Cisco adds to company stash

Two acquisitions by Cisco and one from IBM dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, the news regarding Vodacom and Neotel stole much of the local ICT media space.

* Good interim numbers from Metrofile, with revenue up 10.8% and profit up 13.7%; and Pinnacle Holdings, with revenue up 19% and profit up 23.4%.
* Mediocre year-end figures from MTN Group, with revenue up 0.1% but profit down 37.5%.
* A positive trading update from Amecor.
* Alaris Holdings acquired Cojot, a Finnish company that specialises in the design, development and manufacture of mobile VHF/UHF/SHF wideband antennas.
* Pinnacle made an additional investment in Datacentrix, with the former now holding 55.3% of the latter's shares.
* The proposed Vodacom/Neotel deal has been cancelled.
* Technology services company Netsurit and niche professional services consultancy Inobits are merging.
* Arnold Fourie was named non-executive chairman of Datacentrix.
* The resignation of Nolitha Fakude, non-executive chairman of Datacentrix.

* Teraco is adding to its existing co-location facility to create Africa's largest data centre, based in Isando, Johannesburg.
* The Africa Internet Group, the company behind the continent's biggest e-commerce company Jumia, has raised EUR225 million in one of the biggest fundraising rounds yet seen for any Africa-focused technology company. The investment comes just weeks after the company announced that Axa, the French insurance group, had invested EUR75 million for an 8% stake in the group. This fundraising round includes investment bank Goldman Sachs, as well as long-time backer MTN, the South African telecoms group, and the German start-up incubator Rocket Internet. The group is valued at more than EUR1 billion.
* The appointment of Charles Kamoto as MD of Airtel Malawi.

The proposed Vodacom/Neotel deal has been cancelled.

* CCL Industries acquired Checkpoint Systems, a global supplier of merchandise availability solutions for the retail industry.
* Cisco bought CliQr, a cloud management provider, for $260 million.
* Cisco also purchased Israel-based Leaba Semiconductor for $380 million.
* EFI acquired Rialco, a dye and colour systems developer.
* GoPro bought two mobile video editing apps - Replay and Splice. The merging of Replay and Splice into GoPro's mobile strategy accelerates GoPro's ability to deliver ultra-convenient, powerful, mobile editing solutions to GoPro customers and billions of smartphone users.
* IBM purchased private cyber security firm Resilient Systems as part of a move to expand the former's role in the incident response market.
* NCR acquired CimpleBox, a cloud-based back-office provider.
* NetSuite bought IQity's cloud business.
* Synchronoss Technologies purchased Openwave Messaging, a company with a world-class product portfolio that includes its core complete messaging platform optimised for today's most complex messaging requirements worldwide, with a particular geographic strength in APAC.
* Synnex Technology acquired the remaining shares in BestCom Infotech it doesn't already own (59.14%).
* Synopsys bought WinterLogic, the technology leader in fault simulation used in automotive, safety and security environments for the design and verification of advanced systems on chips.
* Accenture invested in and has formed an alliance relationship with Endgame, a provider of cyber security software solutions.
* Elliott Management, a hedge fund, has made a $200 million (8.8%) investment in Qlik Technologies.
* DST and BusinessOptix have formed a strategic partnership, in a move designed to expand DST's intelligent business process management solutions global offering.
* A German court fined Facebook EUR100 000 ($109 000) for refusing to follow an order to adequately inform users about how it was using their intellectual property.
* A federal judge in New York has sided with Apple against the Justice Department about whether the company can be forced to help investigators extract data from a locked phone.
* IBM has filed a lawsuit against daily deals Web site operator Groupon, alleging infringement of its patents.
* Facebook is being probed by German authorities for anti-trust activities.
* Yahoo is exploring the sale of $1 billion to $3 billion worth of patents, property and other non-core assets.
* Very good quarterly figures from EPIQ Systems (back in the black) and Weibo.
* Good quarterly numbers from Descartes Systems Group and Veeva Systems.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Broadcom, GCI and Tech Data.
* Mediocre quarterly results from HPE, Mentor Graphics and Sykes Enterprises.
* Mediocre year-end figures from Inmarsat.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Ambarella, with revenue up but profit down; Atmel, with revenue down but back in the black; Guidewire Software, with revenue up but profit down; and Sina, with revenue up but profit down.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Alaska Communications (but back in the black) and TiVo.
* Quarterly losses from CDI, Checkpoint Systems, Ciena, Engility, JD.com, NII Holdings, Nimble Storage, Pure Storage, Stratasys and Workday.
* The appointments of Lynn Dogle as CEO of Engility; and Edzard Overbeek as CEO of Nokia's former mapping unit Here.
* The resignations of Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga; and Vineet Taneja, CEO of Micromax.
* A planned IPO in New York and Tokyo later this year by messaging app operator Line Corp, which is owned by South Korea's largest Web portal operator, Naver Corp.

Worldwide:
* According to Gartner, 43% of organisations are using or plan to implement the Internet of things in 2016.
* Wearables intenders (consumers who plan on purchasing a wearable product in the next six months) are tech-savvy, highly social, and extremely style-conscious, according to IDC.
* 2015 is likely to be the last year of double-digit smartphone growth, according to IDC. The 2015 calendar year finished with 1.44 billion smartphone shipments worldwide, up 10.4% over 2014. IDC's most recent projections show 2016 shipments of 1.5 billion, or 5.7% growth over 2015. The trend of single-digit year-over-year growth is expected throughout the forecast, with volumes growing to 1.92 billion in 2020.
* Total worldwide enterprise video equipment market revenue in 4Q15 was $627.5 million, up from $612 million in 4Q14, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Up 5.6%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.8%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 2.2%
* S&P 500: Up 2.7%
* FTSE100: Up 1.7%
* DAX: Up 3.3%
* Nikkei225: Up 5.1%
* Hang Seng: Up 4.2%
* Shanghai: Up 3.9%

International:
* Alibaba Group Holding's financial affiliate is in talks to invest in Chinese business magazine publisher Caixin Media Co, as billionaire founder Jack Ma expands his media interests.

South Africa:
* Other moves regarding Neotel following the collapse of the Vodacom deal.

Fortune magazine has published its 2016 'Most Admired Companies' list. From a technology perspective, the following are included in the top 50:
* 1: Apple
* 2: Alphabet
* 3: Amazon
* 14: Facebook
* 17: Microsoft
* 19: Netflix
* 32: IBM
* 34: Salesforce.com
* 35: Samsung Electronics
* 36: Accenture
* 43: Intel
* 48: AT&T