International acquisitions aplenty

The international ICT market saw a raft of small to medium-sized acquisitions and investments last week, including ones by Accenture, Alibaba, Analog Devices, China Mobile, Google and Nokia.

At home, the sudden death of BCX's CEO and the release of Telkom SA's annual results dominated the local ICT media space.

* Good 15-month numbers from MICROmega Holdings, with revenue and profit up (year-end changed to 31 March from 31 December).
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Telkom SA, with revenue up 0.6% and back in the black.
* An interim loss from ConvergeNet Holdings, with revenue down 9.9%.
* Connection Telecom acquired FatBudgie, a cloud PBX provider.
* Jasco bought Telesto Communications, a provider of Avaya contact centre solutions, for R9.85 million.
* Business Connexion made a 30% investment in AppZone, Nigeria, an IT solutions provider focused on the financial services sector.
* The appointment of Vanessa Olver as acting CEO of Business Connexion.
* Benjamin Mophatlane, CEO of Business Connexion, passed away.

* Mixed year-end figures from Mauritius Telecom, with operating revenue up 6.1%, but profit down 22%.

Cyber crime costs the global economy about $445 billion every year.

* Accenture acquired PureApps, a UK-based enterprise performance management provider.
* Analog Devices bought Hittite Microwave, a chipmaker for eight markets, including cars, cellular and the military. The deal was worth $2.45 billion.
* Autodesk purchased Bitsquid, the creator of the Bitsquid game engine.
* Canon acquired Denmark-based Milestone Systems, a provider of open platform video management software.
* Cinven, a UK buyout group, bought the telecommunications fibre network of the Spanish utility, Gas Natural Fenosa, for EUR510 million.
* eBay purchased the machine translation capabilities that are owned by AppTek.
* EPAM, a global provider of customised software engineering and technology services, acquired GGA Software, a scientific informatics services provider.
* Google bought Skybox Imaging, a satellite company, for $500 million.
* Nokia purchased Medio Systems, specifically for its navigation unit, HERE.
* Progress Software acquired Modulus, a PaaS provider that uses Node.js and MongoDB technologies.
* SingTel bought Adconion ($209 million) and Kontera Technologies ($150 million), two digital advertising companies, for $359 million.
* Trimble Navigation purchased Australia-based Mining Information Systems.
* Alibaba made an additional investment in UCWeb (a Chinese mobile browser firm) of the shares it doesn't already own (approximately 34%).
* China Mobile made an $881 million investment (18%) in Thai telecoms group, True Corp.
* Roman Abramovich made a $10 million investment in StoreDot, an Israeli start-up developing electronics based on bio-organic materials.
* The Texas attorney general's office has filed a lawsuit against Xerox for alleged fraudulent Medicaid claims.
* Intel has lost its court challenge against the $1.4 billion EU fine.
* In a preliminary announcement, InterDigital patents have not been violated by Nokia and ZTE in their handsets.
* Facebook has not infringed patents claims over a 'Web page diary' invented by a Dutch computer scientist.
* Very good quarterly figures from Finisar (back in the black).
* Good year-end figures from Gigabyte Technology.
* Quarterly losses from RadioShack.
* The appointments of KV Kamath as non-executive chairman of Infosys; David Marcus as head of Facebook's messaging products (was head of eBay's PayPal unit); Vishal Sikka as CEO of Infosys; and Lisa Su as COO of AMD.
* The resignations of S Gopalakrishnan, vice-chairman of Infosys; NR Narayana Murthy, executive chairman of Infosys (stays on as chairman emeritus); Ali Rowghani, COO of Twitter; and SD Shibulal, CEO and MD of Infosys.
* The death of Glenn Britt, a former CEO of Time Warner Cable.
* An IPO filing from GoDaddy, a company that provides domain name registrations and Web site hosting services.
* A good IPO in Toronto by Kinaxis, a Canadian cloud-based subscription software provider.

South Africa:
* The surging demand for tablets in SA sees the CAGR for 2014 through 2018 at a 13.5% level, with 3.1 million units being shipped in that year, according to IDC.

EMEA/Africa:
* The external disk storage market in CEMA was up 2.4% in Q1, while capacity grew 30%, according to IDC.
* Server revenue in MEA increased 0.3% in Q1 to reach $338.02 million, according to IDC.

Worldwide:
* Videos may make up 84% of Internet traffic by 2018, according to Cisco.
* Cyber crime costs the global economy about $445 billion every year, according to CSIS.
* The worldwide security software market grew 4.9% in Q1 to $19.9 billion, with Trend Micro losing its number three slot to IBM, according to Gartner.
* The security appliance market grew 8% in Q1 to reach $2.1 billion, according to IDC.
* Smartphone usage will grow 25% this year, with just under a quarter of the world's population using them, according to eMarketer. This is predicted to rise to 33% by 2017.
* Internet usage is expected to exceed three billion users by early next year, according to The Internet Society.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.7% (highest-ever weekend close, at over 50 000 for the first time)
* Nasdaq: Down 0.2%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 0.9%
* S&P 500: Down 0.7%
* FTSE100: Down 1.2%
* Top SA share movements: CompuClearing (+7.7%), Ellies (-7.6%), MICROmega Holdings (+22.2%), Morvest Business Group (-9.7%), Pinnacle (+14.9%), Poynting Holdings (-9.2%) and Sekunjalo (-13.8%)

International:
* The sell-off by IBM of its chip-making unit to global chipmaker GlobalFoundries.

South Africa:
* Further news regarding Vodacom and Neotel.

Siliconindia Magazines (siTech20) has recently published its listing of the 20 most promising Indian-founded technology companies in the US. The following are some examples:
* Appurify, a product and technology leader in mobile testing debugging and performance optimisation;
* Blueocean Market Intelligence, a global analytics and insights provider that helps corporations realise a 360-degree view of their customers;
* ClearStory Data, a data management firm working on simplifying accessing, exploring and analysing data;
* Gravitant, a provider of cloud brokerage and management software that empowers organisations to deliver IT as a service;
* Niksun, a worldwide provider of real-time and forensics-based cyber security and network performance management solutions for government and intelligence agencies, service providers, financial services and large enterprises;
* Sureline Systems, a provider of enterprise-grade disaster recovery solutions; and
* Uniken, a market leader in developing secure digital enterprises through patented technologies and products, catering to several leading financial companies and banks.

As I am out of the country later this week, my next column will be published on 30 June, and will cover the intervening two weeks.