Foxconn gets its claws in Sharp

Foxconn's new deal for Sharp and NTT's acquisition of Perot Systems were the main stories in the international ICT market during the last two weeks. In sad news, it was announced Intel's Andy Grove has died.

At home, it was very quiet, with no major happenings in the ICT sector.

* Mixed interim numbers from Cognition, with revenue up 62.8% but profit down 31%.
* A positive trading update from ISA.
* Probe acquired Dynamax, a niche operator with strong manufacturing capability in starters, alternators, field coils, solenoids, regulators and drives.
* Jasco said its listing on the JSE is to be moved to the Software and Computer Services sector.
* MTN plans to convert MTN Holdings from a private to a public entity.
* New JSE cautionaries by ISA.

* American Tower acquired about 1 350 towers in Tanzania, previously owned by Bharti Airtel.
* Ringier Africa Deals Group, a new joint venture between Swiss-owned Ringier Africa and South African-based Silvertree Internet Holdings, bought Nigerian e-commerce platform DealDey.
* Nigeria's new telecoms firm, Ntel, will begin operating this week.
* The appointments of Tamer Gad Allah as CEO of Telecom Egypt; and Maged Osman as chairman of Telecom Egypt.
* The departures of Mohamed Salem, chairman of Telecom Egypt; and Osama Yasin, CEO of Telecom Egypt.

MTN plans to convert MTN Holdings from a private to a public entity.

* Asure Software bought Mangrove Employer Services, a cloud SaaS vendor in human capital management applications.
* CenturyLink purchased netAura, a security services firm that specialises in engineering, developing and consulting on managed security technologies.
* Digicel acquired Curacao-based Tres Networks, a Caribbean mobile operator.
* Foxconn, formerly known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, bought a two-thirds stake in Sharp for $3.5 billion. This is nearly $900 million less than its initial offer. The deal marks the largest acquisition by a foreign company in Japan's insular technology industry and the end of independence for a 100-year-old company that started out making belt buckles and mechanical pencils.
* Guidewire Software purchased EagleEye Analytics, a provider of SaaS-based predictive analytics products specifically designed for property/casualty insurers.
* IBM acquired the Bluewolf Group, a Salesforce.com consulting partner.
* Kyocera bought SGS Tool, a US-based solid tool manufacturing and sales company.
* Mercury Systems purchased Microsemi's embedded security, RF and microwave, and custom microelectronics businesses.
* UK-based Micro Focus International acquired Serena Software, a provider of application life cycle management technology for mainframes and distributed systems, for $540 million. Micro Focus previously acquired Attachmate in 2014, a deal which also brought it Novell and SuSE Linux; and snaffled Borland back in 2009.
* NTT Data bought Dell's IT services arm (ex-Perot Systems) for $3.05 billion. Dell originally bought Perot Systems for $3.9 billion in 2009.
* Protelindo (Indonesia) purchased 2 500 telecoms towers belonging to Indonesia's XL Axiata for $267 million.
* Snapchat acquired Bitstrips, the maker of popular virtual sticker application Bitmoji, for $100 million+.
* Zayo Group Holdings bought Clearview International, a leader in Texas colocation and cloud infrastructure services.
* HPE and Microsoft led an investment in Mesosphere, whose flagship product, the Data Center Operating System, is supposed to make it easy to install applications on a huge data centre. Last year, reports emerged that Microsoft tried to buy Mesosphere, a hot cloud computing start-up, for $150 million, with the intention of shutting it down.
* A joint venture was announced between Inventec and Advantech, AIMobile, for R&D, production and marketing of industrial wireless mobile devices for retail, automotive and medical applications, with Inventec holding a 55% stake and Advantech 45%.
* A strategic partnership between EY and EMC in a move designed to bring clients tools and service offerings to help accelerate return on investment and build greater confidence in their strategic initiatives and technology implementations.
* Oracle claimed HP "partnered" with a third-party software support called TERiX Computer Company to offer enterprises support for Oracle's Solaris operating system. Oracle has already sued TERiX and a judge ordered the latter to pay $57.7 million in damages.
* Exar has entered into a settlement agreement and patent licence agreement that resolves all pending litigation in the eastern district of Texas brought by Phenix.
* Rovi is suing Comcast for patent infringement.
* Jumio, an online identification verification company whose clients include United Airlines and Airbnb, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for its US business and initiated the sale of assets.
* Acer announced a split of its core and new businesses into two groups. The new structure will address the diverse development needs of IT hardware products versus cloud services, smart devices and e-businesses, allowing each group the independence to focus within its ecosystem.
* The proposed merger of Orange and Bouygues has collapsed.
* Very good year-end figures from Huawei Technologies.
* Good quarterly numbers from Compeq Manufacturing, Progress Software (back in the black) and Red Hat.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Accenture, Lite-On Technology and Paychex.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Inventec.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Mobile TeleSystems, with revenue up but profit down; Synnex, with revenue down but profit up; and Verint Systems, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed year-end figures from Foxconn, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Asure Software, BlackBerry, D-Link, Document Security Systems and Micron Technology.
* The appointments of Saleh Adbullah al-Abdooli as CEO of Etisalat; Flavio Cattaneo as CEO of Telecom Italia; and Tim Westergren (the founder) as CEO of Pandora Media.
* The resignations of Cesar Alierta, chairman of Telefonica; Brian McAndrews, CEO of Pandora Media; and Marco Patuano, CEO of Telecom Italia.
* The retirement of Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, chairman of Telefonica.
* The departure of Amaya's CEO, David Baazov, who has been put on an indefinite paid leave of absence.
* The deaths of Alfred Fenaughty, chairman of Yandex; and Andy Grove, ex-chairman and CEO of Intel and the person credited with turning that company into the giant it is today.
* A planned IPO on Nasdaq this month by SecureWorks, a company owned by Dell's closely held parent, Denali Holding.

EMEA/Africa:
* The total EMEA external storage systems value fell 7.5% year over year to $2.08 billion in 4Q15, according to IDC. For the full year 2015, the external storage systems value in EMEA fell 8.5% to just over $7 billion, from $7.66 billion in 2014.
* The MEA tablet market declined 8.8% year on year in the final quarter of 2015 to total 4.05 million units, according to IDC. The report shows that for 2015 as a whole, tablet shipments in MEA declined 3.1% year on year to total 16.2 million units, while the worldwide tablet market has declined by 9.9%.
* Annual spending on mobility across the Middle East, Turkey and Africa is expected to reach $185 billion by 2019, according to IDC. This represents a 10.2% share of worldwide enterprise and consumer spending on mobile devices, software, and services, which is forecast to total $1.8 trillion in 2019.
* The MEA PC market suffered a 28.7% year-on-year slump in shipments in the final quarter of 2015, according to IDC. Shipments fell for the third consecutive quarter in Q4 2015, with the decline representing the steepest ever recorded in the region for a single quarter. In a shift from earlier quarters in the year, when the decline in desktop shipments was notably less pronounced than the decline in notebooks, this time round both product categories declined at a similar pace. IDC's Quarterly PC Tracker shows desktop shipments declined 29.4% year on year in Q4 2015 to total 1.3 million units, with notebook shipments falling 28.2% over the same period to total 1.9 million units.

Worldwide:
* Global smartphone sales will, for the first time, exhibit single-digit growth in 2016, according to Gartner. Global smartphone sales are estimated to reach 1.5 billion units in 2016, a 7% growth from 2015. The total mobile phone market is forecast to reach 1.9 billion units in 2016. Worldwide combined shipments for devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are expected to reach 2.4 billion units in 2016, a 0.6% increase from 2015. End-user spending in constant US dollars is estimated to decline by 1.6% year on year.
* The worldwide production print market increased 5.2% year over year in unit shipments in 4Q15 to approximately 10 700 units, according to IDC. Unit shipment value increased 0.9% to nearly $1.3 billion in the same time period.
* Worldwide purpose-built backup appliance factory revenue grew 4.1% year over year, totalling $1.05 billion in 4Q15, according to IDC. For the full year, factory revenue was up 2.5%, to $3.35 billion in 2015. Total PBBA open systems factory revenue increased 6% year over year in 4Q15, with revenue totalling $958.2 million, while the mainframe market experienced a decline of 12.8% for the same period. Total worldwide PBBA capacity shipped for 4Q15 reached 1 160 petabytes, an increase of 25.6% year over year, while annual capacity was up 23.1% to 3.3 exabytes.
* The global enterprise client device market, composed of thin and terminal clients, ended 4Q15 with a 6.8% reduction in shipments compared to the same quarter one year ago, according to IDC. For the full year 2015, worldwide shipments declined 6.9% versus 2014, as many projects saw cutbacks or delays in the face of a faltering economic outlook and reduced public budgets.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.4%
* Nasdaq: Up 3%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 1.6% (highest weekend close this year)
* S&P 500: Up 1.8% (highest weekend close this year)
* FTSE100: Up 0.6%
* DAX: Down 0.6%
* Nikkei225: Down 4.9%
* Hang Seng: Up 0.8%
* Shanghai: Up 1%

International:
* A possible acquisition of Rovi by TiVo.
* Alfa Telecom, the Russian investment company controlled by billionaire Mikhail Fridman, selling off its 13.22% stake in Turkcell to Turkey's Cukurova and Ziraat Bank for a total of around $2.7 billion.
* A possible acquisition of Finland's Okmetic, a maker of silicon wafers used in semiconductors and analogue circuits, from China's National Silicon Industry Group.

South Africa:
* Further developments in the local telecommunications sector.

Raconteur recently published a cyber security report. The following are some extracts from it:
* The top 20 countries best prepared against cyber attacks list, shows the US at number one, Australia at number three, Brazil at eight, Germany at 10, India at 11, UK at 14, and Israel at 17. Notable absences from the top 20 include Belgium, China, France, South Africa and Taiwan.
* The top five sectors breached in 2014, by numbers of identities exposed, are: retail, financial, software, healthcare, and government and public sector.
* The top five types of information exposed in data breaches: real names, government ID numbers, home addresses, financial information, and date of birth.