Facebook suspends apps

Apple’s battle with the EU and ongoing activities regarding investigations into the ‘big’ tech boys dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, continued troubles at Cell C and EOH stole much of the ICT media space.

• Mixed year-end figures from Alviva Holdings, with revenue up 16.8% but profit down 6.5%; and Cognition Holdings, with revenue up 36.3% but profit down 28.7%.
• Negative trading updates from Blue Label Telecom and EOH.
• Ulwembu Business Services invested in JumpCO Consulting, a professional services and software product business focused on delivering digital economy-ready enterprise solutions in integration and business process management, cloud and container technology, app development and DevOps.
• Altron has been granted leave to appeal the decision to set aside the City of Tshwane Municipal Broadband Network contract.
• A new JSE cautionary by 4Sight Holdings.
• A renewed JSE cautionary by Jasco.

• Subsea specialist Mainone has confirmed the scheduled landing of its submarine cable systems in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire in September and October 2019, respectively.
• Cash-strapped Mobile Broadband, trading as Vodafone Zambia, is for sale after failure by its shareholders to recapitalise the firm amid stiff competition in Zambia's data market.
• Orange and PCCW Global have signed an agreement to launch the much-anticipated PEACE cable, which will connect France with Pakistan via a series of landing points in East Africa and the Middle East.

The government of Zambia is understood to have deported Yi Jian, CEO of digital pay television station TopStar.

• Telekom Networks Malawi has positioned its mobile money division Mpamba as an independent company, and has appointed Chikhulupilito Mpatso to head up the venture as GM.
• The government of Zambia is understood to have deported Yi Jian, CEO of digital pay television station TopStar.
• The appointment of Dom Poloniecki as GM for Nutanix’s Western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa region.

• Akamai Technologies acquired the technology of KryptCo, creator of multifactor authentication technology.
• Avnet bought France-based Witekio, a privately held company with expertise in software and embedded systems that helps developers overcome the technical challenges and complexity of developing IOT solutions.
• Capgemini purchased Altran, a leading provider of engineering and R&D services, for €3.6 billion.
• DDN, global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management, acquired Western Digital's IntelliFlash business.
• Ericsson bought the workforce of Niche AI, a company started as the India wing of Global Artificial Intelligence Accelerator last year to develop an open source solution to modernise telecoms networks, using AI and machine learning.
• GitHub, the Microsoft-owned open source code repository, purchased a start-up called Semmle that specialises in helping developers analyse code for vulnerabilities.
• HP acquired Bromium, an endpoint security firm.
• Qualcomm bought the remaining interest in RF360 Holdings Singapore, a joint venture with TDK Corporation, for $1.15 billion.
• SITO Mobile purchased MediaJel, which provides advertising solutions for the digitally converged world.
• Adage Capital Management, Altimeter Capital Management and others have made a $268 million investment in GitLab, a fully remote company that sells tools for software developers within a single application.
• Accenture has entered a collaboration with Bayer to implement the Accenture Intient Clinical platform to help simplify and speed the latter’s drug development processes.
• CDW will replace Total System Services in the S&P 500 following the Global Payments acquisition of Total System Services.
• Facebook has suspended tens of thousands of apps on the social networking platform as part of the company's ongoing app developer investigation it began in March 2018 in response to the Cambridge Analytica row.
• Hitachi is doubling down on Hitachi Vantara's Lumada solutions for the Internet of things with the announcement that it will combine the enterprise technology subsidiary with its Hitachi Consulting arm.
• Deutsche Telekom is taking back responsibility for corporate telecoms clients from its restructured T-Systems unit, which will emerge as a slimmed down operation focused on IT and digital services.
• Reliance Communications’ subsidiary Global Cloud Xchange has filed for bankruptcy after reaching a deal on a debt-for-equity swap with bondholders.
• Excellent half-year figures from Learning Technologies Group.
• Excellent full-year figures from TransferWise.
• Good year-end numbers from Newmark Security (back in the black).
• Satisfactory half-year numbers from Parity Group.
• Mediocre half-year figures from Quixant.
• Half-year losses from Accesso Technology Group, Bango, LoopUp Group, Mobile Tornado Group, Osirium Technologies and Scisys Group.
• Full-year losses from DeepMatter Group, Eagle Eye Solutions Group and Rosslyn Data Technologies.
• The appointments of Aiman Ezzat as CEO of Capgemini (as from 20 May 2020); Stan Gallagher as interim CEO of Aviat Networks; Jeong Ho-young as CEO of LG Display; Yves Maitre as CEO of HTC; Mike Salvino as CEO of DXC Technology; and Toshiaki Tokunga as chairman and CEO of the new combined Hitachi Vantara and Hitachi Consulting business.
• The resignation of Michael Pangia, CEO of Aviat Networks.
• The retirement of Mike Muller, co-founder of ARM Holdings.
• The departures of Paul Hermelin, CEO of Capgemini (as from 20 May 2020: stays on as chairman); Mike Lawrie, CEO of DXC Technology; Steve Lucas, ex-CEO of Marketo, which is now owned by Adobe; Han Sang-beom, CEO of LG Display; and Cher Wang, CEO of HTC (stays on as chairman).
• A planned IPO in 2020 by Airbnb, the app-based hospitality booking service.
• A very good IPO on Nasdaq by Datadog, a provider of a monitoring and analytics platform for developers, IT operations teams and business users.
• A good IPO on Nasdaq by Ping Identity Holding, a provider of an intelligent identity platform that can leverage AI and ML to analyse device, network, application and user behaviour data to make real-time authentication and security control decisions.

EMEA/Africa:

• EMEA purpose-built backup appliance vendor revenue decreased 5.6% year over year to reach $267.7 million in Q219, according to IDC.

Worldwide:

• The business impact of blockchain will be transformational across most industries within five to 10 years, according to Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Blockchain Business.

• JSE All share index: Down 1.3%
• FTSE100: Down 0.3%
• DAX: No change
• NYSE (Dow): Down 1%
• S&P 500: Down 0.5%
• Nasdaq: Down 0.7%
• Nikkei225: Up 0.4%
• Hang Seng: Down 3.4%
• Shanghai: Down 0.8%

International:

• The outcome of the Apple/EU $14 billion Irish tax dispute.
• AT&T exploring the option of parting with its DirecTV unit.

South Africa:

• Further developments regarding the Cell C/Blue Label and EOH situations.

Forbes’ annual Best Under a Billion list spotlights 200 small and mid-sized publicly listed enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region with sales under $1 billion and a track record of strong earnings growth. These companies posted more than 50% average growth in annual net profit and sales in their latest financial year, to a combined $10 billion and $54 billion, respectively. Worth watching in the list, from a technology perspective, are:

• Advanced Fiber Resources (China), a fibre-optic isolator manufacturer;
• AEM Holdings (Singapore), a semiconductor equipment supplier;
• Aspeed Technology (Taiwan), a fabless IC-design house;
• Comture (Japan), an IT solutions and services company;
• E-Guardian (Japan), an Internet security company;
• Fujian Boss Software (China), a developer of software solutions;
• Hundsun Technologies (China), a provider of financial software and network services;
• Kellton Tech Solutions (India), an IT and outsourcing firm;
• Navtech (China), which designs, develops, manufactures and markets GNSS technology extensions and GNSS system integration solutions;
• Samebest, a Taiwan-based company principally engaged in the provision of digital learning products;
• Unitest (South Korea), a manufacturer of semiconductor testing equipment; and
• Vista Group International (New Zealand), a provider of software, digital or online solutions to the global film industry.