'Bad Apple' fined again

Apple's latest fine for patent violation and HP's disappointing quarterly numbers were the 'highlights' of a quiet international ICT market last week.

At home, Cell C's positive performance figures and the negative digital migration prospects were the main local stories.

* Very good interim numbers from Mustek, with revenue up 24.6% and profit up 38.1%.
* Satisfactory interim figures from Digicore, with revenue up 5.3% and profit up 23.7%.
* Good year-end figures from Cell C, with revenues up 16% and customer numbers up 44% to 19.6 million.
* Positive trading updates from EOH and Poynting Holdings.
* Kaizen IT Solutions merged with First Technology.
* Wipro announced an investment of R3.8 million towards skills development and job creation in SA.
* SA may have to wait until 2017 to complete its migration from analogue to digital terrestrial TV.

* Satisfactory year-end figures from Maroc Telecom's African subsidiaries.
* Orange acquired all the shares and voting rights that Orascom Telecom and Media have in the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services, which operates under the Mobinil brand.
* Igot, a Bitcoin exchange, bought TagPesa (Kenya), a crypto exchange and remittance company.
* ITU has allowed 30 African nations to delay their digital TV migration beyond the original global deadline of June 2015.
* The appointment of Carlos Marques as F5 Networks' director of Sales for sub-Saharan Africa.

SA may have to wait until 2017 to complete its migration from analogue to digital terrestrial TV.

* Apple purchased Semetric in a move to enhance its activity in the music streaming market.
* Avago Technologies acquired Emulex, a networking company, for $600 million.
* Google bought the .app top-level domain for $25 million.
* Hitachi Systems purchased Comic Blue Team, an Italian IT services company.
* Magic Software Enterprises acquired an Israeli IT professional services company specialising in mainframe environments.
* SpeedCast International, a global satellite communications service provider, bought Geolink Satellite Services, part of the CETel Group and a provider of satellite communications solutions in the African region.
* TiVo and other companies purchased parts of Aereo, the now defunct TV streaming service.
* The following patent and lawsuit activity:
* Apple has been fined $532.9 million for the violation of three patents that are owned by Smartflash and which used its iTunes software. Furthermore, the latter is suing again for violations related to the use of these patents in other Apple devices.
* Ericsson is suing Apple for patent infringements regarding technology used by the latter in its devices.
* Google will buy mobile wallet technologies and patents from Softcard.
* Apple will spend nearly $2 billion on new European data centres.
* The Belgian Data Protection Authority says Facebook's policies are in breach of European privacy laws.
* Very good quarterly figures from AMC Networks.
* Good quarterly numbers from American Tower, Aruba Networks (back in the black), Sapiens and Tower Semiconductor (back in the black).
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Avago Technologies, Cablevision Systems, Comcast, Ingram Micro, Ixia (back in the black), Mentor Graphics and TeleTech.
* Mediocre full-year numbers from Telefonica.
* Mediocre quarterly results from HP.
* Mixed year-end figures from Bouygues, with revenue up (just) but profit down.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Ansys, with revenue up but profit down; and Autodesk, with revenue up but profit down.
* Very poor quarterly figures from 3D Systems, Daktronics and SBA Communications (but back in the black).
* A full-year loss from Bouygues Telecom.
* Quarterly losses from Deutsche Telekom, Infoblox, Ntelos Holdings, Salesforce.com, Splunk and Windstream.
* The appointments of Charles Ergen as CEO of Dish Networks; Stephen Gray as CEO of Syniverse; and Ihab Hinnawi as acting CEO of Batelco Group.
* The resignation of Alan Whelan, CEO of Batelco Group.
* An IPO filing for Nasdaq from Kornit Digital, a developer, designer and marketer of innovative digital printing solutions for the global printed textile industry.

* EMEA/Africa:
* Sub-Saharan Africa's mobile money market could grow to $1.5 billion by 2019, according to The Boston Consulting Group.

* Worldwide:
* Global tablet shipments in 2015 are forecast at 221.4 million units, a decrease of 11.9% on 2014, according to Digitimes Research.
* Worldwide hardcopy peripherals shipment value increased 1.7% to $15.2 billion in Q4 2014, while unit shipments declined 2.6% to 30.8 million units during the same period, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.6% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Up 0.2% (highest weekend close this year)
* NYSE (Dow): Flat (marginally down)
* S&P 500: Down 0.3%
* FTSE100: +0.5% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nikkei225: Up 2.5% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Hang Seng: Flat (marginally down)
* Shanghai: Up 2% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Top SA share movements: Digicor (+9.3%), Jasco (-7.1%), Labat Africa (-30.8%), Mustek (+8%) and Prescient (+7.8%)

* International:
* The acquisition of Aruba Networks by HP.
* The possible buy-out of CSC by a consortium of Capgemini and Carlyle Group, a venture capital firm.
* The possible acquisition by NTT Communications of e-shelter, a German data centre provider.

* South Africa:
* The future of Broadband Infraco following the failure to provide any funding in the latest budget.
* The imminent unveiling of locally-produced smartphones, tablets and feature phones by CZ Electronics.

Gartner has identified the top 10 strategic technologies for the education industry in 2015. It recommends education CIOs should have a plan for this year. They are:
* Adaptive learning; a type of crowdsourcing and big data collection.
* Adaptive e-textbooks that, unlike traditional print materials, can be edited to include up-to-date information, be assembled or disassembled, or include content from other sources and social interaction.
* Customer relationship management.
* Big data, which in education is associated with the collection of vast amounts of data from the digitised activities of students, parents, faculty and staff, and the transformation of that into information.
* Sourcing strategies, not a technology in itself, but a collection of technologies and vendor services, from hosting to cloud, home-grown to open source, to subscription models for acquiring software/hardware capabilities.
* Exostructure, ie, acquiring the critical capability of interoperability as a deliberate strategy to integrate the increasing numbers of partnerships, tools and services in the education ecosystem.
* Open micro-credentials in the form of various badges or points that have existed for some time in digital social environments in general, and in learning environments in particular.
* Digital assessment, which is ultimately about being able to do any assessment digitally, to remove the need for physically tethered as well as human-proctored tests and improve modes of testing, grading and data analysis.
* Mobile, a popular term for pervasive access via many types of devices.
* Social learning, which gives learners the ability to establish a presence or social profile that reflects their expertise and interest; to create, discuss, share and capture learning content as learning objects; to organise and find learning objects from a variety of sources, such as search or peer ratings; to interact with peers in their social networks and be able to reach beyond their networks to other trusted sources of information; to engage in experience-based learning exercises; and to receive real-time online coaching and support.