IBM cuts ties with Lenovo

The local and international ICT markets were quiet last week, with one of the key pieces of news being IBM's disposal of its last remaining stake in Lenovo.

At home, the announcement of the new chairman at Telkom SA stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Good interim numbers from AdaptIT, with revenue up 40.4% and profit up 14.6%.
* A positive trading update from Simeka.
* First Technology Holdings acquired Galdon Data, a unified communications solution provider.
* IFCA Technologies has secured $100 million capital that will be used to help diversify the company from a primarily software one, into the mining, property and construction industries.
* Alvin Peacock was named MD of Xperien, and Lazarus Zim was appointed chairman of Telkom SA.
* Tony van Marken resigned as CEO of Vox Telecom.

* Mediocre quarterly figures from Mobinil (Egypt), with revenue flat but profit down.
* The Nigerian Bureau of Public Enterprises has cancelled the proposed sale of Nitel to the New Generation consortium.

IFCA Technologies has secured $100 million capital.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* EchoStar bought Hughes Communications, a broadband services provider, for $1.3 billion.
* Epic, an investment house, purchased Ukrtelecom, Ukraine's state telephone company, for $1.3 billion (93%).
* HP acquired Vertica, a start-up provider of a real-time analytics platform.
* Motorola Mobility acquired 3LM, a start-up that develops software to boost the security of mobile devices powered by the Android operating system.
* NTT bought Cornerstone Asia Tech, a business analytics company.
* Qualcomm purchased the holding company of GPSNet Technologies, a Canadian provider of fleet management software.
* RIM acquired Gist, a contact management start-up firm.
* Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm, made a small investment in Facebook.
* Echo Star's deal with bankrupt telecommunications company TerreStar Networks has been terminated by mutual consent.
* IBM is selling its remaining stake in Lenovo.
* A US panel has asked Huawei Technologies to unwind its purchase of US-based 3Leaf, a small technology company the former bought early last year.
* Very good quarterly figures from NetApp.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Blue Coat Systems, Cablevision Systems, Capgemini, Dell, Mahindra Satyam and Rogers Communications.
* Mediocre quarterly results from CenturyLink, Reliance Communications, Swisscom and TomTom.
* Mixed quarterly figures from APAC Customer Services, with revenue up but profit down; Brocade Communications Systems, with revenue up but profit down; Intuit, with revenue up but profit down; Nvidia, with revenue down but profit up; and Synopsys, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Aruba Networks, Clearwire, Diebold and Qwest Communications (being acquired by CenturyLink).
* An IPO filing by Pandora Media, the largest Internet radio company, in a move that could raise as much as $100 million.

* International:
* A further sell-off by BT of part of its remaining stake in Tech Mahindra.
* The raising of almost $500 million by Zynga, the maker of several Facebook games, in a move that would value the company at about $10 billion.
* Africa:
* Further developments regarding the sale of Nitel.
* South Africa:
* The launch, on 20 March, of the Intelsat New Dawn satellite, Africa's first private sector communications satellite.

* The BI market is set to grow 9.7% in 2011 to reach $10.8 billion, according to Gartner.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.3%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.9% (highest weekend for over seven years)
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+14.3%), Dialogue Group (+10.5%), IFCA Technologies (+10%), ISA (+8.2%), Sekunjalo (+14.3%) and TCS (-25%)

The annual Mobile World Congress was held last week in Barcelona, during which this year's Global Mobile Awards were presented. They included:

* Airtel Africa for the best mobile money product or solution.
* Bharti Infratel for the best green product/service or performance.
* HTC as the device manufacturer of the year.
* Orange for the best mobile technology for emerging markets.
* Vodafone Group, Safaricom, Vodacom, Vodafone Essar and Roshan for M-PESA, the best mobile money for the unbanked service.
* GMSA Chairman's award to Dr Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile.