HP plans to divide and conquer

Split announcements by HP and Symantec dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, during a very quiet week, the merger of Kalahari.com and Takealot stole much of the local ICT space.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Datacentrix, with revenue up 9% and profit up 15.4%.
* Mixed interim figures from Altron, with revenue up 5.8% but profit down 41.1%; and ISA, with revenue down 12.3% but profit up 2%.
* A negative trading update from Telkom SA.
* Metrofile acquired 60% of Zambia-registered FlexiFile, a records management company.
* Metrofile acquired 60% of UAE-registered E-file Masters, a professional records information management company.
* MICROmega Holdings bought Action Training Academy, a provider of first aid training and fire risk management services.
* Asher Bohbot, CEO of EOH, has been named the Southern African Business Leader of the Year in the regional leg of the CNBC Africa All Africa Business Leaders Awards.
* Kalahari.com and Takealot.com, two online retailers, are to merge.
* A new JSE cautionary by Ellies.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by Telkom SA.

* Orange is considering listing its Africa division.

Kalahari.com and Takealot.com, two online retailers, are to merge.

* Cognizant Technology Solutions purchased Cadient Group, a full-service digital marketing agency that serves a broad spectrum of life sciences companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, consumer health and medical device industries.
* Microsoft acquired Equivio, an Israeli text analysis start-up, for $200 million.
* Alibaba made a $50 million investment in Peel Technologies, an e-commerce start-up.
* Samsung Electronics made a $14.7 billion investment in a new South Korean chip facility.
* HP disposed of its 40% stake in UAE-based Injazat Data Systems.
* Bose and Beats have agreed to settle their headphone patent dispute.
* OpenText and Alfresco have settled their patent dispute.
* Accenture and Alcatel-Lucent have formed a strategic alliance to help CSPs and large enterprises implement ultra-broadband solutions. These will address the challenges of rising costs and increased data consumption caused by high demand from digital customers and applications.
* Amazon faces a probe by the EU regarding its Luxembourg tax deal.
* Compuware will spin off its Covisint subsidiary, the provider of a cloud engagement platform for creating and enabling new mission-critical external business processes.
* GT Advanced Technologies, a provider of sapphire glass, has filed for voluntary bankruptcy protection. It is an Apple partner in a sapphire glass plant in Arizona.
* Hewlett-Packard is splitting the company into two separately listed units. The spun-off PC and printer arm will be run by Dion Weisler, and the remaining part, called Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, will be run by Meg Whitman, the current CEO of HP. Patricia Russo, a former CEO of HP, will become chairman of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. Based on last year's revenue, both parts of HP would be ranked among the largest 50 US companies, according to the annual rankings produced by Fortune magazine, with annual revenue of just under $56 billion each.
* Symantec is to split into two listed entities, one focusing on storage and the other on security.
* The appointment of Lisa Su as CEO of AMD.
* The resignation of Rory Read, CEO of AMD.
* A potential IPO by SolidFire, a designer of flash storage.

South Africa:
* The South African security appliances market declined 0.6% in Q2 to $11.92 million, according to IDC.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide PC shipments declined 0.5% in Q3 to 79.4 million units, with Lenovo consolidating its number one position.

* JSE All share index: Down 3.1%
* Nasdaq: Down 4.5%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 2,7%
* S&P 500: Down 3.3%
* FTSE100: Down 2.9%
* Top SA share movements: Adapt IT (-11.6%), Altron (-8.3%), Altron-P (-10.3%), Amecor (-7.6%), CompuClearing (-21.4%), Ellies (-41.1%), Gijima (+16.1%), Jasco (+10.4%) and Metrofile (-9.4%)

International:
* The possible sale by Swisscom of Fastweb, its Italian broadband firm. It could be a target for Vodafone in a deal that might be as high as EUR5 billion.

Africa:
* The sale by Etisalat of its Tanzanian unit.

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding consolidation activities in the telecommunications sector.

The Broadband Commission's 2014 'State of Broadband' report was recently issued. The following are some of the findings:
* Africa's mobile broadband subscribers have reached 172 million, 8% of the worldwide total.
* Africa's fixed broadband subscriptions have reached three million, 0.5% of the worldwide total. The global number is expected to rise to 711 million by the end of this year.
* In terms of fixed (wired) broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, Seychelles was the top African country, with 12.9; followed by Mauritius, with 12.6. SA's number was 3.1.
* In terms of mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, Botswana was the top African country, with 74.1. There was no number available for SA.
* Within the developing nations, the percentage of households with Internet was 50.6% in Seychelles; followed by 44.4% in Mauritius; and 39.4% in SA.
* For the percentage of individuals using the Internet, the top African country was Seychelles at 50.4%; followed by Egypt at 49.6%; and SA at 48.9%.