BlackBerry sues Facebook

BlackBerry's lawsuit against Facebook was the highlight of a very quiet international ICT market last week.

At home, SAP's 'Gupta' findings were the main local story.

* Mixed interim numbers from Alviva Holdings, with revenue up 1.3% but profit down 3.4%; and Cognition Holdings, with revenue up 65.5% but profit down 16%.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from MTN SA, with revenue up 3% and EBITDA up 9.5%.
* Mixed year-end figures from MTN Group, with revenue down 10.2% but back in the black.
* A positive trading update from 4Sight Holdings.
* MasterCard acquired Oltio, a South African-based mobile payments technology company.
* SAP has found compliance breaches and "indications of misconduct" in $50 million of public sector deals in SA involving the Guptas. Outlining the findings of an external legal review of five software deals with Eskom and Transnet, SAP said the three executives suspended last year had resigned without severance pay.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by Labat Africa.
* The resignations of Jonas Bogoshi, head of channel at Dell EMC South Africa; and Wayne Holborn, GM and director of Kyocera Document Solutions SA.

* Satisfactory year-end revenue figures from MTN MENA and MTN SEAGHA.
* Mixed year-end figures from MTN Nigeria, with revenue up 11.4% but EBITDA down 7.5%.
* Mediocre year-end revenue from MTN WECA.
* The appointments of Rakesh Bhasin as chairman of CMC Networks; Gad Elkin as F5 Networks' VP of partner sales for EMEA; and Lazarus Muchenje as CEO of NetOne.

* Bharti Airtel acquired the Indian leg of Gulf Bridge International's subsea data cabling network, currently linking India, the Middle East and Europe. Airtel will also acquire large amounts of capacity in the Middle Eastern section of the cable as part of the deal.
* Cree bought Infineon's Radio Frequency Power Business for EUR345 million.
* Inovalon purchased Ability Network, a provider of health-related IT, for $1.2 billion.
* The Infatuation acquired Google's Zagat Restaurant Guide.
* AIS, Thailand's largest mobile phone operator, made a $25 million (33.33%) investment in e-money provider Rabbit-Line Pay.
* Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund made a $400 million investment in Magic Leap, a US start-up that is working on a head-mounted virtual retinal display.

The following patent and lawsuit activity:
* BlackBerry has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook and its WhatsApp and Instagram apps, arguing they copied technology and features from BlackBerry Messenger.
* FormFactor will replace Calgon Carbon Corporation in the S&P SmallCap 600 index.
* Foxconn has been given the go-ahead for a Shanghai IPO of a subsidiary.
* Telia has sold its stake in Azerbaijan mobile operator Azercell for EUR222 million, which it co-owns with Turkcell, as part of a shift to focus on its main markets in Nordic and Baltic countries.
* Excellent year-end figures from Egistec.
* Very good quarterly figures from YY.
* Good quarterly numbers from Descartes and Telecom Argentina.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Marvell Technology Group (back in the black).
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Advantech, Chicony Electronics, GIS and Thales.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Analogic.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Casa Systems, IGT, Sapiens and Tech Data, with revenue up but net income down; and from Comtech Telecommunications and VeriFone Systems (back in the black), with revenue down but net income up.
* Mixed year-end figures from MTN Irancell, with revenue up but net income down; and from Epileds Technology, with revenue down but net income up.
* Quarterly losses from Autodesk, Ciena, Dell Technology, Entercom Communications, Finisar, Guidewire Software, Identiv, Inseego Group, Internap, InTest, NII, Okta, Tintri, TransAct Technologies, Upland Software, UTStarcom, Volt Information Sciences and Yext.
* The appointments of Jeffery Henderson as non-executive chairman of Qualcomm; Darren Roos as CEO of IFS; and Jeff Storey as CEO of CenturyLink.
* The resignation of Paul Jacobs, executive chairman of Qualcomm (stays on board).
* The retirements of Glen Post, CEO of CenturyLink; and Alastair Sorbie, CEO of IFS.
* The departure of Ken Klein, CEO of Tintri.
* An IPO filing for the NYSE from Vrio, AT&T's DirecTV business in Latin America.

SAP said the three executives suspended last year had resigned without severance pay.

* EMEA/Africa:
* Middle East and North Africa IT spending is projected to reach $155 billion in 2018, a 3.4% increase from 2017, according to Gartner.
* The MEA personal computing devices market, which is made up of desktops, notebooks, workstations and tablets, declined 6.2% year on year in Q417, according to IDC. Shipments fell to around 5.9 million units for the three-month period, which represents the lowest quarterly volume recorded for more than five years.
* Total EMEA external storage systems value increased by 11.7% in dollars in Q417, according to IDC. The all-flash-array market value recorded high double-digit growth in dollars (35.8%), accounting for almost 31% of overall external storage sales in the region, albeit with a marginally slower growth rate as it becomes increasingly sizeable. Hybrid arrays also grew (19.5%), but their share of total external sales remained stable compared with the previous quarter. HDD-only systems continued to contract (-18.9%).
* Fourth quarter of 2017, the EMEA server market reported a year-on-year (YOY) increase in vendor revenue of 17.4% to $4.2 billion, and a YOY increase of 0.1% in units shipped to 596 000.

* Worldwide:
* The worldwide server market continued to grow through 2017, as worldwide server revenue increased 25.7% in Q417, while shipments grew 8.8% year over year, according to Gartner. In all of 2017, worldwide server shipments grew 3.1% and server revenue increased 10.4% compared with full-year 2016.
* The worldwide Ethernet switch market (layer 2/3) recorded $6.9 billion in revenue in 4Q17, an increase of 3.2% year over year, according to IDC. For the full year 2017, the market recorded more than $25.7 billion in revenue for a YOY growth rate of 5.4%.
* Worldwide sales of semiconductors totalled $412.2 billion in 2017, the industry's highest-ever annual sales and an increase of 21.6% compared to the 2016 total, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

* JSE All share index: Up 2.7%
* FTSE100: Up 2.2%
* DAX: Up 3.6%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 3.3%
* S&P 500: Up 3.5%
* Nasdaq: Up 4.2%
* Nikkei225: Up 1.4%
* Hang Seng: Up 1.3%
* Shanghai: Up 1.6%

* International:
* Further developments regarding Broadcom and Qualcomm.

* South Africa:
* Remgro buying fibre provider Vumatel.

Fast Company's 2018 edition of 'The World's Most Innovative Companies' spans more than 350 enterprises across 36 categories, from the world's most valuable firm and its continuing transformation of consumer electronics, to a small outfit selling natural gum to preserve rainforests.

The list includes:
1: Apple (was number four)
2: Netflix (was number seven)
3: Square
4: Tencent (was 12)
5: Amazon (was one)
9: Spotify (was 10)
12: Instagram
17: Reliance Jio
18: Nintendo
27: Darktrace
31: Paytm
38: Activision Blizzard
41: Pinterest