Alibaba scratches Suning's back

Alibaba's latest investment, Google's restructuring, and the sell-off by Symantec of its Veritas unit dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, it was very quiet, with the news of Amazon opening a Johannesburg office being one of the few breaking stories.

* A mixed trading update from Metrofile.
* The termination of Business Connexion's and the Morvest Business Group's shares on the JSE.
* Samsung Electronics acquired YESCO Electronics, an LED sign and display manufacturer.
* Amazon is opening an office in Johannesburg.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by TCS.

* IHS acquired a further 555 mobile towers in Nigeria, the second tranche of an agreement between itself and Etisalat. The first tranche saw Etisalat part with 2 136 cell sites in August last year.
* Convergence Partners Communications Infrastructure Fund made a $20 million investment in Venture Garden Nigeria, a diversified fintech company with significant operations in Nigeria.
* The appointment of Grant Bodley as CEO: Middle East and Africa (MEA) of Dimension Data. Derek Wilcocks, current CEO of Dimension Data MEA, and Sean Joubert, current MD of Dimension Data MEA, are both taking up executive positions within the global group.

Look out for a possible bid for Cell C by Telkom SA.

* The Carlyle Group, one of the major private equity companies, spent $8 billion to acquire Symantec's data storage unit, Veritas, which was bought for $13.5 billion in 2005.
* CSC bought Fixnetix, a provider of front-office managed trading solutions in capital markets.
* CSC also purchased Fruition Partners, a provider of technology-enabled solutions for the service management sector and the largest ServiceNow exclusive service management consulting firm.
* Envestnet acquired Yodlee, a financial data mining and technology company, less than a year after going public. The deal was worth $660 million.
* FIS bought SunGard Data Systems for $9.1 billion.
* Infor purchased GT Nexus, the world's largest cloud-based global commerce platform, for $675 million.
* Leyard Optoelectronic, a worldwide provider of LED display products and ancillary systems, acquired Planar Systems, a global display and digital signage technology company, for $156.8 million.
* Opera bought Bemobi, a subscription-based mobile app discovery service in Latin America.
* Qualcomm purchased Ikanos Communications, a broadband networking semiconductor and software provider.
* Shenandoah Telecommunications acquired Ntelos Holdings, another mid-tier US-based telecommunications company. The deal was worth $208 million.
* Ucom, an Armenian Internet service provider, bought Orange Armenia.
* Alibaba and Tencent invested in China Media Capital's Internet-TV start-up.
* Softbank made an additional investment in Sprint.
* A US appeals court said Limelight Networks is responsible for infringing rival Akamai Technologies' patent for managing Web images and video, reviving a $45 million verdict against the company.
* Alibaba and Suning Commerce are buying stakes in each other to develop what they are billing as a new commerce model that integrates online and offline retailing. The Chinese e-commerce giant is spending $4.63 billion on buying a 19.99% stake in Suning, which describes itself as China's largest consumer electronics retailer; this will make Alibaba Suning's second-biggest shareholder. At the same time, Suning will spend up to $2.28 billion to buy up to 27.8 million newly issued ordinary shares in Alibaba, and will own approximately 1.1% of Alibaba.
* Taiwanese electronics maker Foxconn will invest about $5 billion over the next five years to build a manufacturing facility in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, marking one of the largest foreign direct investment deals in Indian corporate history. Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronic goods such as smartphones and tablets, and has annual revenue of over $140 billion.
* Google is creating a holding company called Alphabet to pool its many subsidiaries and separate the core Web advertising business from newer ventures such as driverless cars. Under the new corporate structure, the Google unit will encompass the core search engine as well Google Maps and YouTube.
* Excellent quarterly results from CyberArk.
* Very good quarterly figures from Alibaba, Formula Systems, Infoblox and Vimicro International.
* Good quarterly numbers from Aspen Technology, Rackspace Holdings and Tencent Holdings.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Applied Materials, Asure Software, Cisco, Magic Software, SingTel, SMIC and Trend Micro.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Cellcom Israel, ChipMOS Technology, Compal Electronics and Symantec.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Asustek, with revenue up but profit down; Batelco, with revenue down but profit up; CACI International, with revenue down but profit up; CSC, with revenue down but profit up; Lenovo, with revenue up but profit down; Tele2AB, with revenue up but profit down; Telefonica Brasil, with revenue up but profit down; Telstra, with revenue up but profit down; and Wistron, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Adata Technology, Avid, Bottomline Technologies, Cree, Document Security Systems, Gilat Satellite Networks, Imation, Opera Software, Take Two Interactive and Zebra Technologies.
* The appointments of Muna Al Hashemi as CEO of Batelco's Bahrain operation; Darren Entwistle as CEO of Telus; Pernille Erenbjerg as CEO of TDC (Denmark); Matt Massengill as chairman of Western Digital; Larry Page as CEO of Alphabet; Sundar Pichai as CEO of Google; Sean Rad as CEO of Tinder; Pat Russo as chairman of HP Enterprise; Dion Weisler as CEO of HP; and Meg Whitman as chairman of HP.
* The resignations of Joe Natale, CEO of Telus; and Tom Waechter, CEO of Viavi Solutions.
* The retirements of Carsten Dilling, CEO of TDC; and Tom Pardun, chairman of Western Digital.
* TSEC, a crystalline silicon solar cell and PV module maker, has a planned IPO on the Taiwan Stock Exchange scheduled for 31 August.
* An IPO filing from Pure Storage, a data storage start-up.

EMEA/Africa:
* Business intelligence (BI) and analytics software revenue in the MENA region totalled $245 million in 2014, a 12% increase from 2013 revenue of $219 million, according to Gartner.

Worldwide:
* As market consolidation continues in China, one in three smartphones shipped were from Huawei or Xiaomi in Q2 2015, according to Canalys. Xiaomi regained its crown as the largest smartphone vendor in China, with 15.9% market share; however, Huawei is hot on its heels, growing 48% sequentially - the fastest growing vendor in the top 10. Huawei's 15.7% share leaves a slim lead for Xiaomi. Apple fell to third place, followed by Samsung and Vivo.
* The Internet of things (IOT) is turning many manufacturers of "things into first-time software vendors that need licensing and entitlement management (LEM) solutions", according to Gartner. By shifting product value from device hardware to the software running on the device and applying an appropriate licensing strategy, manufacturing product strategists can maximise revenue potential. Thus, the IOT is creating a new type of software vendor for whom LEM is vital to protect, differentiate and monetise their offerings.
* Worldwide personal and entry-level storage shipments declined by 9.7% year-over-year and 13.8% sequentially, finishing the second quarter of 2015 with 15.1 million units, according to IDC.
* The number of Internet of things connected devices will number 38.5 billion in 2020, up from 13.4 billion in 2015; a rise of over 285%.

* JSE All share index: Down 2.3%
* Nasdaq: Flat (marginally up)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.6%
* S&P 500: Up 0.7%
* FTSE100: Down 2.5%
* Nikkei225: Down 0.1%
* Hang Seng: Down 2.3%
* Shanghai: Up 5.9%
* Top SA share movements: Jasco (+7.7%), Labat Africa (-7%) and Silverbridge Holdings (+18.4%)

International:
* Further developments regarding EMC and VMware.

South Africa:
* A possible bid for Cell C by Telkom SA.

Fortune magazine has published its Global 500 list. The following are further observations from a technology perspective.

Top profit-makers:
* Apple at number two;
* Microsoft at number eight;
* Samsung Electronics at nine;
* Oracle at 22;
* China Mobile at 24;
* Verizon Communications at 28; and
* Vodafone at 30.

Top money losers:
* Sharp at 10; and
* Sony at 22.

Largest employers (those with the most employees):
* Hon Hai Precision Industry at number three;
* China Telecommunications at 14; and
* IBM at 20.