Twitter makes it official

Main international ICT stories last week included further speculation and/or interest in BlackBerry, the formal announcement of Twitter's IPO and several small acquisitions, including two by IBM.

At home, the possible tie-up of Vodacom and Neotel stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Very good interim figures from ISA, with revenue up 57% and profit up 40.7%.
* Mediocre interim numbers from MICROmega Holdings, with revenue down 3.4% and profit down 13%.
* Mixed 'year-end' figures from Telemasters (year-end changed to 30 June, so current figures reflect nine months only), with revenue down but profit up substantially.
* A full-year loss from Gijima, with revenue also down 16.7%.
* The suspension of the listing of BCX 'A' shares on the JSE.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by Poynting Holdings.
* Seemahale Telecoms and CZ Electronics manufacturing have signed an MOU to produce, assemble and market a 5-inch smartphone and a 10.1-inch tablet.
* The appointments of Michael Jordan as chairman of Mxit, and Marc Pillay as MD of Develop SA, a division of the Bidvest Group.
* The resignation of Roger Grobler, chairman of Mxit (remains on the board).

* The appointment of Kunie Awosika as country manager of Microsoft Kenya.

* Accenture acquired Procurian, a provider of comprehensive and strategic procuring and sourcing business process services, for $375 million.
* Apple bought Cue, a personal assistant app maker.
* Beats purchased the 24.84% stake in its company held by HTC, for $265 million.
* Cirrus Logic acquired Acoustic Technologies, an embedded firmware voice processing technology leader.
* Cognizant bought Equinox Consulting, a French financial services consulting firm.

* Compal Electronics purchased Compal Communications.
* Experian acquired 41st Parameter, a fraud detection provider, for $324 million.
* Google bought Flutter, a gesture recognition start-up.
* IBM purchased Now factory, an Ireland-based company that creates software used to analyse wireless network usage.
* IBM acquired Xtify, a provider of cloud-based mobile messaging tools.
* Intel bought Sensory Networks, a provider of pattern matching and acceleration software technology.
* Lexmark purchased PACSGEAR, a provider of connectivity solutions for healthcare providers, for $54 million.
* Portugal Telecom and Oi (Brazil) merged to create a new Brazil-based telecoms operator that will be among the world's top 25 telcos in revenue terms.
* Sequoia Capital invested in Skyscanner, a flight search company.
* The following patent and lawsuit activity:
- An appeals court said the US ITC should review the ruling that Google did not violate a Microsoft patent.
* Twitter made a formal announcement that it has filed for an IPO, which could raise as much as $1 billion.
* Quarterly losses from HTC.
* The appointments of Tom Alexander as chairman of Viacloud; Manish Goel as CEO of Guavus, a big data specialist; Marco Patuano as CEO of Telecom Italia; and Eric Xu as CEO of Huawei (this is a six months rotational CEO situation).
* The resignation of Franco Bernab`e, chairman of Telecom Italia.
* A planned IPO in the US from UK-based King.com, a mobile gaming company.
* An IPO filing by Barracuda Networks, a provider of security and storage solutions.

* International:
- The merger of three of India's mobile networks, ie, Aircel, MTS and Tata Teleservices.
- The possible resignation of Bill Gates as chairman of Microsoft.
- The outcome arising from the interest shown by several companies, including Cerberus Capital Management, Cisco, Google, Intel, Samsung and SAP, regarding the acquisition of BlackBerry, especially regarding the latter's server network and patent portfolio.
* South Africa:
- Further developments on Vodacom's possible acquisition of Neotel.

* Worldwide shipments of 3D printers will grow 49% in 2013, according to Gartner.
* Almost half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017, according to Gartner.
* The MEA security appliance market was up 13.8% in revenue and 10.8% in shipments in Q2, according to IDC.
* South African Internet advertising revenue will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25.4% in the next five years, according to PwC's latest South African entertainment and media outlook.

* JSE All share index: Down 1%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.7%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 1.2%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+45.5%), CompuClearing (-10.1%), ConvergeNet Holdings (+16.7%), Labat Africa (+28.6%), MICROmega Holdings (+8.5%), MiX Telematics (-13.8%), Mustek (-7.8%) and Telemasters (+10.2%)

Interbrand has just released its Global 2013 'Top 100 Brands' listing. Apple displaced Coca Cola from the number one slot, which it has held for several years! From a technology perspective, the following were featured:

* 1: Apple (was number two)
* 2: Google (was number four)
* 4: IBM (was three)
* 5: Microsoft
* 8: Samsung (was nine)
* 9: Intel (was eight)
* 13: Cisco (was 14)
* 15: HP
* 18: Oracle
* 19: Amazon (was 20)
* 25: SAP
* 28: eBay (was 36)
* 35: Canon (was 30)
* 41: Accenture (was 43)
* 46: Sony (was 40)
* 52: Facebook (was 69)
* 57: Nokia (was 19)
* 61: Dell (was 49)
* 62: Xerox (was 59)
* 68: Panasonic (was 65)
* 79: Adobe (was 78)