Microsoft gives the chop

The multibillion-dollar merger in the gaming industry involving Gtech, and the job loss announcement by Microsoft, dominated the international ICT world last week.

At home, the new CEO appointment at BCX was the main local ICT story in a very quiet week.

* Positive trading updates from Datatec and Mustek.
* Poynting Holdings acquired Radio Network Solutions, a systems integrator in the wireless space, for R110 million.
* BICS has established a Johannesburg point of presence (POP) with Teraco.
* Renewed JSE cautionaries by Poynting Holdings and TCS.
* David Anderson was appointed CEO of Marval SA, a specialist provider of service management solutions; and Isaac Mophatlane as CEO of BCX.

* Mediocre quarterly figures from Millicom's African operations.
* Millicom International Cellular has sold its 50% stake in its Mauritius Emtel business to its partner Currimjee.
* Internet Solutions has added three new POPs - Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland - to its African network.
* Orange has opened an IP POP in C^ote d'Ivoire.
* The appointments of Tom Gutjahr as MD of Airtel Uganda; and Andrew Kapula as MD of CEC Liquid Telecom Zambia.

Cloud hardware spending in EMEA will break the $4 billion mark this year.

* Dassault Systemes acquired Simpack, a simulation technology provider.
* Gtech (Italy) bought US-based International Game Technology, a casino equipment maker, for $4.7 billion.
* LinkedIn purchased Newsle, a start-up that helps users keep track of their friends and contacts mentioned in the news.
* NetSuite acquired UK-based Venda, a provider of e-commerce solutions.
* Salesforce.com bought RelateIQ, a relationship-intelligence company, for $390 million.
* Spirent Communications purchased the assets of Radvision's technology business unit, a provider of a complete development and test suite for voice and video over IP communications, for $25 million.
* Twitter acquired CardSpring, a payment start-up.
* Vishay Intertechnology acquired Capella Microsystems, a Taiwan-based IC design house.
* Liberty Global made a £481 million investment in ITV (UK), the British broadcaster.
* VMware invested in JFrog, a software management start-up.
* Apple has agreed to a conditional $450 million e-books anti-trust accord.
* America Movil has taken control of Telekom Austria, as it has now increased its stake to 50.8%.
* Microsoft has announced it is cutting about 18 000 jobs.
* Very good quarterly figures from NetScout Systems and Skyworks Solutions.
* Good quarterly numbers from Syntel, Tata Consultancy Systems and TSMC.
* Satisfactory half-year numbers from Orange.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Adtran, Cypress Semiconductor, eBay, Fairchild Semiconductor (back in the black), Google, Intel, Millicom International Cellular, SanDisk and Snap-On.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Seagate, Software AG, Tele2 and Yahoo.
* Mixed quarterly figures from EFI, with revenue up but profit down; Ericsson, with revenue down but profit up; IBM, with revenue down but profit up; Mindtree, with revenue up but profit down; and SAP, with revenue up (just) but profit down.
* A quarterly loss from AMD.
* A half-year loss from Zain, although revenue up.
* The appointments of Nikesh Arora as vice-chairman of SoftBank and CEO of SoftBank's Internet and Media unit; Jeffrey Hedberg (ex-Telkom SA) as CEO of Mobilink (Pakistan); and Meg Whitman as chairman of HP in addition to her role as CEO.
* The resignations of Nikesh Arora, Google's head of business communications; and Ralph Whitworth, interim chairman of HP.
* The death of Heinz Zemanek, an Austrian computing pioneer who briefly put Austria in the vanguard of European computing in the 1950s with his 'May Breeze' computer.
* An IPO filing from Line, the messaging application subsidiary of South Korea's Naver Corporation.
* A delay to the IPO by Alibaba to September 2014.

* South Africa:
* SA accounts for 40.7% of the total ICT spend in Africa and 71.5% of all IT services spend, according to IDC.
* Machine-to-machine connections across SA's automotive, finance, retail and utilities sectors are forecast to hit between six million and seven million by 2018, according to Frost & Sullivan.

* EMEA/Africa:
* Virtualisation rates in the CEMA region increased 5% in Q1 to reach 32%, according to IDC.
* Cloud hardware spending in EMEA will break the $4 billion mark this year, says IDC.
* EMEA PC shipments in Q2 rose 10.5% to reach nearly 21.9 million units, states IDC. Lenovo closed the gap on HP significantly during this period, with over 50% growth.
* LTE subscriptions in Kenya are forecasted to reach one million by 2018, according to Pyramid Research.

* Worldwide:
* Approximately 1.25 billion smartphones are expected to ship this year, rising to over two billion in 2018, a CAGR of 12%, according to ABI Research.
* Global notebook shipments declined 4.9% in Q2, according to Digitimes Research.
* CIOs should make digital business technologies an IT responsibility, according to Gartner.
* IT asset managers and CIOs should work together to foster digital innovation and avoid technology debt, according to Gartner.
* Active LTE connections will reach 1.8 billion by 2019, according to Juniper Research.
* The worldwide mobile handset market is expected to reach 1.88 billion units this year, up 3% on 2013, according to Taiwan's MIC.

* JSE All share index: Up 1%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.4%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.9% (highest-ever weekend close)
* S&P 500: Up 0.5%
* FTSE100: Up 0.8%
* Top SA share movements: Digicor (-10.5%), Huge Group (-7.1%), Jasco (-14.2%), Poynting Holdings (+18.5%), Sekunjalo (+11.7%) and Telemasters (-10.5%)

International:
* The acquisition by Samsung of SmartThings, a home automation company.
* The possible acquisition by Microsoft of Israel-based cyber security start-up, Aorato.
* Telefonica's disposal of some of its interest in Telecom Italia.
* TeliaSonera pulling out of Spain.
* The acquisition by Vodafone and its Greek partner, wind, for the shares in Forthnet (Greece) they don't already own.

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding consolidation in the local telecommunications space.

Computerworld Weekly published the predictions of six futurists regarding which of today's common technologies are headed for the scrap heap, and what will replace them.

They are: