Patently obvious

The international ICT world was quiet last week, with the main stories being a handful of small acquisitions and the legal activity in relation to various patent cases.

At home, in a quiet week, speculation over the future of the current communications minister stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Excellent interim numbers from AdaptIT, with revenue up 52% and profit up 49%.
* Details were published of the new $100 million TTD undersea cable that will link Mtunzini, East London, Port Elizabeth and Yzerfontein.

* Kwanele Ngwenya was appointed CEO of TN Bank, now owned by Econet Wireless; and Suresh Reddy was named MD of Airtel Zambia.
* Fayaz King resigned as MD of Airtel Zambia.

Details were published of the new $100 million TTD undersea cable.

* F5 Networks acquired LineRate Systems, a developer of software defined networking services.
* Opera bought Skyfire Labs, a rival provider of a mobile browser, for over $150 million.
* VMware purchased Virsto Software, a developer of storage performance software.
* Yahoo acquired Propeld, a developer of mobile applications.
* The request by Facebook's Instagram that the court throws out a lawsuit filed against it over changes to its terms of service.
* The news that Apple is the only remaining defendant in the US government's e-book anti-trust case, following settlements reached by the other five players cited.
* The request by Carnegie Mellon for increased (triple) damages in its Marvell Technology Group's patent case.
* A new lawsuit raised by Rembrandt Social Media, a patent-holding company, against Facebook, over its use of the Like button on its Web services.
* A challenge by Apple regarding its loss of the iPhone trademark in Brazil.
* The lawsuit by Google against BT for alleged patent infringement.
* The ruling by a UK High Court judge that Google and its peers can be held responsible for defamatory comments posted on their Web sites; a direct contrast with similar judgements made in the US.
* The UK's accounting watchdog has launched an investigation into the financial reports of Autonomy.
* Good quarterly numbers from Nvidia, Qualys (back in the black) and Rackspace.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Cisco, Comcast, Equinix, NetApp and Telenor (back in the black).
* Mediocre quarterly results from Am'erica M'ovil, Applied Materials, Singapore Telecom and Zain.
* Mixed quarterly figures from CenturyLink, with revenue down but profit up; Forrester Research, with revenue up but profit down; Ingram Micro, with revenue up but profit down; Millicom International Cellular, with revenue up but profit down; Netgear, with revenue up but profit down; Sapient, with revenue up but profit down; TomTom, with revenue down but profit up; and Trend Micro, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Brocade Communications Systems, Clearwire, Diebold, Imation, Level 3 Communications, Liberty Global and MEMC Electronic Materials.
* David Kostman was appointed chairman of Nice Systems.
* An IPO filing from Marin Software, a search and social marketing platform provider.
* Telef'onica shelved the proposed IPO of its Latin American operations.

* International:
* The possible acquisition by Vodafone of Kabel Deutschland, Germany's largest cable operator.
* South Africa:
* Further developments regarding the DG at the Department of Communications, and whether the current communications minister, Dina Pule, will retain her position amid growing speculation otherwise.

* Worldwide mobile phone sales to end-users declined 1.7% in 2012 to 1.75 billion units, according to Gartner. Samsung displaced Nokia for the number one slot, with Apple filling the number three position. These three companies accounted for 48.6% of the total market.
* Android and iOS combine for 91.1% of the worldwide smartphone market in Q4 2012, and 87.6% for the full year, says IDC.
* Twenty-five percent of enterprises will have an enterprise app store by 2017, according to Gartner.
* The worldwide hardcopy peripherals market was down 11.2% in Q4 2012, with Canon showing the highest growth, says IDC.
* The global mobile data traffic forecast for MEA in the period 2012 to 2017 will rise to almost 850 million mobile users by 2017, with nearly 55 million in SA, states the Cisco Visual Networking Index.

* JSE All share index: Down 0.5%
* Nasdaq: Down 0.1%
* Top SA share movements: AdaptIT (+34.3%), Digicor (-10.3%), EOH (+6.7%), Gijima (-7.7%), SecureData (-7.9%), Sekunjalo (+6.4%) and Telemasters (+30.8%)

Fast Company magazine has published its annual Most Innovative Companies of 2013 listing.

From a technology perspective, the following are ranked:

* 2: Amazon
* 4: Splunk
* 9: Safaricom
* 11: Google
* 13: Apple
* 16: Tencent
* 17: Samsung Electronics
* 48: Microsoft

It is interesting that there are no telecommunications companies on the list, nor many of the 'big boys' such as Cisco, HP, IBM and Oracle.