Symantec bags LifeLock

Acquisitions by Oracle and Symantec were the main stories in a quiet international ICT market last week.

At home, the IITPSA's top 2016 personality and visionary CIO winners were revealed.

* Mixed year-end figures from Reunert, with revenue up 2.5% but profit down 3.8%.
* Mediocre interim numbers from Naspers, with revenue down 0.8% and profit down 14.9%.
* UK-based Kerridge Commercial Systems acquired SA-based Integrity Software and its suite of products.
* French Tech Labs, an R11 million investment in the Western Cape, was unveiled in Cape Town. Its aim is to be a conduit between the French IT sector and local start-up companies, to tap into and promote digital skills.
* Sbu Shabalala, CEO of Adapt IT, has been named the IITPSA's IT Personality of the Year for 2016. Peter Alkema, CIO of Business Banking at First National Bank, was named the Visionary CIO for 2016.

* The Carlyle Group acquired a majority share in CMC Networks, a pan-African provider of managed connectivity solutions for global telecoms providers.
* Dandemutande Investments, one of Zimbabwe's leading broadband Internet access providers, bought YoAfrica, a top Internet service provider in Zimbabwe.

The market for used smartphones will grow from 81.3 million devices in 2015 to 222.6 million units in 2020.

* Ctrip, China's largest travel company, acquired Skyscanner, a UK-based travel start-up, for £1.4 billion.
* Daisy, a business telecoms and technology company, bought Alternative Networks, its arch rival, for £163 million.
* Delta Electronics purchased Unicom System Eng, a computer-integrated manufacturing solution provider.
* L-3 Communications acquired UK-based MacDonald Humfrey Automation in a move designed to strengthen the former's position in the aviation security market. The deal was worth £224 million.
* MACOM Technology Solutions bought Applied Micro Circuits, an analogue chipmaker, for $770 million.
* Mimecast acquired substantially all of the assets of iSheriff, a cloud-based security provider. This acquisition will provide Mimecast customers with additional real-time e-mail threat intelligence and detection expertise, and complements Mimecast's existing portfolio of e-mail security, continuity and archiving solutions.
* Oracle bought Dyn, an Internet infrastructure provider.
* Symantec purchased LifeLock, a seller of identity theft protection services, for $2.3 billion.
* Canada's Wind Mobile has rebranded itself as Freedom Mobile.
* Very good quarterly figures from Magic Technology, Veeva Systems, Weibo and YY.
* Good quarterly numbers from Mentor Graphics and Sina.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Analog Devices and Daktronics.
* Mediocre quarterly results from HPE.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Brocade Communications, with revenue up but profit down; HP, with revenue up but profit down; Partner Communications, with revenue down but back in the black; QAD, with revenue up but profit down; and Tech Data, with revenue up but profit down.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Cheetah Mobile.
* Quarterly losses from Gridsum, International Game Technology, Nimble Storage and Palo Alto Networks.
* The appointments of Alfonso G'omez Palacio as president and CEO of Telef'onica Colombia; and John Reid as CEO of Cable & Wireless.
* The resignations of Thorsten Dirks, CEO of Telefonica Deutschland; and Ariel Pont'on, CEO of Telef'onica Colombia.
* The retirement of Daniel McCranie, chairman of ON Semiconductor (as from 2017 AGM).
* An IPO filing from Presidio, an IT services firm.
* A delayed IPO by AppDynamics, a software company; the IPO is now expected in 2017.

EMEA/Africa:
* ICT spending in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa is forecast to total $243 billion in 2017, according to IDC. It expects the region's ICT market to grow 3.6% year-on-year in 2017. While this is down on previous forecasts, it still represents a considerable improvement on the 1.6% year-on-year growth that is anticipated for the current year.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide notebook shipments are estimated to reach 41.65 million units in Q416, up 6.4% sequentially, according to Digitimes Research.
* The market for used smartphones will grow from 81.3 million devices in 2015 to 222.6 million units in 2020, representing a CAGR of 22.3%, according to IDC.
* The 4G mobile devices market will be worth $926 billion by 2024, almost trebling in value from 2015, according to Persistence Market Research. The market is currently worth $344.8 billion.
* Global smartphone shipments are expected to grow 4.5% year-on-year to reach 1.4 billion units in 2017, according to TrendForce.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.1%
* FTSE100: Up 1%
* DAX: Up 0.3% (a 2016 high reached during the week)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 1.5% (an all-time high reached during the week and breaking through the 19 000 level for the first time)
* S&P 500: Up 1.4% (an all-time high reached during the week and breaking through the 2 200 level for the first time)
* Nasdaq: Up 1.5% (an all-time high reached during the week and almost breaking through the 5 400 level barrier)
* Nikkei225: Up 2.3%
* Hang Seng: Up 1.7%
* Shanghai: Up 2.2%

International:
* GoDaddy buying Host Europe Group, a hosting peer.
* Avaya selling off its call centre software unit and possibly filing for chapter 11 protection.

Africa:
* A rush by telecoms operators in Tanzania to meet the listing requirements of 31 December that have been mandated by that government.

South Africa:
* MegaFon, the Russian wireless carrier, controlled by billionaire Alisher Usmanov, buying a stake in the Internet company, Mail.ru, which is 28% owned by Naspers and 7.4% by Tencent Holdings.
* Amazon buying Naspers' souq.com, an online retailer.

Fortune magazine has published its top 20 names for 'Businessperson of the Year'. The list includes:
* 1: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
* 2: Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
* 4: Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet
* 5: Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
* 6: Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit
* 10: Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba
* 11: Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
* 13: Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix
* 18: Pony Ma, CEO of Tencent Holdings