Face-swapping for Facebook

Another acquisition by Cisco, and Softbank's plan to separate into two operations, were the main events of the international ICT market last week.

At home, MTN's activity regarding Nigeria was the main local news story.

* Very good interim numbers from EOH, with revenue up 30.2% and profit up 36.4%.
* Mediocre interim figures from Alaris Holdings, with revenue down 28.5% and profit down 75%.
* Convergence Partners invested in inQuba, a customer experience software company.
* IBM plans to open a multimillion-rand cloud data centre in Johannesburg, in collaboration with South African partners Gijima and Vodacom.
* Renewed JSE cautionaries by Blue Label Telecoms, Huge Group and MTN.
* The appointments of Thinus Mulder as CEO of Dark Fibre Africa (with effect from July); and Tamara d'Onofrio as country manager for mobile payment solutions provider Zazoo, a business unit of Net 1 UEPS Technologies.
* The resignation of Gustav Smit, founding CEO of Dark Fibre Africa (with effect from end June).

* IHS Holding acquired Helios Towers Nigeria, in the process adding 1 211 tower sites in Nigeria to its portfolio.
* Orange's Egyptian unit Mobinil has officially adopted the Orange brand.
* MTN has offered $1.5 billion to settle its Nigerian fine.

IBM plans to open a multimillion-rand cloud data centre in Johannesburg.

* Cisco Systems acquired Synata, a start-up that helps business users find files, e-mails, contacts and other information across their cloud-based software.
* Comcast bought mass media giant OneTwoSee.
* Facebook purchased Masquerade Technologies, the creator of the popular face-swapping app MSQRD, as part of its efforts to build its video services.
* Harte Hanks, a leader in customer engagement and interaction-led marketing, acquired Aleutian Consulting, a marketing consulting firm, accelerating the former's strategic goal of leadership in smarter customer interactions.
* Intel bought Israel's Replay Technologies, the developer of a 3D video technology that has started to be used by US professional sports broadcasters. The deal was worth $175 million.
* Iron Mountain purchased Lithuanian document storage and archiving firm Archyvu Sistemos.
* Sykes Enterprises acquired Clear Link Holdings and its subsidiaries, a player in the tech-enabled demand generation and sales conversion services market.
* Tableau Software bought HyPer, a high performance database system initially developed as a research project at the Technical University of Munich.
* WNS, a provider of global business process management services, purchased Value Edge Research Services, a provider of commercial research and analytics services to clients in the pharma/biopharma industry.
* Aspect Software has filed for bankruptcy, with a plan backed by its creditors that would cut debt and bring the company out of chapter 11 under the control of its lenders.
* SoftBank Group will separate its profitable but slow-growing domestic mobile business from its fast-paced but riskier overseas operations that includes a majority stake in US mobile operator Sprint Corporation.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Iliad Group and Verifone Systems.
* Mediocre quarterly results from ChipMOS Technologies and QAD.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Finisar, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Box, Imation, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, ModusLink, Square, SunEdison Semiconductor, Systemax, Top Image Systems and Volt Information Sciences.
* The appointments of Hatem Dowidar as acting chief executive of Etisalat; and Olaf Swantee as CEO of Swiss telco Sunrise.
* The resignation of Ahmad Julfar, CEO of Etisalat.
* The death of Ray Tomlinson, who was widely credited as the inventor of e-mails.

EMEA/Africa:
* The public cloud services market in the MENA region is projected to grow 18.1% in 2016 to total $864.2 million, up from an estimated $731.6 million in 2015, according to Gartner.
* EMEA spending on robotics and related services will grow at a CAGR of 13%, from nearly $14.6 billion in 2015 to $23.8 billion in 2019, according to IDC. Manufacturing (share of 65.7% in 2015) and resource industries (share of 8.7% in 2015) are, and will remain, the two biggest verticals for robotics spending over the forecast period.

Worldwide:
* In Q415, worldwide server revenue increased 8.2% year over year, while shipments grew 9.2% from Q414, according to Gartner. In all of 2015, worldwide server shipments grew 9.9%, and server revenue increased 10.1%.
* The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network market increased 1.4% year over year in 4Q15, while declining 0.3% for the full year 2015, according to IDC.
* The total security appliance market showed positive growth in both vendor revenue and unit shipments for 4Q15, according to IDC. Worldwide vendor revenue increased 9.3% year over year to $2.95 billion, and units grew 6.2% year over year for a total of 635 281 shipments. For the full year 2015, worldwide security appliance revenue increased 9.9% to $10.6 billion when compared to 2014, while worldwide unit shipments increased 8.1% to 2.33 million, a record high.

* JSE All share index: Down 0.9%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.7%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 1.2%
* S&P 500: Up 1.1%
* FTSE100: Down 1%
* DAX: Up 0.1%
* Nikkei225: Down 0.4%
* Hang Seng: Up 0.1%
* Shanghai: Down 2.2%

International:
* The possible acquisition by NTT of Dell's Perot Systems unit.
* The name change of TeliaSonera to Telia.
* Intel selling part of its venture capital portfolio, assets that could be worth as much as $1 billion.

South Africa:
* Further news regarding Neotel's future.

Fortune magazine has published its "Best Companies to Work For" list for 2016. From a technology perspective, the following are included in the top 50:
* 1: Google (Alphabet)
* 8: SAS Institute
* 15: Ultimate Software
* 23: Salesforce.com
* 31: Workday
* 34: Intuit
* 38: World Wide Technology
* 40: VMware
* 48: Hyland, creator of OnBase