Microsoft endures defeat

The international ICT market was very quiet last week, with the ruling against Microsoft being one of the main stories.

At home, a number of events vied for dominance in the local media space. These included the shock resignation of Dean Brazier, CEO of SecureData Holdings; the acquisition of Fundamo; and the various issues associated with the sale of Telkom's Nigerian CDMA business and the subsequent cancellation of existing contracts regarding that business.

Visa acquired Fundamo, a Cape-town based developer of a cellphone-based payment system.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* Positive trading updates from Huge Group and Pinnacle Technology.
* The termination of the listing of Beget Holdings.
* Visa acquired Fundamo, a Cape-town based developer of a cellphone-based payment system, for $110 million.
* Business Connexion (BCX) bought Dusty Moon Investments 33 for R240 million (50% plus one share). The move will enhance BCX's managed print services activities, since the latter also has interests in a number of companies that also operate in this sector, including Canoa Group Holdings.
* ContinuitySA made a 50% acquisition of Immix Network Solutions, a company that specialises in the design and delivery of adaptable, scalable, secure and reliable network/infrastructure solutions.
* Dean Brazier, CEO of SecureData Holdings, resigned.

* Deon Liebenberg resigned as sub-Saharan Africa regional director for Research In Motion.

* Citigroup's venture capital arm purchased Ness Technologies, an IT services provider, for $307 million.
* CSC acquired VIXIA, a Brazilian IT services firm.
* eBay bought Magento, the creator of an open source e-commerce platform.
* Google acquired Admeld, an online advertisement company, for $400 million.
* Infosys purchased the software solutions business of New Zealand's Gen-I, the corporate ICT arm of Telecom New Zealand.
* Qualcomm bought Rapid Bridge, a maker of chip design tools.
* Research In Motion acquired Scoreloop, a German social game developer.
* Accenture invested in Al Faisaliah Business & Technology, a Saudi Arabian IT services company.
* The US Supreme Court has upheld a +/-$300 million patent-infringement verdict against Microsoft.
* Mediocre quarterly results from National Semiconductor.
* Quarterly losses from Ciena and MTS India.
* Peter Karmanos was appointed executive chairman of Compuware (was CEO); and Bob Paul was named CEO of Compuware.
* A planned IPO filing from Avaya, a telecommunications equipment maker, in a deal that could raise $1 billion. Avaya, a spin-off from Lucent Technologies in 2000, was taken private in 2007 by Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital for just over $8 billion.
* A very good IPO on the NYSE by Fusion-IO, a maker of combined hardware and software devices for data storage.

* International:
* The possible acquisition by Garmin of Navigon, a German maker of navigation devices.
* The possible merger of the small LCD panel operations of Sony and Toshiba.
* South Africa:
* Further developments regarding Telkom SA and its disposal of its Nigerian CDMA business, following the legal contracts issues with Helios Towers and Blue Label Telecoms. The Nigerian high court has already found in favour of Helios regarding its contract with Telkom SA.

* The worldwide smartphone market was expected to grow 55% in 2011 and approach one billion shipments in 2015, according to IDC.
* The worldwide storage software market grew 12.4% in Q1 to reach nearly $3.5 billion, with EMC increasing its lead in this sector, reports IDC.
* HSPA Mobile Broadband connections are expected to reach 500 million users worldwide by the end of this month, according to the GSM Association.
* The worldwide security software market grew 12% in 2010 to reach $16.5 billion, according to Gartner.
* LTE has now reached one million connections only 18 months after the first commercial network was launched, reports the GSM Association.
* PC unit growth will slow to 9.3% in 2011 and reach 385 million units, according to Gartner.
* More than one-third of the world's workforce will be mobile by 2013, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.3%
* Nasdaq: Down 3.3%
* Top SA share movements: ConvergeNet (-10.4%), Mustek (-10.8%), Poynting Antennas (-30%), Sekunjalo (-10%), Stella Vista (+33.3%), TCS (-33.3%), TeleMasters (-21.7%), UCS (+9.5%) and Zaptronix (-25%)

“I expect that within a few years, Software AG would become the first fully digitised and integrated software company in the world,” was the 'boast' of Karl-Heinz Streibich, CEO of Software AG, at last week's ProcessForum, held in Johannesburg.

He also indicated at the event and later confirmed during a one-on-one interview that he was surprised, but very pleased to see how advanced South African users were regarding the use of their software, and that they were as advanced, or maybe even more so, than many of their users elsewhere in the world.

Streibich also indicated SA could well become an additional R&D location for the company in the next few years, especially if the local unit continued to expand as rapidly as it had been doing over the past few years. In addition, he fully expected the parent company to make another substantial acquisition in the next year or so as part of its ongoing strategy to undertake a major acquisition deal every three to four years, as it is already nearly two years since the company's takeover of IDS Scheer was announced.

Regarding Software AG's recent moves to acquire both Metismo and Terracotta, he indicated that another small but similar deal was likely to be forthcoming in the 'collaboration' software space. Streibich stressed that Software AG's ongoing philosophy was one of continuous integration of its entire suite, so that all its software was easy to install and easy to use.

Software AG already has a unique profile within the global market, with all its products being positioned in the leaders' quadrants that have been created by many of the world's leading research organisations. In addition, it has already been recognised by BusinessWeek as one of the Tech Hot Growth companies of 2010. There is no doubt that its forward strategy is sound and it will continue to be an even more significant player in the software market over the coming months and years. Its visibility traditionally may have been 'below the radar'; however, this is changing rapidly.