Compuware cashes in

The international ICT market was dominated last week by the Alibaba road show, and the private equity buyout of Compuware.

At home, MTN's sell-off of its Nigerian mobile network towers, and yet another two acquisitions by Datatec, stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Good year-end figures from Metrofile, with revenue up 14.4% and profit up 44.4%.
* Mixed year-end figures from Pinnacle Holdings, with revenue up 7.7% but profit down 16.2%.
* A positive trading update from EOH.
* Altron (Altech Netstar) acquired FleetPro, a fleet and asset management solutions provider.
* Datatec acquired a 51% stake in Ituma (Germany), a speciality software developer.
* Datatec (Westcon) also bought US-based Verecloud, a cloud services business, for $12 million.
* The WEF's latest Global Competitive Index showed SA coming in at number 56, down from number 53 last year. Mauritius was the highest African country, at 39, with Rwanda rising rapidly to 62. Brazil came in at 57; China was at 28; Russia at 53; India at 71; UK at nine; and US at three.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by Poynting Holdings.

* Excellent half-year numbers from TNM (Malawi), with service revenue up 48% and net profit up 230%.
* Essar Telecom Kenya sold off its network, IT and office infrastructure to Safaricom, and its subscriber base to Bharti Airtel, in deals worth a total of $120 million.
* IHS Holdings purchased MTN's 9 151 mobile network towers in Nigeria for R20 billion.
* Telecom Egypt has been awarded a unified licence with a proviso that it disposes of its stake in Vodafone Egypt by December 2015.
* Seacom has deployed two new POPs in Uganda.
* The appointment of Vincent Lobry as CEO of Telkom Kenya.
* The resignation of Mickael Ghossein, CEO of Telkom Kenya (moves to become SVP of Orange Business Services - Middle East).

Getty Images is suing Microsoft over the latter's new online photo tool.

* Amphenol acquired Casco Automotive Group, a supplier of highly engineered data connectivity, power, charging and sensor products to the worldwide automotive market. The deal was worth $450 million.
* Equifax purchased the remaining shares in NettPositive (India), a data analytics and BI company, which it did not already own.
* Facebook bought 100 patents in a move designed to spur initiatives regarding virtual reality, video and speech translation.
* Samsung Electronics acquired PrinterOn, a Canadian cloud-printing company.
* Teradata purchased Think Big Analytics, a consulting and solutions company focused exclusively on Hadoop and big data solutions.
* Thomas Bravo, a private equity investment firm, bought Compuware for $2.5 billion.
* United Internet, a German ISP, acquired KKR's 74.9% stake in Versatel, a cable group, for $769 million.
* KKR made a $90 million investment in Savant Systems, a smart home tech company.
* NTT Communications made an additional investment in Netmagic Solution (India), raising its stake to over 81.5%.
* Nvidia is suing Qualcomm and Samsung over graphics patents.
* Getty Images is suing Microsoft over the latter's new online photo tool.
* The EU has fined Infineon, Philips and Samsung over a smartcard chip cartel.
* The Indian Department of Telecom announced the merger of BSNL and MTNL, the state-run telecommunications companies, will be finalised by the end of June 2015.
* Twitpic, a company that allows people to upload photos to Twitter, is closing down, as Twitter threatened to cut off access to the service if it didn't alter its trademark.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Ciena.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Finisar, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Infoblox, VeriFone and Verint Systems.
* The resignation of Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot (now bought by Stratasys, which he is joining).
* A planned IPO in Frankfurt from Zalando, a German online retailer, later this year, in what is likely to be the largest IPO in Europe for several years.

Worldwide:
* The worldwide WLAN market grew 9.2% in Q2, with the EMEA region showing a 20.7% growth, according to IDC.
* The worldwide external disk storage market declined 1.4% in Q2 to nearly $5.9 billion, with the top five players all remaining in the same pecking order, according to IDC.
* Worldwide phablet shipments will surpass those of portable PCs this year and those of tablets in 2015, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.6%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.1% (highest weekend close this year)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.2% (highest ever weekend)
* S&P 500: Up 0.2% (highest ever weekend close)
* FTSE100: Up 0.5% (a 14-year high was reached during the week)
* Top SA share movements: CompuClearing (+40%), Gijima (-10.1%), Morvest Business Group (-7.4%), MTN (+7.9%), Pinnacle Holdings (-11.1%) and Telkom SA (+7.9%)

International:
* A binding bid for T-Mobile US by Iliad, a French mobile carrier.
* Alibaba's IPO on 19 September, which is looking like the largest ever.

South Africa:
* The outcome of the Financial Services Board's investigation into alleged insider trading at Pinnacle Holdings.

The Sunday Times has published its Top Brands 2014 listings. From a technology perspective, the following was of interest:
* Nokia was top of the cellphones category and came fifth in the 'Grand Prix - overall favourite brand' category.
* Samsung was top of the electronic goods category and came 10th in the 'Grand Prix - overall favourite brand' category
* Facebook was top of the social networks category.
* Vodacom was top of the telecommunications providers category, came sixth in the 'Grand Prix - the green award' category, and came eighth in the 'Grand Prix - social investment' category.
* Samsung was top of the cellphones business category.
* Apple's iPad was top of the tablets and e-readers business category.
* Vodacom was top of the telecommunications service providers business category.
* Telkom SA came fifth in the 'Grand Prix - the green award' category and seventh in the 'Grand Prix - social investment' category.
* MTN came ninth in the 'Grand Prix - social investment' category and in the 'Grand Prix - the green award' category.