Can Apple 'bounce back'?

The formal announcement by EMC of Pivotal, the Dell buyout dilemmas, and the invalidation of Apple's 'bounce back' scrolling patent were the key stories in the international ICT market over the past four weeks.

At home, the favourable ruling regarding Sassa and Net1 UEPS, and the appointments at Telkom SA, stole much of the local ICT headline space.

* Very good interim numbers from EOH, with revenue up 45.5% and profit up 535%.
* Satisfactory interim figures from CompuClearing, with revenue up 5.7% and profit up 18.4%.
* Mixed interim figures from FoneWorx, with revenue down 8.9% but profit up 14%; and SecureData Holdings, with revenue up 15.6% but profit down 87.3%.
* Mediocre year-end figures from MICROmega Holdings, with revenue down 4% and profit down 24%.
* An interim loss from Gijima, with revenue also down 23%.
* Negative trading updates from Datacentrix, Datatec and ISA Holdings.
* Saratoga Software, a subsidiary of Sekunjalo Investments, acquired World Wide Creative, a digital agency.
* Naspers invested an 18.6% stake in Avito (Russia), an Internet rival, in a deal that will see a merger of their local classified businesses and $50 million in cash. The merger will see Naspers' Slando and OLX Russian units integrated into Avito.
* MICROmega's subsidiary, MICROmega Securities, has entered into a joint venture with GFI Securities.
* Fujitsu has sold a 25% plus one share stake in its South African subsidiary to Thuthukani Investment Consortium.
* The matter between ZTE Mzansi and Telkom SA was concluded in favour of the latter.
* Datatec's Westcon unit is to divest from its India venture.
* The announcement by the Department of Communications (DOC) of its 2013-2018 Strategic Plan and the 2013-2014 Annual Performance Plan. The following have been identified as DOC priorities: broadband, broadcasting digital migration, e-skills, Postbank and the ICT policy review.
* Gijima will raise R150 million, by way of a renounceable rights offer to Gijima shareholders.
* Huawei Technology has unveiled its first call centre in SA.
* Sentech's R1.4 billion project to convert the country's television transmission network to digital will be wrapped up in just more than a year.
* The South African Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of Sassa and Net1 UEPS Technologies.
* Tele Enterprise, a new generation telecommunications firm, has arrived in SA.
* Telkom SA launched Telkom Mobile, amid a restructuring process and efforts to get the company back on track financially, and a shake-up of its mobile arm 8ta in terms of marketing audience. Telkom positions the new mobile brand as "a high-quality network offering great value to data-hungry consumers and those who make high volumes of voice calls".
* New JSE cautionaries by Altech, Altron, Labat Africa and Muvoni Business Group.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by TCS.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Morvest Technology Group.
* The appointments of Brian Armstrong as group COO of Telkom SA; Dumisani Mafu as non-executive chairman of TCS; Mohammed Hariri as chairman of Cell C; and Sipho Maseko as group CEO of Telkom SA.
* The resignation of Lindikhaya Sipoyo as chairman of TCS (remains as CEO).

* Good year-end numbers from AccessKenya, with revenue up 9% and profit up over threefold.
* Satisfactory year-end numbers from Telecom Namibia, with revenue up 7% and EBITDA up 23%.
* Mediocre year-end figures from Telecom Egypt, with profit down nearly 13%.
* An interim loss by Seacom.
* Bharti Airtel made an additional investment (13.36%) in its Nigerian subsidiary, raising its stake to 79.06%.
* France Telecom has outsourced 2 000 towers across C^ote d'Ivorie and Cameroon to IHS, the African infrastructure group.
* The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is moving ahead immediately with plans to have six new ICANN representatives on the African continent.
* New Leaf Africa, a team of leaders in technology, population health and renewable energy, has opened an office in Conakry, Guinea.
* The appointments of Charity Chanda Lumpa as MD of Airtel Zambia; Desan Naidoo as SAS's MD for Southern Africa; and John Swaim as interim CEO of Telecel.
* The resignation of Francis Mawindi, CEO of Telecel (Zimbabwe).

Huawei Technology has unveiled its first call centre in SA.

* Amazon acquired Goodreads, the book recommendation Web site.
* Apple bought WiFiSlam, a maker of mapping applications for cellphones.
* Autodesk purchased Firehole Technologies, a company that develops software used to design and analyse performance of composite materials.
* Cisco acquired Ubiquisys, a provider of intelligent 3G and LTE small-cell technologies, for $310 million.
* Cisco also bought SolveDirect, an Austrian cloud computing company.
* Convergys purchased Datacom's Asia contact centre operations in Malaysia and the Philippines.
* Domtar, one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of paper in North America, acquired Xerox's paper and print media products business in the United States and Canada.
* Dropbox bought the start-up behind the hot e-mail management application, Mailbox.
* eBay (PayPal) purchased Duff Research, a mobile application development company.
* Facebook acquired Storylane, a social networking start-up.
* Fusion-io bought ID7, a software company that provides the capability of allowing storage systems to talk to interface technologies.
* Funai Electric (Japan) purchased Lexmark's inkjet-related technology and assets for $100 million.
* Google acquired DNNresearch, a Canadian start-up specialising in getting machines to understand what people are trying to say.
* Google also bought Talaria, a small company that was building a dynamic Web application server.
* Austria-based GSM-R vendor, Kapsch CarrierCom, purchased NEC's mobile railway terminals division.
* Oracle acquired Nimbula, a provider of private cloud software and services for enterprise customers.
* Oracle purchased Tekelec, a provider of network signalling, policy control, and subscriber data management solutions for communications networks.
* Orbcomm, a global satellite data communications company specialising in machine-to-machine communications, acquired most of the assets of MobileNet, a provider of satellite and cellular-based telematics solutions for monitoring heavy equipment and assets that support the rail industry; and also, most of the assets of System Planning Corporation's GlobalTrak division, an information services company that utilises satellite and cellular communications networks, sensors and proprietary software platforms to provide real-time situational awareness and intelligence to improve logistics and security processes and operations on a global basis.
* Pendrell, a patents holding company, bought Nokia's memory patents.
* VTB Group, a Swedish financial group, purchased Tele2 AB's Russian subsidiary for $3.5 billion.
* Yahoo acquired Jybe, a small mobile start-up company that was founded by former employees of the struggling Web portal two years ago.
* Yahoo purchased Summly, a news application developed by a young Londoner, Nick D'Aloisio.
* MTS, Russia's top mobile phone operator, made a $164 million investment of a 25.1% stake in MTS Bank, raising its stake to about 27%.
* Software AG invested in metaquark (Germany), a mobile solutions start-up, in a move that also comes with a buyout option.
* Carl Icahn, a billionaire investor, made a 9.3% investment in Nuance Communications.
* Google disposed of its print rights for Frommer's travel books back to the company founder, Arthur Frommer, less than a year after acquiring these tourist guides.
* A federal jury in Texas sided with Cisco Systems in a patent-infringement case brought by VirnetX.
* The US International Trade Commission will delay a decision until 31 May regarding allegations that Apple infringed on patents owned by Samsung Electronics in making the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad.
* Airvana Network Solutions, a Massachusetts-based broadband network company, has won a preliminary injunction against Ericsson in a trade-secrets lawsuit that seeks more than $330 million from the Swedish telecommunications network equipment maker.
* Samsung has filed a counter-lawsuit against Ericsson in another episode of the tit-for-tat patent disputes between telecoms manufacturers.
* US-based Intertrust Technologies has filed a lawsuit for patent infringement against Apple.
* Microsoft did not violate a patent owned by Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility when it made its popular Xbox, an administrative law judge at the International Trade Commission (ITC) said in a preliminary decision issued on Friday. A final ITC decision in the case is due in July.
* A federal jury ruled Cisco Systems should pay $70 million to XpertUniverse for fraud associated with a short-lived partnership between the companies.
* A Spanish association representing open source software users has filed a complaint against Microsoft to the European Commission, in a new challenge to the Windows developer following a hefty fine imposed earlier this month.
* Cognex will sue Microscan Systems for patent infringement.
* A US patent examiner has said Apple's 'bounce back' scrolling used on its touch-screen iPhones and iPads are invalid, in a move that could well affect Apple's ongoing legal battle with Samsung.
* A preliminary decision by an ITC judge rules that Samsung didn't infringe an Apple patent regarding allowing a device to detect if a microphone or other device is plugged into the microphone jack, but did infringe Apple's text-selection feature in its smartphones and tablets.
* EMC made a formal announcement of its new venture, Pivotal, which will be made up of EMC's data analytics division, Greenplum, and its Pivotal Labs group, along with VMware's vFabric, SpringSource and Gemstone units. Also included in the new venture are VMware's data analytics company, Cetas, and CloudFoundry, a cloud computing platform. The venture, which will be majority-owned by EMC and eventually plans to go public, is expected to generate $1 billion in revenue by 2017, and will require investments of $400 million both this year and next year.
* Microsoft will merge Windows RT into its next-generation Windows OS.
* Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, will open an investment office in Silicon Valley.
* Otelco has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
* ZTE has been ranked first in international patent applications by the World Intellectual Property Organisation in 2012, the second consecutive year the company has achieved top position in the annual gauge of the world's most prolific patent filers.
* Very good quarterly figures from Tencent Holdings.
* Good quarterly numbers from Red Hat and SAIC (back in the black).
* Good full-year figures from China Unicom and Hon Hai Precision Industry.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Accenture, Paychex and Progress Software.
* Satisfactory year-end numbers from China Mobile.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Adobe, Compal Electronics and Oracle.
* Mediocre full-year numbers from Quanta Computer.
* Mixed quarterly figures from BlackBerry, with revenue down but back in the black; Jabil Circuit, with revenue up but profit down; and Tibco Software, with revenue up but profit down.
* Mixed year-end numbers from China Telecom, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Micron Technology.
* A full-year loss from Foxconn International Holdings and ZTE.
* The appointments of Boo-keun Yoon and JK Shin as co-CEOs of Samsung Electronics; Timotheus Hottges as chairman of the new entity formed by the proposed merger of MetroPCS Communications and T-Mobile USA; Ken Hu as acting CEO of Huawei Technologies; Sergei Kalugin as CEO of Rostelecom (Russia); Yen-Sung Lee as CEO of Chunghwa Telecom; Sundar Pichai as Google's Android chief; Vincent Roche as interim CEO of Analog Devices; Jason Rosenthal as CEO of Lytro, a Silicon Valley-based maker of the "light-field" camera; Simon Segars as CEO of ARM Holdings; Al Verrecchia as chairman of Iron Mountain; Jeff Von Deylen as head and president of Savvis, part of CenturyLink; and Ralph Whitworth as interim chairman of HP.
* The resignations of Khaled Al-Ghoneim, CEO of Saudi Telecom Company; Warren East, CEO of ARM Holdings; Didier Lamouche, president and CEO of ST-Ericsson; Ray Lane, chairman of HP; Shyue-Ching Lu, chairman and CEO of Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan); Ren Ng, CEO of Lytro (remains as chairman); Alexander Provotorov, CEO of Rostelecom; John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts; Google's Android chief Andy Rubin; and Robert Young, CEO of Tessera Technologies.
* The retirement of Jim Ousley, CEO of Savvis.
* The death of Jerald Fishman, CEO of Analog Devices.
* A planned IPO this year from Benefitfocus, a software company that develops healthcare and benefits technology.
* A planned IPO in London by Rosslyn, a big data analysis group.
* An IPO filing from Rally, a leading provider of cloud-based solutions for managing Agile software development.
* An NYSE IPO filing from Tableau Software, a business analytics software company.
* An NYSE IPO filing by Intelsat, a global satellite operator.
* A good IPO on the NYSE by Marin Software, an ad tracking and ad managing company.

* International:
* The outcome of the Dell buyout now that other bidders have entered the fray in the form of Blackstone and Carl Icahn.
* The possible sale by AT&T of its tower assets, in a move aimed at raising cash.
* The possible sale of NEC's mobile phone unit to Lenovo.
* The acquisition of SoftLayer Technologies, a privately-held database Web-hosting company, in a deal that could fetch over $2 billion and in which EMC and IBM seem to be the front-runners.
* The acquisition by LinkedIn of Pulse, a news reader application.
* The purchase by Yahoo of a controlling stake in Dailymotion, one of the world's most popular online video Web sites.
* The acquisition by Amazon of Samsung's Liquavista, a Netherlands-based maker of electronic-reader display technology and a company the latter acquired in 2011.
* The possible splitting off by Vivendi of its mobile network subsidiary, SFR, into a separate company, to help deal with its debt problem.
* The sell-off by Russia's VimpelCom of its Canadian subsidiary, Wind Mobile, which it inherited when it acquired Egypt's Orascom Telecom.
* The possible purchase by Ericsson of Microsoft's TV software unit.
* The possible outcome by EU regulators, ie, penalty, regarding Google's refusal to change its privacy policy.
* The winner in a battle for a mobile licence in Myanmar. MTN is one of the contenders, along with Vodafone, which have teamed up with China Mobile.
* Africa:
* A possible stock market listing in Nairobi by Airtel Kenya.
* The outcome of the bid by Altimo (Russia) for the remainder of Orascom Telecom Holding that it does not already own, in a deal that could be worth over $3.6 billion. Altimo owns just under 48% of VimpelCom, which in turn owns 52% of Orascom telecom.
* South Africa:
* The possible buyout of Altech minorities by Altron.
* The possible de-listing of Muvoni Technology Group from AltX.

* Worldwide IT spending is on pace to reach $3.8 trillion in 2013, a 4.1% increase over 2012, according to Gartner.
* Tablet shipments are now expected to rise to 190.9 million units this year, significantly up from its previous forecast, according to IDC. It also predicts tablet shipments will be up to 350 million per year by the end of 2017. In addition, as lower-cost, smaller tablets proliferate, Android is poised to overtake the iPad in tablet market share this year.
* The worldwide external controller-based disk storage market grew 1.9% in Q4 2012 to $6 billion, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide semiconductor spending declined 2.6% in 2012 to reach $299.9 billion, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide PC, tablet and mobile phone shipments will reach 2.4 billion units in 2013, a 9% increase from 2012, according to Gartner. The number is expected to reach 2.9 billion in 2017.

* JSE All share index: Down 5.5%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.9%
* Top SA share movements: Altech (-12.2%), FoneWorx (+25%), Gijima (-36.8%), Labat Africa (+68.8%), MICROmega Holdings (-13.1%), Muvoni (-52.6%), Naspers (-13.2%), Net 1 UEPS Technologies (+30%), Silverbridge Holdings (+141.5%) and TCS (+100%)

MSPmentor, a guide to managed services and a global destination for managed service providers, has been producing listings for the last four years, and this year for the first time, has created its 'Top 501'.

It's pleasing to note that 10 African companies, all in South Africa, have made it onto the list. They are:

* 36: EOH Mthombo
* 46: BCX (Integr8)
* 79: Netsurit
* 277: Network Configurations
* 281: Space Age Technologies
* 320: Numata Business IT
* 360: CyberLogic
* 377: Xpand IT
* 442: Dial a Nerd
* 489: SybaWeb