Jobs packs in his job

The international ICT space was dominated last week by the resignation of Steve Jobs.

At home, it was a quiet week, with a couple of small acquisitions and a handful of year-end financial results.

* Satisfactory year-end numbers from Mustek, with revenue up 2.8% but profit up 48.8%.
* Mixed year-end figures from Blue Label Telecoms, with revenue up 13% but profit down 9.5%.
* Very poor year-end figures from Net1 UEPS Technologies, with revenue up 22% but profit down 93%.
* A full-year loss from Gijima, with revenue also down 13%.
* A positive trading update from EOH.
* Altech acquired Eyenza Mobile Money, a wallet-based system.
* Amecor bought the Secequip business from Secequip Supplies, an importer and distributor of electronic products, including many related to the security industry. The deal was worth R27 million.
* US-based Ruckus Wireless, a designer, manufacturer and seller of smart WiFi systems, has opened an office in Johannesburg.
* Vanessa Oliver was appointed deputy CEO of Business Connexion.

* The appointments of Michael Fletcher as regional sales director of Ruckus Wireless for sub-Saharan Africa; and Darren Roos as COO for Software AG's EMEA region. (Roos, a South African, also now sits on Software AG's group executive board).

China surpassed the US to become the largest PC market worldwide in Q211.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Accenture purchased Zenta, a US-based provider of residential and commercial mortgage processing services.
* Astorg, a French private equity company, bought the electronic connectors unit of FCI from Bain Capital.
* Bain Capital acquired MYOB, an Australian-based provider of financial software, in a deal worth $1.3 billion, the former's largest-ever in that country.
* Cisco purchased Axiom Systems, a UK subsidiary of Finland-based Comptel, for $31 million. Axiom Systems is a provider of service fulfilment software.
* Skype bought US-based GroupMe, a provider of mobile group messaging services.
* Vector Capital acquired the point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless broadband network businesses of Motorola Solutions.
* Verizon Communications purchased CloudSwitch, a software developer that helps enterprises to securely move applications between data centres.
* Softbank has sold most of its 4% stake in Yahoo.
* Very good quarterly figures from Aruba Networks and OmniVision Technologies.
* Good quarterly numbers from Micros Systems and QAD.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Asustek.
* Satisfactory half-year figures from China Telecom.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Applied Materials, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed half-year numbers from China Unicom, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Acer and CDC Software.
* The appointments of Tim Cook as CEO of Apple; Ahmad Julfar as group CEO of Etisalat; and Rory Read (ex-Lenovo president and COO) as CEO of AMD.
* The resignation of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple (stays on as chairman).
* IPO filings from Brightcove, an online video software company; Eloqua, a marketing software company; and Jive Software, a business social networking company.

International:
* The buyer for HP's PC unit (already Samsung Electronics has turned down an offer to buy it).

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the de-listings of TeleMasters, UCS and Vox Telecoms.

* Worldwide server revenue increased 17.9% in 2Q11 to reach $13.2 billion, according to IDC. IBM replaced HP as the top vendor regarding factory revenue, while Fujitsu significantly closed the gap on Oracle, which holds the number four slot.
* China surpassed the US to become the largest PC market worldwide in Q211, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.2%
* Nasdaq: Up 5.9%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-10%), Amecor (+12.7%), Cape Empowerment (+10%), CompuClearing (-16.7%), Gijima (+9.6%), Huge Group (-11.8%), Ideco (-10%), Ifca Technologies (-23.8%) and Labat Africa (+9.1%)

Last week, Gartner hosted its annual Symposium/ITxpo Africa, in Cape Town, and one of the sessions focused on the concerns of CEOs and their IT implications. It seems there has been a definite agenda shift from a defensive posture in 2010 to a growth agenda for 2011, with the following four factors showing the largest upward movement in the Gartner annual survey of CEOs regarding their business issues. These factors were that the organisation should become more open and collaborative with customers; the company should become a more responsive and flexible organisation; the company should move into new product or service markets; and it should foster innovation.

Even more surprising, perhaps, is that most business leaders think they know what the next major IT-enabled business capability will be, and that almost half of them are already implementing that now.

Also included in some of the questions posed to CEOs were ones regarding CIOs, and in particular, one addressing the issue of what capabilities they oversell, and another regarding the capabilities they lack. The overwhelming answers to these were their technical knowledge and business understanding respectively; very much food for thought!