking out $80 million.
* Intel is paying Nvidia $1.5 billion for resolution of their licence dispute.
* Satyam Computer Services wants to list again on the NYSE.
* Yahoo intends closing several “underperforming” and “non-core” Web properties such as AltaVista, a search site.
* Apple and Oracle have been identified as members of the Microsoft-led consortium, buying 882 patents from Novell.
* Vivendi and Deutsche Telekom have settled their long-running dispute over PTC, the Polish mobile operator. The result is that the former will receive EUR1.25 billion for its stake in PTC from the latter.
* Excellent quarterly results from HTC (Taiwan).
* Very good quarterly figures from Adobe (back in the black), Jabil Circuit, Oracle and Research In Motion.
* Good quarterly numbers from Accenture, Infosys, National Semiconductor, Red Hat and Tibco Software.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Intel and SAIC.
* Satisfactory half-year numbers from Lawson Software and Micro Focus.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Micron Technology, with revenue up but profit down; and Shaw Communications, with revenue up but profit down.
* The appointments of Rashid Abdulla as CEO of Batelco Bahrain; Shameel Joosub as CEO of Vodafone Spain; Krish Prabhu as interim CEO of Tekelec; and Thomas Seifert as interim CEO of AMD.
* The resignations of Sanjeev Aga, MD of Idea Cellular (India); Craig McCaw, chairman of Clearwire; Dirk Meyer, CEO of AMD; Frank Plastina, CEO of Tekelec; and Michael Treschow, chairman of Ericsson (as from either this year or 2012).
* Planned IPOs from China's Oak Pacific Interactive, a social networking company; Freescale Semiconductor, a US-based chipmaker - its revenue in its last reported quarter was over $1 billion; and LinkedIn.
* Facebook has indicated it will make an IPO filing before April 2012.
* A satisfactory IPO in Denmark by TDC, the Danish telecommunications company, Europe's fourth largest public stock offering of 2010.

* International:
* The outcome of the final bids for Nortel's patents that could raise more than $1 billion.
* The sell-off by Vodafone of its 44% stake in SFR, a mobile phone operator, and its stake in Polkomtel, the Polish phone company.
* A possible bid by Sony for Imax, the big screen movie company.
* The acquisition by Intel of Nordic Edge AB, a Swedish IT security company, a move that would complement last year's acquisition of McAfee.
* The outcome of a challenge by Cukurova, the Turkish conglomerate, to Etisalat, for a major stake in Zain.

* Africa:
* The launch this month of a new mobile phone service provider, Egotel, in Tanzania.
* A possible battle between Etisalat and Visafone for Telkom SA's Multi-Links CDMA Nigerian unit.

* South Africa:
* The appointment of a successor to Jeffrey Hedberg, acting CEO of Telkom SA.

* IT spending in SA will reach $14.4 billion this year, 7.5% up on 2010, according to IDC.
* PC shipments grew 3.1% in Q4 2010 and 13.8% for the full-year, reports Gartner.
* IT spending on the African continent is expected to grow 10% and reach $25 billion during the year, predicts IDC.
* The worldwide hardcopy peripherals market grew by 13% in Q3 2010, according to IDC.
* Worldwide IT spending is expected to grow 5.1% this year to reach $3.6 trillion, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide semiconductor revenue increased 31.5% in 2010 to exceed $300 billion, reports IDC.
* Worldwide sales of e-readers were on track to reach 6.6 million units in 2010, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide semiconductor revenue will reach $303 billion in 2011 and almost $380 billion by 2015, according to IDC.
* Worldwide enterprise social software spending will surpass $769 million in 2011, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Up 4.1% (highest weekend close since May 2008)
* Nasdaq: Up 6.3% (highest weekend close since November 2007)
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-29.4%), Ansys (+74.1%), IFCA Technologies (+87.5%), Metrofile (+20.1%), Mustek (+29.9%), PBT (-20%), Poynting Antennas (-38.9%), Simeka (+28.6%), Stella Vista (+20%) and UCS (+20%)

Bloomberg's Businessweek recently announced its Hot Tech 50, its yearly ranking of technology's hot growth companies. Tencent Holdings (in which Naspers has a shareholding) came in at number one, followed by Apple, Baidu (China) and Lam Research. Other notable entries were Cognizant Technology Solutions at number six, Software AG at seven, and Autonomy at 21.

Also, Fortune magazine announced its '2010 Business Person of the Year' list, with Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, claiming the number one slot. In addition, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, was at number three; Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, was at four; Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, was at six; Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, was seven; and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, came in at 10.