The outcome of the Apple/Samsung retrial and the small acquisitions by Apple and Microsoft were the main international ICT stories last week.
At home, MB Technologies' acquisition of SecureData was the most significant piece of local ICT news.
Key local news
* Satisfactory interim numbers from Telkom SA, with revenue up 0.2% and profit up over 18-fold.
* Mediocre interim figures from Huge Group, with revenue down 3.6% and profit down 62.3%.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Business Connexion, with revenue up 5.9% and profit up 12.9%.
* Mediocre year-end figures from Reunert, with revenue down 2.7% and profit down 10.1%.
* A positive trading update from MICROmega Holdings.
* A negative trading update from Prescient.
* MB Technologies acquired SecureData Holdings for R86.3 million, in a move that will see the latter de-listed from the JSE.
* Alan Knott-Craig, CEO of Cell C, suffered a minor stroke.
* Renewed JSE cautionaries by Labat Africa and TCS.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Prescient.
Key international news
MB Technologies acquired SecureData Holdings for R86.3 million.
* Apple acquired PrimeSense, an Israeli maker of chips that enable 3D machine vision, for $345 million.
* CenturyLink bought Tier 3, a cloud computing start-up.
* Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm, purchased Deutsche Telekom's majority stake in Scout24, for EUR1.5 billion.
* Intuit acquired Prestwick Services, a provider of payroll-based billing and payment solutions.
* Microsoft bought EqcoLogic, a Belgium-based fabless semiconductor vendor.
* Changyou.com, a subsidiary of Sohu.com, made a $50 million (62.5%) investment in Raidcell, a free social communications platform.
* Sierra Wireless has complained to the European Commission and the US FTC about alleged anti-competitive behaviour by Nokia.
* Google paid a $17 million privacy fine.
* Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Acacia Research over smartphone patents.
* The Apple/Samsung retrial ruling gives Apple a $290 million 'win' against Samsung for patent infringements.
* Fiserv announced a 2:1 stock split.
* A US congressional panel has approved a Bill targeting patent 'trolls': companies that buy or license patents from others and then aggressively pursue licensing fees or file infringement lawsuits.
* Good quarterly numbers from Marvell Technology.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Autodesk, Laird and Mobile TeleSystems (Russia).
* Mixed quarterly figures from Brocade Communications Systems, with revenue down but profit up; and Mentor Graphics, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Aruba Networks, Intuit, Salesforce.com and Splunk.
* The appointments of Martin Read as chairman of Laird (as of 2 May 2014); and Stan Shih, the original founder of Acer, as chairman and interim president of Acer.
* The resignations of Liv Garfield, CEO of BT's Openreach division; JT Wang, chairman and CEO of Acer; and Jim Wong, president of Acer.
* The retirement of Nigel Keen, chairman of Laird (as of 2 May 2014).
* An excellent IPO on Nasdaq by Sungy Mobile (China).
* A withdrawn IPO by GFI Software.
Look out for
International:
* Further acquisitions by US technology companies of Israeli technology firms.
Africa:
* A possible BCX acquisition in Nigeria.
South Africa:
* The outcome of the discussions regarding the future of Telkom Mobile.
Research results and predictions
* Android has now overtaken Apple in terms of tablet revenue, with a share of 46.2% as opposed to Apple's 45.6%, according to IDC.
* Non-Apple brand vendors will ship 105 million tablets in 2014, up 23.6% from 2013's expected total, according to Digitimes Research.
Stock market changes
* JSE All share index: Down 1.7%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.1% (highest-ever weekend close since September 2000)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.6%
* S&P 500: Highest-ever close
* Top SA share movements: Business Connexion (+13.9%), Huge Group (+9.1%), Jasco (-11.8%), MICROmega Holdings (-9.1%), Poynting Holdings (-16%), Prescient (-9.8%), SecureData (-15%), TCS (-50%) and Telemasters (-29.1%)
Final word
* African Business recently published its listing of "Africa's Most Admired & Valuable Brands'. From a technology perspective, the following were included in the top 25:
1: MTN
4: Samsung
5: Vodafone
13: Airtel
15: HP
16: Toshiba
20: Globacom (Nigeria)
21: Etisalat
* African Innovator recently published its listing of 'Africa's Top 20 Tech CEOs'. The top five were:
1: Sifiso Dabengwa, MTN Group
2: Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group
3: Jens Montanana, Datatec
4: Koos Bekker, Naspers
5: Sipho Maseko, Telkom SA
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