IBM reclaims top spot

The international ICT market was quiet last week, with the main news being the announcement of a handful of small acquisitions, including Software AG's acquisition of Terracotta. IBM also made news when it overtook Microsoft in the market capitalisation race.

At home, it was also very quiet, with the appointment of a new DG at the Department of Communications, and the sell-off by BCX of its interests in Destiny Electronic Commerce being the main stories.

* Mixed interim numbers from Stella Vista, with revenue down 3% but back in the black.

* Mediocre year-end figures from ISA, with revenue down nearly 1% and profit down over 6%.

* VeriFone acquired BCX's 70% stake in Destiny Electronic Commerce, a unit it recently acquired from UCS. The deal was worth R255 million.

* Bytes Technology Group made a majority stake investment in TSPI, a sales performance improvement company.

* US-based Kentrox, a site monitoring, management and control solutions company, has opened an office in SA that will be managed by Richard Hayter.

* Dark Fibre Africa's cable linking Gauteng and Mtunzini (KwaZulu-Natal) has been switched on. Mtunzini is the landing point in SA for the Eassy, SAT-3/Safe and Seacom undersea cables.

* Rosey Sekese was named DG at the Department of Communications.

* Satisfactory year-end figures from Trustco Group Holdings, with revenue up 8% and profit up 38%.

* Huge Telecom, a subsidiary of Huge Group, disposed of its 49% stake in Namibian-based TelePassport Communications for R4.9 million.

* Wavetec opened an office in Kenya. The technology firm specialises in queue management and information display solutions.

* Niger has done a 10-year deal with LAP Green Networks, which gives the latter a majority share in Sonitel and its mobile arm Sahel Com.

* Helios Towers Nigeria is suing Telkom SA for at least $251 million after the latter's pull-out of the deal it had with its Multi-Links unit in Nigeria, with which it had a 10-year rental contract. Blue Label Telecoms is also suing Telkom SA for a similar situation.

Look out for the future of Steve Ballmer following calls for his resignation.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* HP bought Printelligent, a provider of managed print services.

* Jive Software, a social enterprise software start-up, purchased OffiSync, a company that makes social extensions to Microsoft Office.

* Kofax acquired Atalasoft, a document imaging vendor.

* Logica purchased Grupo Gesfor, a Spanish consulting and professional services company.

* Skyworks Solutions bought Advanced Analogic Technologies for $258.6 million, in a deal that continues the consolidation of the analogue chip sector.

* Software AG acquired US-based Terracotta, a provider of in-memory and cloud-enabling technology. The latter has deployments in the majority of the Fortune 500 companies and is behind some of the most widely-used software for application scalability, availability and performance. The technology will be integrated and utilised in Software AG's platform as a service roll-out next year.

* Twitter bought TweetDeck, a UK-based company whose desktop applications provide more advanced monitoring and filtering capabilities when using Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. The deal was worth more than $40 million.

* Xerox purchased UK-based NewField IT, a print consultancy and software company.

* IBM's market capitalisation exceeded that of Microsoft for the first time in 15 years.

* Very good quarterly figures from Applied Materials.

* Good quarterly numbers from Lenovo, NetApp and QAD (back in the black).

* Satisfactory quarterly results from Tech Data.

* Satisfactory year-end figures from Cable & Wireless Communications.

* Mediocre quarterly results from Blue Coat Systems and CSC.

* Mixed quarterly figures from Compuware, with revenue up but profit down; MTS (Russia), with revenue up but profit down; and Tech Mahindra, with revenue up but profit down.

* Quarterly losses from Mahindra Satyam and Sycamore Networks.

* A full-year loss from Sony.

* Howard Lance, CEO of Harris, retired (as of June 2012).

* A planned IPO from Atento, the call centre business of Telefonica.

* A disappointing, although satisfactory IPO on the NYSE by Freescale Semiconductor.

* A satisfactory IPO on NYSE by Active Network, an online event-management-tool company.

* An excellent IPO on Nasdaq by Yandex, a Russian search company.

International:
* The future of Steve Ballmer following calls for his resignation.

Africa:
* The postponement by Egypt of its planned launch for a fourth mobile operator licence.

South Africa:
* A new start-up, SkyeVine, a joint venture between Ellies Group and Q-Kon, that will bring a new broadband satellite offering to areas not well-served by fixed-lines or mobile broadband.

* Worldwide server market revenue increased 12.1% in Q1, with IBM significantly closing the gap on the leader, HP, and Oracle taking fourth place from Fujitsu, according to IDC.

* Global telecommunications spending will be up this year for the first time since the financial crisis, according to the Yankee Group.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.9%

* Nasdaq: Down 0.2%

* Top SA share movements: Business Connexion (+29.6%), CompuClearing (-9.1%), ConvergeNet (+16.3%), IFCA Technologies (+16.7%), Labat Africa (-14.3%), MICROmega (+11.1%), Morvest (+12.5%), Poynting Antennas (+50%) and UCS (+9.1%)

Fortune magazine has published its latest 'Fortune 500, America's Largest Corporations' listing. From a technology perspective, the following are of particular interest:

* HP has replaced AT&T as the largest technology company by revenue.

* Avaya has returned to the list.

* Cognizant Technology Solutions and SanDisk have entered the list for the first time.

* Affiliated Computer Services (acquired by Xerox), CA Technologies, Fiserv, Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle) and Unisys have been displaced from the list.

* Applied Materials was the fastest of all the upward movers, going from number 421 to number 259.

* SunGard Data Systems was the technology company that dropped the most, going from number 163 to 434.