Month in Review

Information Age (London, UK), Feb 10, 2005

Security behemoth Symantec confirmed it would buy backup and virtualisation software maker Veritas in a $13.5 billion deal, creating a security, systems and storage management software powerhouse with around $5 billion in annual revenues. Market analysts appeared to have doubts about the wisdom of the deal: Symantec's shares fell by 8% on the announcement, with investors worrying Veritas' projected revenue growth of 10% would drag down Symantec's runrate of 24%.

PeopleSoft finally accepted a $10.3 billion offer from Oracle, ending its 18 month resistance and creating a company with around $12 billion in revenues. After earlier outcries from PeopleSoft customers and staff, Oracle reinforced its pledge to maintain and develop software made both by PeopleSoft and the acquired company's 2003 takeover, JD Edwards. However, there were reports of top-level management changes afoot at Oracle. Reports said that both the head of the applications software division, Ron Wohl, and the head of global support services, Michael Rocha, were going to be replaced. John Wookey was tipped as the new leader of the combined company's applications units.

IBM sold its PC business to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo (formerly Legend) for $1.75 billion in a cash and stock deal. Lenovo immediately became the world's third largest PC maker, having established a 27% share of the burgeoning Chinese market over the past decade, despite the best efforts of global PC market leader Dell and local rivals.

IBM struck a seven-year deal worth [pounds sterling]500 million with UK bank Lloyds TSB to switch the bank's traditional communications system over to a converged voice and data fibre-optic network. The deal covers over 2,000 Lloyds UK branches, 4,200 cash-points and a telephone network that handles over 60,000 calls every day. As part of the contract Lloyds will be introducing 70,000 voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) handsets supplied by Cisco.

The European Court of First Instance ruled that Microsoft must comply with a March 2004 order demanding that it reveal parts of its workgroup source code to rival manufact-urers, as well as produce a version of its Windows platform that does not come bundled with its Media Player. After failing to convince Judge Bo Vesterdorf it would suffer "serious and irreparable damage" if the penalties imposed on it were enforced prior to a full appeal, Microsoft must also pay a record C497 million fine.

Storage giant EMC reaffirmed its hunger for acquisitions by agreeing to purchase network software maker System Management ARTS (SMARTS) for $300 million. The deal brings EMC's total spend on software companies during the past 18 months to $4 billion.

Hewlett-Packard was selected to run the IT systems for the London Borough of Newham, in a 10-year deal worth [pounds sterling]14 million. Newham's IT organ-isation was thrust into the spotlight when it appeared to be on the verge of replacing its Microsoft software with open source alternatives. An offer of deep discounts from Microsoft changed its mind.