Samsung sharpens its spears

The EU's fine on Microsoft and Samsung's investment in Sharp were the main stories in the international ICT market last week.

At home, Datatec's European acquisitions and the lack of activity regarding Telkom SA stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Good interim numbers from Mvelaserve, with revenue up 10% and profit up over 100%; and Pinnacle Technology, with revenue up 14.5% and profit up 14%.
* Satisfactory interim numbers from Poynting, with revenue up 8.1% and profit up 15.5%.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from MTN, with revenue up 10.9% and profit up 1.2%.
* Datatec (Logicalis) acquired the European subsidiaries of 2e2, excluding the UK business, for EUR24 million. The four separate businesses being acquired are in Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Channel Islands.
* Itec bought Songimali Communications (51%), a local licensed telecoms company.
* Times 3 Technologies (T3T) purchased Antinomy, an ERP software solutions provider. The former is a Sage partner.
* Minister of communications, Dina Pule, has appointed Joe Mjwara as the chairman of the ICT Policy Review Panel, and Lucky Masilela as its deputy chairman.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by FoneWorx.
* Cyril Ramaphosa retired as chairman of MTN.

* Sunil Colaso was appointed MD of Airtel Tanzania.

The EU has fined Microsoft EUR561 million over its failure to offer Windows users a choice of Internet browser.

* Atmel acquired Integrated Device Technology's smart metering IC product lines and technologies.
* JDSU bought Arieso, a provider of location-aware mobility solutions.
* Lexmark purchased AccessVia, a company that makes software used by retailers to place signs and labels in their stores; and Twistage, a company that sells tools for managing video, photos and audio on the Internet and mobile devices.
* Microsoft acquired MetricsHub, a cloud analytics, monitoring, and automation company.
* Open Text bought Resonate Knowledge Technologies, a provider of software that enables organisations to visualise unstructured data, and create new user experiences for enterprise content management (ECM) and xECM for SAP.
* SAP purchased Camilion, a provider of insurance product development, product life cycle and underwriting solutions.
* Samsung made a $110 million (3%) investment in Sharp, a key Apple supplier.
* Samsung lost a patent case against Apple in the UK.
* Apple lost its bid to dismiss a data collection privacy suit.
* The judge will not suspend the Apple/Siri patent case versus Samsung.
* The EU has fined Microsoft EUR561 million over its failure to offer Windows users a choice of Internet browser, in breach of a high-profile competition agreement with European regulators.
* Very good quarterly figures from Sapiens International.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from VimpelCom.
* Mediocre quarterly results from ASM International.
* Mixed quarterly figures from QAD, with revenue up but profit down.
* Mixed year-end numbers from TCL Group (China), with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Alvarion, Ciena, Pandora Media and Telecom Italia.
* The appointments of Rene Obermann (ex-CEO of Deutsche Telekom) as CEO of Ziggo, the Dutch cable operator; and John Porter as CEO of Telenet.
* The resignations of James Crowe, CEO of Level 3 Communications; Joe Kennedy, CEO of Pandora Media; Duco Sickunghe, CEO of Telenet; and JR Smith, CEO of AVG Technologies.
* The retirement of Howard Stringer, chairman and ex-CEO of Sony.
* A planned IPO from CDW, a technology products retailer that was taken private in 2007 for $7.3 billion.

* International:
* The possible ousting of HP's chairman, Ray Lane, for his part in the Autonomy acquisition of 2011.
* A possible buyout of BMC Software by KKR private equity group and/or TPG Capital.
* A possible fight initiated by activist investor Carl Icahn regarding Dell's privatisation deal.
* South Africa:
* The outcome of the bid by MTN for a licence in Myanmar.

* Government IT spending in the Middle East and Africa will reach US$17.7 billion in 2013, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide PC shipments will decline from 350.4 million in 2012 to 345.8 million in 2013, according to IDC. This would be a decline of 1.3% and follows a decline of 3.7% in 2012. IDC believes the PC market will then grow by 1.9% per year until 2017, to 382 million units. The emerging market situation, however, is much better than this, with a rise of 0.6% this year and then an annual growth of 4.3%.
* More smartphones are forecast to be shipped globally than feature phones in 2013, the first such occurrence in the mobile phone market on an annual basis, according to IDC. Vendors will ship 918.6 million smartphones this year, or 50.1% of the total mobile phone shipments worldwide.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.5%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.4% (highest close for over 12 years)
* Top SA share movements: Altech (+13%), Datatec (+9.3%), MiX Telematics (+10.3%), MICROmega Holdings (+11.5%), Muvoni (+18.8%), Net 1 UEPS Technologies (+8.7%), SecureData (+9.1%), Sekunjalo (-9.1%), Stella Vista (+200%) and Trustco (+13.3%)

According to Gartner, the Middle East and African IT infrastructure market - comprising servers, storage and networking equipment - is forecast to reach $3.9 billion in 2013, a 4% increase from 2012.

Middle East and African IT infrastructure revenue by technology (US$ million)

I am currently overseas, and with Easter at the end of the month, my next column will only appear on 8 April, but as usual, will fully cover the intervening period.