• Content management vendor Open Text has launched a hostile takeover bid for rival Hummingbird. The move comes after Hummingbird’s management had already accepted a $456 million offer from private equity investor Symphony Technology Group. However, many of Hummingbird’s shareholders felt that offer undervalued the deal. The Open Text bid tops Symphony’s by £17 million, at $483 million.

• Software testing vendor Mercury Interactive restated earnings for 2002 to 2004, following following a Securities Exchange Commission investigation into stock option backdating at the company. The company was forced to mark down earnings by $566.7 million, for a period between 1992 and 2004. Three board members may yet face trial as a result of the SEC investigation. The SEC is currently conducting similar investigations at other technology companies, including Quest Software.

• Ailing software company Novell sacked both its CEO and CFO a week after its third quarter earnings report revealed that the company’s revenue had dropped by around 5%. Outgoing CEO Jack Messman is to stay on as a board member. He will be replaced by company president Ronald Hovsepian. “The Board concluded that a management change would be the best way” to revive fortunes, said Thomas Plaskett, a Novell director.

• Meanwhile, the SCO Group suffered another setback in its increasingly forlorn-looking intellectual property fight with technology giant IBM. The presiding judge dismissed 182 of the 294 claims in its case against IBM because SCO had failed to present detailed evidence. Judge Brooke Wells said SCO’s actions were akin to accusing someone of shoplifting, and when asked to explain what had been stolen, pointing to a catalogue and saying: “It’s in there somewhere.”

• Elsewhere, Internet telephony company Vonage has been sued by Verizon Communications, the second largest telecoms operator in the US. Verizon claims that Vonage has infringed seven patents it holds for voice-over Internet technologies. If successful, Verizon could ask for Vonage’s service to be closed. Vonage has promised to fight the claim.

• Hewlett-Packard is to launch an innovative penetration testing service for its customers in October 2006. The HP Active Countermeasures (HPAC) service will use access protocols similar to those employed by self-replicating worms in order to scan system for potential exploits. Once an exploit is found, the system will initiate one of a range of countermeasures, from a small pop-up warning to a complete system shut down.

• The European Commission hardened its stance against software titan Microsoft, which it believes is still failing to abide by a 2004 anti-trust ruling. The Commission added a fine of E280.5 million to the E497 million penalty it imposed in 2004, to punish the company for failing to provide adequate technical information about the workings of its Windows operating system to rival software developers.

Infoconomy Index: Treading water

Strong revenues from some of the world’s global IT vendors in June helped halt the downward slide in the global IT sector momentum in recent months.

According to the Infoconomy Index, which tracks the overall revenue performance of the world’s 200 largest IT companies, industry-wide growth stabilised at 6.1% during the month. At the same time, a number of stellar results from the 50-strong subset of companies with European roots maintained the upward buoyancy of the European Index, which rose 0.6% to finish the month at 8.9%.

The strongest influences on the global index came from document software vendor Adobe and database software giant Oracle, which reported quarterly revenue gains of 28% and 25%, respectively. Technology consultancy firm Accenture also helped stem any downward trend and, putting its recent National Health Service contract troubles aside, posted a 7% revenue increase (11% when measured in local currencies).

Several other vendors acted as a drag on the overall growth rate, though. Systems management software company CA, still plagued by accounting irregularities that brought down its former CEO, posted revenue growth up 3%.

Meanwhile, in Europe, consultancies Anite and Detica showed even stronger growth than their US rival, Accenture, with revenues up 23% and 53% respectively. In contrast, IT service group Xansa reversed the trend with a 3% drop.

Other star European performances came from Northgate Information Systems which literally rose from the ashes after the Buncefield oil depot explosions wrecked its offices to post a record 62% rise in annual revenues, while mobile operating system vendor Symbian reported a 56% revenue rise.

The Infoconomy 200 Index measures the overall growth rate of the IT industry by tracking the financial results of the world’s most important publicly listed IT companies.