Software AG goes shopping, again

The international ICT market didn't see any significant events last week, despite a spate of acquisitions that involved HP, Lenovo and Software AG.

At home, it was also fairly quiet, although Vodacom SA's new MD was announced after many weeks of speculation.

* Mixed year-end numbers from Labat Africa, with revenue down 2% but back in the black.
* Mixed interim numbers from UCS, with continuing revenue up 12% but profit down 49.5% (the continuing business recorded a loss for the six-month period).
* Mediocre interim figures from Zaptronix, with revenue down 18.7% but back in the black.
* An interim loss from Ideco, although revenue up 24.4%.
* A year-end loss from TCS, with revenue also down 33.8%.
* Negative trading updates from Huge Group, TCS and Telkom SA.
* Internet Solutions acquired a majority stake in Synaq, a Linux service provider and messaging company.
* A consortium that includes Targe Capital made a 30% investment in MDA Property Systems, a property management software company.
* UCS is looking to delist its shares from the JSE.
* Communications minister Roy Padayachie said the ICT industry in SA grew to R179 million in 2010, and was expected to grow to R250 billion by 2020.
* Government has allocated R500 million for Broadband Infraco for additional infrastructure development in the 2011/2012 financial year.
* Sipho Maseko was named MD of Vodacom SA.

* Very poor quarterly figures from Raya Technology and Communication (Egypt), with profit down 96%.
* Mediocre quarterly figures from Telecom Egypt, with revenue down 4% and profit down 10%.
* Investec and Nedbank purchased Orascom Telecom's Namibian unit, Powercom.
* The Algerian government will purchase Orascom Telecom's Djezzy unit.
* IBM has opened an office in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania).
* Motorola Solutions has opened an office in Cairo (Egypt).

Sipho Maseko was named MD of Vodacom SA.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* AT&T bought Convergys' interests in two wireless operations in the Cincinnati area, for $320 million.
* Lenovo bought a majority stake in Germany-based Medion AG, a computer and consumer electronics company. The deal was worth EUR465 million.
* Canada-based OnX Enterprise Solutions acquired Agilysys's technology solutions business for $64 million. The latter will now focus on its retail and hospitality businesses. The technology solutions group accounted for 70% of the company's revenue in fiscal 2011.
* Persistent Software purchased Agilent's software marketing and development unit in France. Agilent was the spin-off by HP of its scientific/instrumentation business many years ago.
* Polycom bought HP's video conferencing business.
* Software AG acquired UK-based Metismo, the developer of a 'write once, run anywhere' software platform for the development of mobile applications. This is the second acquisition by Software AG in as many weeks, having acquired Terracotta only last week.
* Twitter bought AdGrok, a small Internet company whose tools have helped manage advertising campaigns on Google.
* VMware purchased Socialcast, a company that offers social collaboration software for businesses.
* Good quarterly numbers from Verifone and VimpelCom.
* Mixed quarterly figures from MphasiS (India), with revenue up but profit down; and Reliance Communications, with revenue up but profit down.
* A full-year loss from Tata Communications.
* The appointments of Shang Bing as vice-minister of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (currently president of China Mobile); James Dennedy as interim president and CEO of Agilysys; David Dyson as CEO of Three, a UK mobile firm owned by Hutchison Whampoa; Xi Guohua as chairman of China Mobile; Allan Leighton as chairman of Pace, the UK-based manufacturer of set-top boxes; Francisco Valim as CEO of Oi (Brazil's largest telecommunications company); Chang Xiaobing as chairman of China Telecom; and Lu Yimin as chairman of China Unicom.
* The resignations of Martin Ellis, CEO of Agilysys; Luiz Falco, CEO of Oi; Mike McTighe, chairman of Pace; and Kevin Russell, CEO of UK-based Three.
* The death of Tom West, a project manager whose early work was developing small business computers for Data General, a company that was acquired by EMC in 1999.
* An IPO filing from Groupon that could put the value of the e-commerce company at $20 billion.

* International:
* The sell-off by Reliance Communications of its wireless towers subsidiary and a 26% stake in its core business to a private equity investor.
* The possible acquisition by Microsoft of Nokia's handset division for about $19 billion.
* The possible acquisition by Dell of Brocade.
* Africa:
* The acquisition by Telecom Egypt of Vodafone Egypt, in which the former already has a 45% stake.
* South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the de-listings of Mustek and UCS.

* Worldwide WLAN revenue in Q1 grew 20.7% to reach $1.35 billion, according to IDC.
* EMEA server revenue grew 10.8% in Q1, with IBM growing its market share substantially, says IDC.
* Taiwan is poised to overtake Japan this year as the world's largest semiconductor materials market, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International.
* Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenue grew 13.2% in Q1 to reach just under $5.6 billion, according to IDC, with NetApp grabbing second place from IBM.

* JSE All share index: Down 2.5%
* Nasdaq: Down 2.3%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (-9.4%), Dialogue Group (+9.1%), Huge Group (-13.3%), IFCA Technologies (-14.3%), Labat Africa (+25%), MICROmega (-30%), Stella Vista (+50%), UCS (+16.7%) and Zaptronix (+33.3%)

Forbes recently published its latest Global 200 list, which is composed using four metrics: sales, profit, assets and market value. From a technology perspective, the highest ranked companies were AT&T at number 14, Vodafone at number 27, IBM and Telefonica at joint 31, Samsung Electronics at 33 and China Mobile at 34. Apple, HP, Microsoft and NTT were also in the top 50.