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Patent lawsuits still in style

Microsoft sues Kyocera over patent infringements regarding the latter's cellphones.

Paul Booth
By Paul Booth
Johannesburg, 09 Mar 2015

The international ICT market was dominated by a number of acquisitions last week, including ones from HP, IBM, NTT Communications and NXP Semiconductors. Also making headlines was Microsoft's announcement of a lawsuit against Kyocera over patent infringements.

At home, the appointment of HP SA's new MD and the rumours regarding a possible Cell C sale were the main local ICT stories.

Key local news

* Excellent interim numbers from Poynting Holdings, with revenue up 105.3% and profit up 321.2%.
* Mixed interim numbers from Metrofile, with revenue up 7.7% but profit down 16.7%.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from MTN Group, with revenue up 7% and profit up 22.5%.
* Nyalu Communications, a one-stop digital print service provider, acquired Xanadu Printing and Graphics, a litho print shop.
* Renewed JSE cautionaries by Altron and Sekunjalo.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Ansys.
* The appointment of Pieter Bensch as MD of HP South Africa.
* The resignation of Pieter Bensch as MD of Oracle SA.

Key African news

* Satisfactory year-end figures from MTN Nigeria, with revenue up 12.1% and EBITDA up 8.2%.

Key international news

Google will launch its own telecoms service in the coming months.

* Akamai acquired Xerocole, a recursive domain name system provider.
* Box bought Subspace, a data security start-up.
* eBay (PayPal) purchased Paydiant, a mobile payments company.
* HP acquired Aruba Networks, a wireless networking company, for $3 billion.
* IBM bought AlchemyAPI, a start-up that will help boost the Watson computing unit.
* Ingram Micro purchased Anovo, a provider of reverse logistics and repair within the technology marketplace.
* Kofax acquired Aia Holding, a provider of customer communications software.
* Mentor Graphics Corporation bought the business assets of Tanner EDA, a leading tool provider for the design, layout and verification of analogue/mixed-signal and MEMS integrated circuits.
* NTT Communications acquired e-shelter, a German data centre firm.
* NXP Semiconductors bought Freescale Semiconductor for $11.8 billion.
* PCH, a supply chain management company, purchased Fab.com, an e-commerce retailer.
* Samsung Electronics acquired US-based Yesco Electronics, a manufacturer of LED displays.
* Uber bought deCarta, a mapping start-up.
* Altice invested an additional EUR3.9 billion for Vivendi's 20% stake in Numericable-SFR.
* Microsoft is suing Kyocera over patent infringements regarding the latter's cellphones.
* Google will launch its own telecoms service in the coming months.
* Apple has replaced AT&T in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
* Very good quarterly figures from Veeva Systems.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Engility.
* Mixed quarterly figures from ASM International, with revenue down but back in the black; and Checkpoint Systems, with revenue down but back in the black.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Finisar (but back in the black).
* Quarterly losses from Alaska Communications Systems Group, Ciena, GCI, Palo Alto Networks, CDI, Epiq Systems, JD.com, Stratasys and TiVo.
* The appointment of Mauricio Ramos as CEO of Millicom Cellular International.
* A disappointing IPO on the NYSE by MaxPoint Interactive, a BI and marketing automation software services company.

Research results and predictions

Worldwide:
* Worldwide sales of smartphones to end-users in Q4 2014 increased 29.9% from Q4 of 2013 to reach 367.5 million units, with Samsung losing the number one spot to Apple, according to Gartner.
* In Q4 2014, worldwide server shipments increased 4.8%, while revenue grew 2.2% from Q4 2013, according to Gartner. For 2014 as a whole, worldwide server shipments grew 2.2% and server revenue increased 0.8%.
* Factory revenue in the worldwide server market increased 1.9% year-over-year to $14.5 billion in Q4 2014, according to IDC. This was the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth, as server market demand remained positive due to an ongoing enterprise refresh cycle coupled with continued infrastructure investments by cloud service providers. Worldwide server shipments increased 2.8% to 2.5 million units in 4Q14 when compared with the same year-ago period. For the full year 2014, worldwide server revenue increased 2.3% to $50.9 billion when compared to 2013. Worldwide unit shipments increased 2.9% to 9.2 million units, a record high.

Stock market changes

* JSE All share index: Flat (but up marginally)
* Nasdaq: Down 0.7% (broke through 5 000 barrier for only the third time during the week)
* NYSE (Dow): Down 1.5%
* S&P 500: Down 1.6%
* FTSE100: Down 0.5%
* Nikkei225: Up 0.9% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Hang Seng: Down 2.7%
* Shanghai: Down 2.1%
* Top SA share movements: Amecor (+7.8%), Digicor (-8.2%), ISA (-7.2%), Labat Africa (-11.1%), Mix Telematics (+27.8%), MTN (+7.5%), Net 1 UEPS Technologies (+10.2%), Pinnacle Holdings (-8.6%), Sekunjalo (+33.1%), Silverbridge Holdings (+16.7%) and Telkom SA (-10.7%)

Look out for

International:
* A potential tie-up between Orange and Telecom Italia.

Africa:
* The outcome of the battle for control of Telecel Zimbabwe.

South Africa:
* The future of Cell C, which may include its disposal by Oger Telecom.

Final word

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article regarding Europe's 2015 tech start-up landscape. This list includes:
* Fiverr, an Israeli player in the online services market;
* Kano Computing, a producer of toolkits that allow users to build a computer and write software easily;
* Klarna, a Swedish start-up in the online payments market;
* Lumus, a provider of wearable display technologies;
* SigFox, a provider of cheap, long-range radio technology that can be used to connect objects onto networks;
* SiSense, an Israeli BI company that makes software intended to run on regular computers with no additional hardware;
* Truecaller, the provider of a caller identity app; and
* Withings, a company that provides personal health connections to the Internet with devices such as WiFi-enabled bathroom scales and blood pressure monitors.

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