Facebook splurges during silly season

Welcome to my first Booth's Bites of 2015. As seems to be the norm over the year-end holiday season, the international ICT market has been dominated by numerous acquisitions and investments (>50), including significant ones by Altice, Atos, Facebook (four deals), OpenText (two deals), Oracle and Thoma Bravo (Riverbed).

At home, another acquisition by Datatec and the proposed split by Ellies were the main local stories.

* Excellent interim numbers from Labat Africa, with revenue up 56.7% and back in the black.
* Satisfactory interim figures from Amecor, with revenue up 10.3% and profit up 1.5%.
* Mixed Q1 numbers from Telemasters, with revenue down 0.3% but profit up 17.4%.
* A full-year loss from ConvergeNet Holdings.
* An interim loss from Ellies, with revenue down 6.6%.
* A positive trading update from Datatec.
* Datatec (Logicalis) acquired Inforsacom Holding, a German provider of database, storage and infrastructure solutions and services.
* Opera Mediaworks, a subsidiary of Opera, bought AdVine, a South African provider of a premium mobile advertising network.
* Teraco Data Environments, a sub-Saharan Africa provider of carrier-neutral data centre services, and Permira, an international private equity firm, said a company backed by the Permira funds has acquired 100% of the equity in Teraco, in partnership with management.
* Obsidian invested 25% in GuruHut, a software development house that applies agile methodology to roll-out enterprise solutions.
* The arbitration proceedings between a Blue Label subsidiary, Africa Prepaid Services Nigeria (APSN), and the former subsidiary of Telkom SA, Multi-Links Telecommunications, have been settled.
* ConvergeNet Holdings has said its new name, applicable after 20 March, will be Stellar Capital Partners and not CQ Capital Partners, as previously indicated.
* Ellies announced a R115 million rights offer.
* Ellies will split the company into two separately-listed units: one called Ellies Electronics, which will house its consumer business, and the other, yet to be named, will house its Megatron business.
* FoneWorx will begin trading under its new name, Cognition Holdings.
* Orange will open its first branded store in SA this month.
* Poynting Holdings will dispose of its interests in Poynting Antennas, Poynting Direct, Poynting HK and a minority interest in Crunchyard Holdings to Andre Fourie's new company, yet to be named, for R34.84 million (ie, 14 million shares).
* Renewed JSE cautionaries by Labat Africa, TCS and Telkom SA.
* Withdrawn JSE cautionaries by Blue Label Telecoms and Ellies.
* The appointments of Juergen Dresel as interim CEO of Poynting Holdings; Andre Goosen as country service manager of ASUS in SA; Alpheus Mangale (ex-Cisco SA) as chief enterprise officer of MTN SA; and Nathan Nayagar as GM of Lexmark SA.
* The resignations of Andre Fourie, CEO of Poynting Holdings; Mark Hiller, GM of Lexmark SA; Lambo Kanagaratnam, chief enterprise officer of MTN SA; and Zandile Tshabalala, chairman of the SABC.

* Good quarterly figures from Lap Green Networks.
* IHS acquired 1 100 African towers belonging to Bharti Airtel.
* Gemalto has opened an office in C^ote d'Ivoire.
* The Natcom Consortium has emerged as the preferred bidder ($252 million) for Nigeria's Nitel/MTel in a deal that hopefully will close the chapter on a situation that has dragged on for many months.
* The listing of Botswana Telecommunications has been postponed to a date still to be announced.
* Swift will open two offices this year; one in Accra and the other in Nairobi.
* The appointments of Emmanuel Fromont as president of Acer's EMEA operations; and Muetassem Raslan as MENA regional sales manager for Ruckus Wireless.
* The resignation of Luca Rossi, president of Acer's EMEA operations.

The UK Financial Times has named Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, as its 'Person of the Year'.

* Accenture bought Reactive Media (Australia), an independent digital agency.
* Adobe purchased Fotolia, a stock photography company, for $800 million.
* Altice (France) acquired Oi's (Brazil) Portuguese assets of Portugal Telecom, for EUR7.4 billion.
* Amazon bought GoodGame, an advertising agency.
* American Tower spent $1.2 billion on the acquisition of about 6 480 towers owned by TIM Cellular (Brazil).
* American Tower bought a 51% stake in Viom Networks (India) for $900 million.
* AOL purchased Vidible, a marketplace for online video content.
* Atos acquired Xerox's IT outsourcing business for $1.05 billion.
* BBVA (Spain) bought Madiva Soluciones, a big data start-up that processes unstructured data for its clients.
* BCE (Canada) purchased retailer Glentel for $586 million.
* Belden acquired Tripwire, a cyber security firm.
* CenturyLink bought Cognilytic, a provider of advanced analytics and big data solutions.
* CenturyLink purchased DataGardens, a firm specialising in disaster recovery premises infrastructure.
* Cisco acquired Neohapsis, a provider of risk management, compliance, cloud, application, mobile and infrastructure security solutions.
* CoorsTek bought Covalent Materials, a Japanese semiconductor materials maker that is owned by Carlyle, the private equity group.
* Corning purchased the fibre-optic operations of Samsung Electronics.
* Cyient (India) bought 75% of Rangsons Electronics (India), an EDSM and systems integration vendor.
* Cypress Semiconductor acquired Spansion, another chipmaker, for $1.59 billion.
* Deezer (France) purchased AT&T's Muve music streaming service.
* Esker bought CalvaEDI, a French company specialising in computer-based communications in the EDI transport and logistics sector.
* Facebook's Oculus VR acquired Nimble VR and 13th Lab, two virtual reality start-ups.
* Facebook purchased QuickFire, a video start-up, and wit.ai, a voice recognition firm.
* Fico bought Tonbeller, a German predictive analytics and decision management software company.
* Garmin acquired iKubu, the developer of Backtracker Bike Radar.
* General Communication purchased the wireless subscriber base of Alaska Communications.
* Intel bought PasswordBox, a Canadian IT security firm.
* Lexmark acquired Claron Technology, a medical imaging company.
* Liberty Global and Searchlight Capital Partners purchased Choice Cable TV, a Puerto Rico-based cable acquisition company.
* Liberty Media's CommerceHub bought Mercent, an e-commerce advisory firm.
* Mentor Graphics acquired Flexras Technologies, a developer of proprietary technologies that reduce time required for prototyping, validation and debugging of integrated circuits and systems on chip.
* Microsoft made a $200 million+ acquisition of Acompli, a maker of mobile e-mail applications.
* OpenText bought Actuate, a business intelligence/analytics software vendor, for $330 million.
* OpenText also purchased Informative Graphics, a developer of viewing, annotation, redaction and publishing commercial software.
* Oracle acquired Datalogix Holdings, an advertising partner to Facebook and Google.
* Rogers Communications bought half of BCE's stake in Glentel, a wireless retailer.
* RPX purchased 400 telecommunications patents owned by Rockstar Consortium, for $900 million.
* SeaChange International acquired Timeline Labs, a company that enables local broadcasters, local and national news organisations, etc, to analyse social media messages in real-time.
* Systemax bought Peg, a business-to-business direct marketer of maintenance, repair and operations products.
* TalkTalk (UK) purchased Tesco's Blinkbox streaming service.
* Telstra acquired Pacnet, Asia's biggest private owner of submarine communications cables, for $697 million.
* Thoma Bravo, a technology-focused private equity firm, bought Riverbed Technologies for $3.6 billion. The former previously bought out both Blue Coat Systems and Compuware.
* Vertical Bridge Holdings, a specialist infrastructure company, purchased 595 mobile towers belonging to US Cellular, for $159 million.
* Xavier Niel, a French entrepreneur, acquired Orange Switzerland for EUR2.3 billion.
* Zayo Group Holdings bought Latisys Holdings for $675 million.
* Alibaba invested in AdChina, which gives it a controlling interest in a Chinese Internet marketing firm.
* Alibaba made a $575 million investment in Paytm, an Indian online shopping service.
* Intel invested in Vuzix, in a move designed to speed up the launch of Internet-connected eyewear.
* JD.com and Tencent made a $1.55 billion investment in Bitauto, an auto information Web site.
* Motorola Solutions invested in VocalZoom, a developer of sensors for speech enhancement.
* Softbank made a $250 million investment in GrabTaxi, a Singapore-based provider of a taxi booking app.
* Temasek Holdings (Singapore) invested in Virtu Financial, an electronic dealing firm.
* Tencent invested in Aiming, a Japanese game developer.
* Xiaomi invested in Midea Group, a home-appliance maker; and Misfit, an Internet of things start-up.
* A merger was proposed between the Danish interests of Telenor and TeliaSonera, in a move to create a viable alternative to TDC.
* Cisco is suing Arista Networks for infringements of network patents.
* Apple has won its digital music US anti-trust trial.
* Apple faces a lawsuit regarding data storage space on its iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices.
* Monster, an audio equipment maker, is suing Beats (Apple) over alleged fraud.
* A court order has barred the sale of some chips used by IBM and SanDisk.
* Apple has been granted a patent for an action camera.
* Apple is suing Ericsson over LTE wireless patents.
* Cognizant is being sued by Syntel following the former's acquisition of TriZetto.
* Four companies, including Apple and Google, have agreed to a settlement to end a lawsuit over poaching.
* AMD has moved its listing from the NYSE to Nasdaq.
* HP has sold its Palm trademarks to TCL (China), which intends to create a new Silicon Valley-based company that will take ownership of the brand and re-build it.
* Tech Mahindra has formed a joint venture with Avion Systems to provide network design and engineering services to communications service providers.
* The UK Financial Times has named Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, as its 'Person of the Year'.
* The bankruptcy court has approved a GT Advanced Technologies settlement with Apple.
* Ramalinga Raju, former chairman of Satyam, has been jailed for a $1 billion accounting fraud scandal.
* Nasdaq has added Electronic Arts and Lam Research in its annual changes to its Nasdaq-100 index, while F5 Networks and Maxim Integrated Product have been removed.
* Very good quarterly figures from Avago (back in the black), Synnex and TSMC.
* Good quarterly numbers from HTC, Micron Technology and VeriFone (back in the black).
* Good year-end numbers from Huawei, with annual revenue now over the $45 billion level.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Accenture, Adobe, Intel, Linear Technology, Synopsys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and WNS.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Comtech Telecommunications and ModusLink Global Solutions.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Jabil Circuit, with revenue up but profit down; OmniVision Technologies, with revenue down but profit up; Oracle, with revenue up but profit down; Progress Software, with revenue up but profit down; Red Hat, with revenue up but profit down; Verint Systems, with revenue up but profit down; and Volt Information Sciences, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from BlackBerry, BSNL (India), Ciena, Finisar, MTNL (India) and Vitesse Semiconductor.
* The appointments of Hans-Holger Albrecht as CEO of Deezer, a music streaming service; Rob Chandhok (ex-Qualcomm) as president and COO of Helium Systems; Jason Chen as the next chairman of Acer; Jang Dong-hyun as CEO of SK Telecom; Michael Fey as COO of Blue Coat Systems (was CTO of Intel Security); Takeski Idezawa as CEO of Line; David McGlade as executive chairman of Intelsat (as of April, was CEO); Tim Pennington as interim CEO of Millicom; Ramin Sayar (ex-VMware) as CEO of Sumo Logic; Premkumar Seshadri as executive vice-chairman and MD of HCL Infosystems; Alex Sinaga as CEO of Telkom Indonesia; and Stephen Spengler as deputy CEO of Intelsat (becomes CEO in April).
* The resignations of Harshavardhan Madhav Chitale, MD and CEO of HCL Infosystems; Sung-Min Ha, CEO of SK Telecom; Vance Loiselle, CEO of Sumo Logic; and Hans-Holger Albrecht, CEO of Millicom.
* A planned IPO on the NYSE by Box, an online storage company.
* An IPO filing for Nasdaq from Inovalon Holdings, an analytics and data-based technology service provider.
* An excellent IPO on Nasdaq by Hortonworks, a Hadoop vendor.
* An excellent IPO on the NYSE by New Telic, an app development software company.
* An excellent IPO in South Korea from Chiel Industries, Samsung Group's de facto holding company. This deal sets a new record in South Korea's stock market history.
* A very good IPO on Nasdaq by Momo, a Chinese mobile chat app firm backed by Alibaba.

EMEA/Africa:
* EMEA server revenue grew 2.9% in Q3 2014, despite shipments falling slightly, according to Gartner.
* Healthcare providers in the MENA region will spend $3 billion on IT in 2014, according to Gartner.
* MEA Q3 2014 PC shipment volumes increased 2.1% to reach 4.26 million units, according to IDC.
* MEA IT spending will pass the $270 billion mark in 2015, an expected 9% growth over 2014, according to IDC.
* The external disk storage market grew 1.3% in Q3 2014, with flash storage spurring this growth, according to IDC.
* Integrated infrastructure and platform revenue grew 38.2% in Q3 2014 in the EMEA region, according to IDC.

Worldwide:
* There will be 221.4 million tablets shipped globally in 2015, slipping by 11.9% year-on-year, according to Digitimes Research.
* There was an estimated 13.3 million all-in-one PCs shipped globally in 2014, decreasing year-on-year by 8.8% and accounting for 9.4% of all desktops, according to Digitimes Research.
* Global LTE users will reach 1.466 billion by 2016 from an expected 445 million in 2014, according to Digitimes Research.
* Worldwide IT spending is on pace to grow 2.4% in 2015, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide PC shipments grew 1% in Q4 2014, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide server shipments grew 1% in Q3 2014, with revenue up 1.7%, according to Gartner.
* By 2017, 30% of smart wearables will be inconspicuous to the eye, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide semiconductor revenue grew 7.9% in 2014 to reach $339.8 billion, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide tablet sales are expected to grow 8% this year, while the PC market is expected to grow 1%, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide hardcopy peripherals shipment values rose 3.5% in Q3 2014 to $14.9 billion, according to IDC.
* Worldwide smartphone shipments will reach nearly 1.3 billion units in 2014, up 26.3% from 2013, according to IDC.
* The global Internet population topped the 3 billion mark in June 2014, up 26% from June 2012, according to Internet World Stats.
* Ninety percent of the world's population will have a mobile phone by 2020, according to the Ericsson Mobility Report.
* The global storage market is expected to grow to $42 billion this year, up from $36 billion in 2013, according to Western Digital.

* JSE All share index: Down 2.9%
* Nasdaq: Down 3.3%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 1.8%
* S&P 500: Down 2.3%
* FTSE100: Down 2.6%
* Nikkei225: Down 3.4%
* Hang Seng: Up 0.5%
* Shanghai: Up 17.9%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (-20.8%), Blue Label Telecoms (-9.8%), Gijima (-42.9%), ISA (-13.3%), Labat Africa (+10%), MiX Telematics (-27.8%), Poynting Holdings (-17.4%), Prescient (+21.1%), Silverbridge Holdings (+16%) and Telemasters (-24.1%)

International:
* The possible acquisition of BlackBerry by Samsung.
* A possible tie-up between Vodafone and Liberty Global.
* The possible merger of Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent.
* An IPO of Sunrise, Switzerland's second-largest operator.

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the potential Vodacom/Neotel and Telkom/BCX deals.

Forrester recently published its 'Top emerging technologies to watch: now through 2020':

Emerging business solutions that enable new ways of doing business
* Customer analytics solutions that help firms deeply understand what their customers need and when they need it.
* Digital experience solutions that offer a cockpit for managing the customer life cycle.
* Customer-driven design solutions that enable collaborative experience design with customers.
* Internet of things solutions that offer packaged business process and integration.

Emerging interaction technologies create news ways to engage customers
* Next-generation connectivity that enables a wide range of new digital endpoints.
* Wearable technology that creates many new information sources and displays.
* Natural user interfaces that offer new methods for interacting with computing experiences.

Emerging aggregation and delivery technologies drive contextual engagement
* Real-time sourcing and delivery technology that brings insight to the point of decision.
* Advanced analytics technology that allows firms to cull deeper insight from more data.
* Digital identity management technology that helps firms and individuals control access across channels.
* Software acceleration platforms and tools that help firms continuously deliver.

Emerging infrastructure technology creates a powerful and agile foundation
* Advanced silicon devices that offer new levels of computing, energy efficiency and sensor types.
* Software-defined infrastructure that will enable flexible, easy data centre adjustments.
* Cloud integration tools that will integrate apps and management across cloud and on-premises.
* Big data management technology that provides a flexible, affordable foundation for insight.