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Ex-Nokia CEO leaves MS

A year after Nokia was sold to Microsoft, Stephen Elop leaves the company.

Paul Booth
By Paul Booth
Johannesburg, 22 Jun 2015

Stephen Elop's departure from Microsoft was the main international ICT market story last week.

At home, ICASA's backing for the Vodacom/Neotel merger stole the local ICT media coverage.

Key local news

* A positive trading update from Naspers.
* Novatel Wireless acquired DigiCore Holdings for R1.1 billion.
* Wise Tech Global (Australia) invested in CompuClearing, raising its stake to 23.5%.
* Ellies announced a R200 million rights offer.
* ICASA has approved the Vodacom/Neotel merger, subject to certain conditions that have yet to be announced.
* A new JSE cautionary by CompuClearing.
* Withdrawn JSE cautionaries by Digicore and Ellies.
* The appointment of Jaresh Maharaj as CEO of Indra Technology SA.

Key African news

* The appointment of Angelina Vere as CEO of Telecel Zimbabwe.
* An oversubscribed IPO by Crystal Telecom in Rwanda.

Key international news

ICASA has approved the Vodacom/Neotel merger.

* CA Technologies acquired Grid Tools, a provider of enterprise test data management, automated test design and optimisation software solutions.
* CA Technologies bought Rally Software Development, a provider of agile development software and services.
* Comverse purchased Acision, a UK-based messaging platform, for $170 million.
* Intel acquired Recon Instruments, a Vancouver, Canada-based maker of heads-up displays.
* Sophos bought Reflexion Networks, a provider of cloud-based e-mail security, archiving, e-mail encryption and business continuity services.
* Twitter purchased Whetlab, a machine-learning start-up.
* Vista Equity Partners acquired Powerschool, a back-office software provider to schools, for $350 million.
* Apple lost a lawsuit in Taiwan, in which it was accused of engaging in anti-competitive practices. It will be fined T$20 million ($647 000).
* Belgium's privacy watchdog has begun legal proceedings against Facebook for breach of that country's privacy laws.
* eBay has sold its 28.4% stake in Craigslist back to the company and has agreed to a settlement regarding its outstanding litigation.
* Softbank is forming a robotics venture with Alibaba and Foxconn.
* Good quarterly numbers from Red Hat.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Adobe and Finisar.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Oracle.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Jabil Circuit, with revenue up but profit down.
* The appointment of Hannes Ametsreiter as CEO of Vodafone Germany.
* The resignations of Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO of Telekom Austria, and Stephen Elop, ex-CEO of Nokia (which was sold to Microsoft a year ago).
* Ralph Roberts, founder of Comcast, has died.
* An IPO filing for Nasdaq from Innolight Technology Group, an infrastructure enabler of cloud data centre networks.
* A good IPO in Italy by Infrastructture Wireless Italiane (Telecom Italia's towers business).
* An excellent IPO on the NYSE by Fitbit.
* A satisfactory IPO in Taiwan by General Interface Solution, a Taiwanese maker of integrated touch display solutions.

Research results and predictions

EMEA/Africa:
* The EMEA thin client market faced a severe contraction in Q1 2015, according to IDC. Shipments declined 10.2% year-on-year, and resulted in only 438 000 units being shipped.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide shipments of hybrid devices are on pace to reach 21.5 million units in 2015, an increase of 70% from 2014, according to Gartner. Hybrid devices will account for 12% of total sales of mobile PCs in 2015, rising to 26% in 2019. Of the 21.5 million hybrid devices shipped in 2015, eight million will be ultra-mobile tablets (two-in-one tablets) and 13.5 million hybrid ultra-mobiles (two-in-one detachable and convertible ultra-mobiles). This will make hybrid ultra-mobiles the fastest growing segment of the mobile PC market, with 77% year-on-year growth.
* According to IDC, 72.1 million wearable devices will be shipped in 2015, up a strong 173.3% from the 26.4 million units shipped in 2014. Shipment volumes are expected to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.6% over the five-year forecast period, reaching 155.7 million units shipped in 2019.
* Worldwide purpose-built backup appliance factory revenue grew 6.9% year-over-year, totalling $719.3 million in the first quarter of 2015, according to IDC.
* There will be nearly 1.37 billion 4G LTE subscribers worldwide by year-end 2015, up from nearly 650 million in 2014, according to ABI Research. It forecasts the LTE subscriber base will exceed 3.5 billion by 2020, demonstrating a five-year CAGR of 20.8%.

Stock market changes

* JSE All share index: Down 0.1%
* Nasdaq: Up 1.3% (highest-ever weekend close)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.7%
* S&P 500: Up 0.8%
* FTSE100: Down 1.1%
* Nikkei225: Down 1.2%
* Hang Seng: Down 1.9%
* Shanghai: Down 13.3%
* Top SA share movements: Alaris (-9.8%), Altron-N (-7.5%), CompuClearing (+9.6%), Digicore (+12.3%), Ellies (+18.5%), Labat Africa (-7.3%), Prescient (-7.3%) and Telkom SA (-8.4%)

Look out for

International:
* A buyout of NCR by a group of private equity investors.
* A merger of Reliance Communications and Sistema's Indian operations.
* The possible management buyout of Qihoo 360 for $9 billion, in a move that would take the company private.
* The outcome of a £569 million offer by Fidelity for the shares of Colt Telecom it does not already own.

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the two local major telecoms mergers.

Final word

The latest Forbes Global 2000, a comprehensive list of the world's largest, most powerful public companies, as measured by revenue, profit, assets and market value, has been published. Last week, I showed the technology entries in the top 100.

Other major technology movements include:

* 196: Orange (down from 144)
* 269: Alibaba (new entrant)
* 280: Facebook (up from 510)
* 304: Tencent Holdings (up from 426)
* 347: Nokia (was 631)
* 395: MTN (was 378)
* 447: Lenovo (was 566)
* 467: Yahoo (was 715)
* 478: Sony (was 233)
* 421: Xerox (was 456)
* 546: Baidu (was 723)
* 637: Cognizant Technology (was 772)
* 691: Naspers (was 857)
* 869: ZTE (was 1 219)
* 898: JD.Com (new entrant)
* 940: Altice (new entrant)
* 1 195: Electronic Arts (new entrant)
* 1 329: Lam Research (new entrant)
* 1 357: Skyworks Solutions (new entrant)
* 1 363: CSC (was 896)
* 1 512: Idea Cellular (new entrant)
* 1 583: United Internet (new entrant)
* 1 717: MTNL (new entrant)
* 1 729: Tech Mahindra (new entrant)
* 1 762: Nanya Technologies (new entrant)
* 1 922: SBA Communications (new entrant)
* 1 951: Freescale Semiconductor (new entrant)

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