OpenText buys Metastorm

There were no earth-shattering announcements in the international ICT world last week, although there were numerous quarterly financial reports published and a handful of acquisitions, including OpenText's acquisition of Metastorm.

At home, it was also quiet, with Rectron's disposal of Corex being one of the main stories.

* Satisfactory Q3 numbers from Vodacom, with revenue up 5.6% and the subscriber base also rising 5.6 to 41.6 million.
* Mixed interim numbers from Net 1 UEPS Technologies, with revenue up 10% but profit down 53%.
* Fred Lu acquired Rectron's 60% stake in Corex IT Distribution Dynamics for R9.79 million. Lu is the current MD of the company.
* Australian-based Oniqua Enterprise Analytics, an analytics solutions company, opened a local office in Sandton. Neil Pollock has been appointed VP of Oniqua Africa and will head up the operation.
* Anthony Barnard was named CEO of IFCA Technologies.

* The Tunisian government said the planned IPO for Tunisie Telecom has been suspended.
* The appointments of Raouf Chkir as CEO of Tunisie Telecom; and Kamel Saadaoui as president of the National Telecommunications Authority (Tunisia).
* Montasser Quaili resigned as CEO of Tunisie Telecom.

Android has become the most popular smartphone operating system.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* AOL purchased Goviral, a European-based video distributor, for $96.7 million.
* Cisco bought Inlet Technologies, a network equipment maker, for $95 million.
* Convio, a provider of on-demand constituent engagement solutions, acquired StrategicOne, a provider of analytics, predictive modelling and database marketing services.
* Corning purchased antenna maker MobileAccess.
* Dish Network bought DBSD North America, a subsidiary of ICO Global Communications Holdings and a satellite company that is developing a system that combines both satellite and terrestrial communications capabilities for wireless, voice, data and Internet services. The deal was worth $1 billion.
* OpenText acquired Metastorm, a provider of software for enterprise and business architecture, business process analysis, and business process management.
* Tencent bought Riot Games, a video games developer and publisher.
* Xerox purchased WaterWare Internet Services, a company that provides Web application and software development, integration and customisation.
* Xilinx acquired AutoESL Design Technologies, a provider of the high-level synthesis tool, AutoPilot.
* Excellent quarterly results from Baidu.
* Very good quarterly figures from ARM Holdings, Arrow Electronics, Broadcom, Infineon Technologies, Novellus and Sohu.com.
* Good quarterly numbers from CACI International, Check Point Software Technologies, Panasonic, SGI and Softbank.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Hitachi, Lexmark, NCR (back in the black), NTT, Open Text, Plantronics, Toshiba (back in the black) and Websense.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Sony and Unisys.
* Mixed quarterly figures from AOL, with revenue down but profit up; Bharti Airtel, with revenue up but profit down; BMC Software, with revenue up but profit down; BT Group, with revenue down but profit up; Fiserv, with revenue up but profit down; JDA Software, with revenue up but profit down; and TeliaSonera, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Alvarion, Electronic Arts, Level 3 Communications, NetSuite, Sanyo Electric and Tata Communications.
* Gerard Kleisterlee, CEO of Philips Electronics, was appointed chairman of Vodafone.
* A good IPO on the NYSE by NeoPhotonics, a maker of photonic integrated circuit-based models and subsystems for high-speed telecommunications networks.

* International:
* The winner of the auction for Nortel Networks' patents. A pool of at least five buyers has emerged, including - it is believed - Apple and Google.
* A new CEO for Infosys Technologies.
* Africa:
* The outcome of a $600 million bid from Brymedia for 75% of Nitel (Nigeria). Brymedia was the third-place winner in the privatisation process.
* A possible listing of MTN Rwanda.
* South Africa:
* The possible de-listing of the Dialogue Group, now that the disposal of ContinuitySA has been finalised.

* Forty-four percent of urban users are now using cellphone banking, an increase of 17% from last year, according to World Wide Worx. And 39% of urban users and 27% of rural users are now browsing the Internet on their phones.
* Android has become the most popular smartphone operating system, surpassing Nokia's Symbian operating system, according to research company Canalys.
* Worldwide mobile broadband-enabled subscriptions will hit the one billion mark this year, predicts ABI Research.

* JSE All share index: Up 4.2% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Up 3.1%
* Top SA share movements: African Cellular Towers (-21.4%), Ansys (-9.4%), Blue Label Telecoms (-10%), IFCA Technologies (+25%), Naspers (+8.3%), Poynting Antennas (+90.9%), Simeka (-10.5%), Stella Vista (+40%), Vodacom (+8.6%) and Zaptronix (-20%)

The Africa Report has published its annual 'Top 500 African Companies' list, which is based on turnover. From a technology perspective, the MTN Group remains the highest at number five. Other significant moves include Telkom SA at number 17 (up from 27), MTN Nigeria at 24 (up from 35), Naspers at 34 (up from 58), Datatec at 35 (down from 24) and Altron at 47 (down from 37). New entrants include EOH at 485 and UCS at 488. As in previous years, there are still no ICT companies on the list from outside SA.