Android takes the lead online

Another acquisition by Accenture and another successful technology IPO were the main events of the international ICT market last week.

At home, Datatec's partial Westcon-Comstor disposal deal was the main story in a quiet week.

* A negative trading update from Datatec.
* The de-listing of Altron's N shares.
* Kerridge Commercial Systems acquired IQ Retail, a South African company delivering retail and ERP solutions for more than 30 years.
* The PBT Group will be reclassified from financial services, sub-sector asset managers, to software and computer services, sub-sector computer services, effective 31 March.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by Datatec.
* The appointments of Christopher Seabrooke as chairman of Net1 UEPS Technologies; Ernst Roth as acting CEO of Gijima; and Danie Swart as CEO of me&you mobile.
* The departure of Brett Howell, CEO of me&you mobile; and Eileen Wilton, CEO of Gijima.
* The retirement of Peter Moyo, chairman of Vodacom.

* Orange has launched in Burkina Faso, strengthening its position in West Africa.

Australia's consumer watchdog has sued Apple.

* Accenture acquired UK-based Genfour, a pure play automation service provider with deep domain expertise and industry experience in assessing, implementing and managing automation solutions.
* Computacenter bought TeamUltra, a ServiceNow Gold Services partner.
* Cognex purchased ViDi Systems SA, a maker of deep learning software for industrial machine vision.
* Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab acquired Indonesian online payment start-up Kudo, marking the first investment under a recently announced plan by the former to commit $700 million to its largest market.
* Mercury Systems bought Delta Microwave, a designer and manufacturer of high-value radio frequency, microwave and millimetre wave subassemblies and components for military and space markets.
* OVH, a global hyper-scale cloud provider, intends to acquire the vCloud Air business from VMware.
* PDI, a global provider of enterprise-class software solutions to the convenience retail and wholesale petroleum industries, bought three privately owned companies: DataMax Group, LOMOSOFT and FireStream WorldWide, which will accelerate the company's growth and expand its footprint around the globe into six continents, as well as serving operators regardless of size and operating model.
* QVC (Liberty Group) purchased CGI, an Alaskan cable and telecoms group, for $1.12 billion.
* Sierra Wireless acquired the assets of GlobalTop Technology's Global Navigation Satellite System embedded module business. The deal was worth $3.2 million.
* TeleTech Holdings bought Connextions from OptumHealth Holdings for $80 million.
* Vodafone New Zealand purchased the rural broadband and satellite section 'Farmside' of operator TeamTalk, in a deal worth $7 million (70%).
* Yelp acquired Turnstyle Analytics, a WiFi marketing company that is pioneering the way local businesses use free WiFi to connect with their customers.
* A Chinese court has ordered Samsung Electronics' mainland subsidiaries to pay 80 million yuan ($11.6 million) to Huawei Technologies for patent infringement.
* Australia's consumer watchdog has sued Apple, alleging it used a software update to disable iPhones which had cracked screens fixed by third parties.
* The Android operating system introduced by Alphabet 10 years ago has surpassed Microsoft Windows as the world's most popular operating system in terms of Internet usage.
* McAfee has begun operating as a new standalone company, having spun out of Intel. McAfee also announced that private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo has joined as a minority investor in the company, through an agreement with TPG, with Intel retaining a 49% equity stake in the new entity. Chris Young will lead the new McAfee as CEO, with TPG partner Bryan Taylor the new chairman of the board.
* Taser International, maker of the eponymous device used by police to stun and incapacitate a person temporarily, is changing its name to Axon as it pushes further into the software business.
* Verizon Communications will introduce a new division called Oath this summer, around the time the telecommunications giant expects to close the deal that will combine its AOL unit with Yahoo's Internet assets.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Foxconn Electronics, with revenue down but profit up.
* The appointments of Steve Collar as CEO of SES Networks; Mark Holleran as CEO of Xplore Technologies; and Nalin Perera as CEO of Mobitel (Sri Lanka).
* The death of Ikutaro Kakehashi, electronic music pioneer and founder of Roland.
* A very good IPO on Nasdaq by Okta, an independent provider of identity for the enterprise.
* A possible IPO/listing by Spotify.

EMEA/Africa:
* Official PC shipments to Nigeria fell 57.1% year-on-year in 2016 to total 156 511 units, according to IDC. This means the market has now fallen to its lowest levels since IDC started tracking it in Q1 2008, with factors such as unstable exchange rates, poor economic performance, and the steady rise of refurbished grey market imports causing a decline that has been ongoing since 2013.
* Revenue for big data and analytics in the MEA region totalled $1.9 billion in 2016, according to IDC. It expects the region to see year-on-year growth of 11% in 2017, to reach $2.2 billion. The growth is expected to continue over the coming years to reach approximately $3.2 billion in 2020, which represents a CAGR of 10% over the 2016 to 2020 period.

Worldwide:
* Users of PCs, ultramobiles and mobile phones are buying new devices at higher average selling prices, resulting in growth in end-user spending in 2017, according to Gartner. It estimates end-user spending will increase by 2% in 2017, to nearly $600 billion. Spending on mobile phones will represent 67% of that figure.
* Worldwide revenue for cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI) systems will reach $12.5 billion in 2017, an increase of 59.3% over 2016, according to IDC. Global spending on cognitive and AI solutions will continue to see significant corporate investment over the next several years, achieving a CAGR of 54.4% through 2020 when revenue will be more than $46 billion.
* Vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products (server, storage and Ethernet switch) for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew by 9.2% year-on-year to $32.6 billion in 2016, with vendor revenue for 4Q16 growing at 7.3% to $9.2 billion, according to IDC.
* The global telecoms services market has experienced a decline in recent years, registering a negative CAGR of 3.4% between 2012 and 2016 to reach a value of $1.2 trillion. It forecasts an improvement and projects a CAGR of 2.2% between 2016 and 2021 that will drive the market to a value of $1.3 trillion by 2021, according to MarketLine.
* The global IT services market is expected to grow from over $950 billion in 2016 to over $1 160 billion in 2020, according to Research and Markets.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.5%
* FTSE100: Up 0.4%
* DAX: Down 0.7%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 0.1%
* S&P 500: Down 0.3%
* Nasdaq: Down 0.6%
* Nikkei225: Down 1.3%
* Hang Seng: Up 0.6%
* Shanghai: Up 3%

International:
* Apple acquiring UK-based Imagination Technologies.
* The sale of BT's Italian unit.

South Africa:
* Further news regarding Datatec's partial Westcon-Comstor disposal deal.

African Business magazine published its African rankings for 2017. Some of these with a technology perspective are:

* Top 100 most admired brands in Africa:
* 1: Samsung (was 2)
* 5: Apple (was 11)
* 6: LG (was 9)
* 7: Nokia (was 6)
* 9: (MTN (was 1)
* 10: Airtel (was 7)
* 12: Sony (was 17)
* 13: Etisalat (was 13)
* 18: Orange (was 15)
* 28: Safaricom/Mpesa (was 68)
* 29: Vodacom/Vodafone (was 25)
* 31: Microsoft/Windows (was 51)
* 34: HP (was 31)
* 35: Google (was 30)
* 39: Toshiba (was 56)
* 40: Huawei (was 58)
* Top 100 most valuable brands in Africa
* 1: Google (was 35)
* 2: Apple (was 5)
* 3: Microsoft/Windows (was 31)
* 4: Samsung (was 1)
* 5: Facebook (was 63)
* 11: Huawei (was 40)
* 15: Vodafone/Vodacom (was29)
* 16: Orange (was 18)
* 21: Dell (was 51)
* 25: LG (was 6)
* 27: Sony (was 12)
* 30: Airtel (was 10)
* 34: Toshiba (was 39)
* 35: Etisalat (was 13)
* 37: Nokia (was 7)
* 46: Sharp (was 59)
* 47: MTN (was 9)
* Top 10 most admired African brands
* 1: MTN (was 9)
* 2: Glo/Globacom (was 16)
* 5: Safaricom/Mpesa (was 28)
* Top 10 most valuable African brands
* 1: MTN
* 4: Safaricom/Mpesa
* 8: Glo/Globacom

As it is Easter next weekend, my next column will appear on 24 April and will cover the two-week intervening period.