ITWeb :Financial results dominate quiet week

Highlights of the past week

* GE's healthcare division, a $15 billion company, acquired IDX Systems, a provider of healthcare systems, for $1.2 billion.
* Liberty Global snapped up Cablecom for over $2 billion just as the latter was preparing for an IPO.

Key local news

* Excellent interim figures from Beget Holdings, with revenue up about 180% and back in the black; and from Cape Empowerment Trust, with net income up over fourfold.
* Good full-year figures from Metrofile although revenue well down. Profit was significantly back in the black.
* Good interim figures from Altech with revenue and earnings both up about 10%.
* Mixed interim numbers from Dynamic Cables with revenue well down but earnings up over 20%.
* Poor interim numbers from Datacentrix with revenue down about 7% and earnings down nearly 50%.
* A full-year loss from Integrear with revenue also down.
* Bula Holdings acquired Miraculum.
* Labat Africa sold off its Africard business to Oberthur Card Systems.
* New Heights' 30% investment in AlanDick's South African operation.
* The merger of the Softstart Incubator in Tshwane and Bodibeng Technology Incubator to form SoftstartBTI.
* The appointments of Thenjiwe Chikane as chairman of SITA and Mardia van der Walt-Korsten as acting CEO of T-Systems SA.
* The resignation of Wolfgang Jakob as CEO of T-Systems SA.

Key African news

* Good year-end numbers from MTN Uganda with profits up 14% and revenue up just under 10%.
* Moroccan ISP, Maroc Connect, awarded the third fixed-line licence for Morocco.
* The fourth GSM licence for Guinea was awarded to Investcom Holding SA, a Luxembourg-based company.
* Realyst appointed a business partner in Nigeria.
* Egypt's Orascom Telecom sold its wireless operation in DRC, Oasis Telecom, to Millicom International Cellular.

Key international news

Black is back

Excellent interim figures from Beget Holdings, with revenue up about 180% and back in the black.

* Cisco gobbled up Nemo Systems, a developer of technology in the network memory space.
* BT Group acquired Infonet Deutschland from T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG. BT Group also recently acquired US-based Infonet Services.
* Nortel Networks reorganised into two product groups: mobility and converged core networks group; and enterprise solutions and packet networks group.
* Parity Group is to sell its US business.
* NEC sold most of its shareholding in Groupe Bull SA and now only has a 3% shareholding.
* The appointments of Charles Chao as president of Sina, Bob Doris as non-executive chairman of Sonic Solutions (was CEO), John Fazio as president and CEO of InnoPath, Kenny Freirichs as president and CEO of Network Physics, Dave Habiger as CEO and president of Sonic Solutions, Gerry Perkel as CEO of Planar Systems, Scott Sewell as CEO of Blue Wireless & Data, John Stroup as president and CEO of Belden CDT, and David Tacelli as CEO of LTX.
* The resignations of Kit Chambers as CEO of Blue Wireless & Data (stays on as president), David Jones as president and CEO of Network Physics, Balaji Krishnamurthy as CEO of Planar Systems, and John Zavoli as CEO of Path 1 Network Technologies.
* Positive results announcements from NTN Communications and O2.
* Negative result warnings from Affymetrix, Audiovox, DiamondCluster International, Eastman Kodak, Hifn, Hologic, Sanyo, SBS Technologies, SCi Entertainment and VeriSign.
* Private funding obtained for Force10 Networks, a high-end networking vendor; Identity Engines, a network identity management provider; InTouch Technologies, a provider of remote presence technology for healthcare providers; Mirage Innovations, a personal display technology provider; mPortal, a mobile content delivery platform vendor; Roamware, a provider of mobile roaming software; and Virtual Iron Software, a server virtualisation start-up.
* A planned IPO on London's AIM by Circle, a games developer.
* A satisfactory IPO in New York by Ituran, a provider of wireless communications products.
* A good IPO in London by i-mate, a mobile device developer.

Stock market changes

* JSE All share index: Up 4.7% (all-time highest-ever close)
* Nasdaq: Up 1.6%
* Top SA share movements: Beget Holdings (+11.1%), Elexir (+100%), Infowave (+10%), Labat Africa (+22.2%), Metrofile (+38.3%), MTN (+10.5%), Stella Vista (+20%), Synergy (-23.5%), Vesta (-16.7%) and Zaptronix (+20%).
* Top international share movements: BITS (+25.5%), Brady Group (-25.7%), Celltalk Group (-26.7%), DAT Group (-32.7%), NCDI (-33.3%), OMG (+48.9%), Poly Information (-30.7%), Red Hat (+30.6%), Scan-Optics (-33.3%) and TripleArc (-50%).

Final word

Last week, Fortune magazine published its 2005 Accountability ratings that rank the Fortune Global 100 by their effectiveness as managers of corporate social-responsibility issues. The maximum score was 100 and the highest achieved was 78. From a technology perspective, the top achievers were Vodafone at number three with 71 points, HP at 21 with 47 points and IBM at 25 with 46 points.