Accenture makes strategic acquisitions

Two more acquisitions by Accenture and a handful of other take-overs were the main stories of the international ICT market last week.

At home, Liquid Telecom's completion of the Neotel deal was the main local story.

* Satisfactory Q2 numbers from Net1 UEPS Technologies, with revenue up 0.7% and profit up 11.7%.
* Positive trading updates from Pinnacle Holding sand Stella Capital Partners.
* A negative trading update from MTN.
* The suspension of the listing of Datacentrix shares on the JSE.
* Indian-based global commutable cloud and digital CRM company, CRMNEXT, has officially expanded its business into SA, launching this month.

* Silvertree Internet Holdings, Africa's leading Internet platform, acquired Nigerian price comparison site TopCheck.
* Wari Group bought Millicom's Tigo business in Senegal for $129 million.
* The Carlyle Group invested more than $100 million for a controlling stake in CMC Networks, an African telecoms carrier.
* The appointment of Richard Gregoire as EET Europarts' EMEA director.

Production of drones for personal and commercial use is growing rapidly.

* Accenture acquired the US federal government services business of Endgame, a privately held endpoint detection and response cyber security software company.
* Accenture also bought VeriSign's iDefense Security Intelligence Services business.
* Ascential, the global business-to-business media company, purchased 100% of MediaLink, a US-based advisory and business services firm.
* EFI acquired Xerox's FreeFlow Print Server digital front-end business.
* Esker bought German-based e-integration, an EDI service provider.
* Genpact, a global leader in digitally powered business process management and services, purchased Fiserv's assets in its Australia-based item processing business.
* Forcepoint acquired Imperva's Skyfence technology and service.
* Imperva bought the assets of Camouflage Software, a data masking company.
* Klarna, a Swedish start-up, purchased BillPay, a German online payment company.
* Maj Invest Equity, a Danish investment firm, acquired TDC Hosting, which provides IT infrastructure and outsourcing services on a standalone basis, and in collaboration with TDC Business, the telco's enterprise arm.
* Nokia bought Comptel for EUR347 million, in a move designed to expand its software services business.
* Sophos purchased Invincea, a provider of next-generation malware protection.
* Three acquired wireless Internet provider Relish for £250 million.
* Trimble bought Beena Vision Systems, a manufacturer of vision-based automatic wayside inspection systems for the railroad industry.
* Ford has made a $1 billion investment, over the next five years, in autonomous vehicle tech firm Argo AI.
* Oracle has appealed a federal jury's decision that Google's use of its Java software didn't violate copyright law.
* Imation will change its name to GlassBridge Enterprises.
* Xura will change its name to Mavenir Systems on completion of the Mitel Mobile acquisition.
* Excellent quarterly results from Coherent, Inphi (back in the black), Microchip Technology and Nvidia.
* Very good quarterly figures from Activision, Cray, FIS, Monolithic Power Systems, Paycom Software, Rimini Street, Yelp (back in the black) and Zayo (back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from Alpha & Omega Semiconductor (back in the black), Equifax, Euronet Worldwide, j2 Global, Lumentum, Qualys, Sierra Wireless (back in the black), Tyler Technologies, Ubiquiti Networks, Ultimate Software, USA Technologies (back in the black) and Varonis Systems.
* Good year-end numbers from Realtek Semiconductor.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Akamai, Camtek (back in the black), Cardtronics, CDW, CSRA, CyberArk Software, ESCO Technologies, Fiserv, Forrester Research, Genpact, Insight Enterprises, Jive Software (back in the black), NCR, Netgear, Omnicom Group, Orbotech, Quotient Technologies (back in the black), Synchronoss Technologies, Telecom Italia, Trimble, VeriSign and Zix.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Korea Telecom and LG U+ (South Korea).
* Mediocre quarterly results from Benchmark Electronics and Level 3 Communications.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Allot Communications, with revenue down but back in the black; Arrow Electronics, with revenue down but profit up; Cognizant Technology Solutions, with revenue up but profit down; CPSI, with revenue up but profit down; Internet Initiative Japan, with revenue up but profit down; Millicom International Cellular, with revenue down but profit up; NTT Group, with revenue down but profit up; Roper Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; Sabre, with revenue up but profit down; ScanSource, with revenue down but profit up; Telus, with revenue up but profit down; Teradata, with revenue down but back in the black; Time Warner, with revenue up but profit down; and ViaSat, with revenue up but profit down.
* Mixed nine-month figures from Softbank, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed year-end figures from SK Telecom, with revenue down but profit up.
* Very poor quarterly figures from CenturyLink and Web.com.
* Quarterly losses from A10 Networks, Amtech Systems, Apptio, Callidus Software, Covisint, Echelon, eGain, FormFactor, Glu Mobile, Hortonworks, Imperva, Infinera, Limelight Networks, MagnaChip Semiconductor, Mimecast, MobileIron, Nuance Communications, Pandora Media, Radware, RadiSys, Rapid7, Real Networks, Take Two Interactive Software, Talend, TTM Technologies, Twilio, Twitter, Vishay Intertechnology, Vocera Communications, Westell Technologies, Zendesk and Zynga.
* The departure of Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk.

EMEA/Africa:
* The public cloud services market in the MENA region is projected to grow 22.2% in 2017 to total $1.2 billion, up from $956 million in 2016, according to Gartner.
* The MEA Internet of things market is forecast to defy the region's moderate economic outlook by growing 19.6% year-on-year in 2017 to total $7.8 billion, according to IDC.

Worldwide:
* According to Gartner, 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31% from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Total spending on endpoints and services will reach almost $2 trillion in 2017.
* Production of drones for personal and commercial use is growing rapidly, with global market revenue expected to increase 34% to reach more than $6 billion in 2017, and grow to more than $11.2 billion by 2020, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide revenue for IT products and services are forecast to reach nearly $2.4 trillion in 2017, an increase of 3.5% over 2016, according to IDC. It estimates global IT spending will grow to nearly $2.65 trillion in 2020. This represents a CAGR of 3.3% for the 2015-2020 forecast period.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.8%
* FTSE100: Up 1%
* DAX: Up 1%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 1% (highest ever weekend close)
* S&P 500: Up 0.8% (highest ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Up 1.2% (highest ever weekend close)
* Nikkei225: Up 2.4%
* Hang Seng: Up 1.9%
* Shanghai: Up 1.8%

International:
* The 'winners' regarding a stake in Toshiba.

South Africa:
* Developments following the completion of Liquid Telecom's acquisition of Neotel.
* MTN buying an Iranian ISP.

Brand Finance has released its Global 500 for 2017. From a technology perspective and in the top 100 are:
* 1: Google
* 2: Apple
* 3: Amazon
* 4: AT&T
* 5: Microsoft
* 6: Samsung Group
* 7: Verizon
* 9: Facebook
* 11: China Mobile
* 15: NTT Group
* 19: Deutsche Telekom
* 20: IBM
* 22: GE
* 23: Alibaba
* 38: Oracle
* 40: Huawei
* 47: Tencent
* 50: Vodafone
* 51: Orange
* 55: Cisco
* 58: Softbank
* 59: Intel
* 62: SK Group
* 68: Dell
* 70: China Telecom
* 71: Accenture
* 75: au (Japan)
* 86: SAP
* 97: JD.com
* 100: WeChat