Large-scale probe turns attention to Android

The forthcoming Apollo Global Management/Tech Data deal and Alibaba’s imminent listing in Hong Kong dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, speculation regarding Cell C abounds.

• Satisfactory interim numbers from the MultiChoice Group, with revenue up 3.5% and profit up 223%; and the Vodacom Group, with revenue up 3.9% and profit up 20.8%.
• Mixed interim figures from ISA, with revenue up 0.5% and profit down 10.1%; and Telkom SA, with revenue up 4.7% but profit down 40.8%.
• Thebe Investment has bought a 51% controlling stake in Discover Digital South Africaand 50.1% in Discover Digital International, an end-to-end digital media, content and fintech solutions provider.
• Imtiaz Patel will step down as executive chairman of MCG and become non-executive chairman on 1 October 2020, when Calvo Mawela, the group’s CEO, will assume full executive responsibility.
• A new JSE cautionary by Telkom SA.
• The appointments of Muhammed Mayet as CEO of Puleng Technologies; and Onica Seku as chairman of ISA Holdings.
• The departure of Paul Thompson, CEO of Puleng Technologies.

• Liquid Telecom has launched a terrestrial telecoms link to connect East and West Africa.
• Orange will launch a new fibre backbone network in West Africa, comprising both terrestrial and subsea infrastructure to dramatically boost connectivity in the region.

• Check Point Software Technologies acquired Cymplify, an early-stage security vendor, in order to defend IOT devices against highly sophisticated attacks by hardening and protecting the devices’ firmware.
• Epic Games, developer of video games including Fortnite, bought Swedish start-up Quixel, which offers software that allows users to add 3D and multimedia graphics to films, games and other visualisations.
• Five Points Capital has purchased GrammaTech, a provider of software-assurance tools and cyber security services.

Look out for the outcome of the talks between Cell C and Telkom SA.

• Mimecast acquired DMARC Analyzer, a SaaS-based solution provider that offers user-friendly domain-based message authentication, reporting and conformance set-up, management and analysis.
• nLight bought privately held Nutronics, a leading developer of coherently combined lasers and beam control systems for high-energy laser systems.
• NSi Industries purchased SullStar Technologies, a provider of tools and connectors for the data and telecom markets.
• Thompson Street Capital Partners acquired T-Base Communications, a Canadian company developing software used to provide accessible documents for low-vision and blind customers.
• Alibaba has agreed to invest an additional $3.3 billion in Cainiao, thus raising its stake in its logistics affiliate from 51% to 63%.
• Apollo Global Management has agreed to purchase Tech Data in a transaction with an enterprise value of about $5.4 billion.
• Five9 has agreed to buy Whendu’s iPaaS platform, which is designed for the specific needs of the contact centre.
• Inphi has agreed to acquire eSilicon, a leading provider of 2.5D packaging, SerDes and custom silicon.
• Open Text has agreed to purchase Carbonite, a provider of data-protection services, for about $1.42 billion.
• Ribbon Communications has agreed to buy closely held ECI Telecom for $460 million.
• Synopsys has agreed to acquire eSilicon’s embedded memory (SRAM, TCAM, multi-port memory compiler) and interface (HBM and HBI) IP assets.
• Yageo, a Taiwanese electronic component company, has agreed to purchase US rival Kemet in a $1.8 billion deal.
• Several dozen attorneys-general investigating advertising practices at Alphabet's Google are planning to expand their anti-trust probe into the unit's flagship Android business.
• A US federal regulator has initiated an investigation into a cloud computing deal between Alphabet's Google and Ascension Health, which would give Google access to detailed health information of millions of patients.
• The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in a long-running copyright case between Google and Oracle, involving the Android mobile operating system.
• Sverica Capital Management has invested in Gryphon Networks, a provider of sales performance management and compliance software.
• Excellent quarterly results from Huya and Opera.
• Very good quarterly numbers from JD.com (back in the black).
• Good quarterly numbers from Accton Technology, Adata Technology, FocalTech Systems (back in the black), Genius Electronic Optical, Genpact, Giga-tronics (back in the black), Perspecta, Phison Electronics, ShunSin Technology, Tetra Tech, Ubiquiti Networks, Verso and WidePoint.
• Good half-year figures from Oxford Instruments.
• Good nine-month figures from Bouygues Telecom.
• Satisfactory quarterly results from Amdocs, Foxconn, Globant, Infineon, Magic Software, Nice, SilverSun Technologies, Sunrise Telecom and Tencent Music.
• Mediocre quarterly results from Applied Materials, Digital International, Hiwin Technologies, Kulicke & Soffa, Nvidia, Perceptron, Skyworks Solutions, TowerJazz Semiconductor and Viacom.
• Mixed quarterly figures from Cisco, Ebix, General Interface Solution, ScanSource, Tencent Holdings and YY, with revenue up but net income down; and from International Game Technology, MACOM Technology Solutions, NetApp, Sina and Weibo, with revenue down but net income up.
• Mixed half-year figures from TalkTalk Telecom Group, with revenue down but net income up.
• Quarterly losses from Asure Software, AudioEye, BEST, Bharti Airtel, Boxlight, Cardlytics, Cheetah Mobile, DASAN Zhone Solutions, Datadog, Document Security Systems, DXC Technology, Epistar, GDS Holdings, GTT Communications, Harte-Hanks, II-VI, Infinera, Innolux, Internap, Japan Display, Jumia Technologies, Lantronix, Lextar, NetSol Technologies, ParkerVision, Ping Identity Holding, SEA, SMTC, Stratasys, Superconductor Technologies, TDC Group (Denmark), Tufin Software Technologies, USA Technologies, Vislink Technologies, Vodafone Idea, voxeljet, Westell Technologies, WeWork, Wireless Telecom Group and Wix.com.
• Half-year losses from Toshiba and Vodafone Group.
• A full-year loss from Northamber.
• The appointments of Jed Ayres as co-CEO of IGEL; Steven Bruny and Kevin Riley as interim co-CEOs of Ribbon Communications; Jay Freeland as interim CEO of Perceptron; Edgar Masri as CEO of Accton Technology; and Dan Serpico as CEO of CodeMantra.
• The resignation of David Watza, CEO of Perceptron.
• The departure of Franklin Hobbs, CEO of Ribbon Communications.
• An IPO filing for a listing in Hong Kong from Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant.

Worldwide:

• The worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 17% in 2020 to total $266.4 billion, up from $227.8 billion in 2019, according to Gartner.
• Spending on telecoms services and pay-TV will reach $1.63 trillion worldwide in 2019, according to IDC. It expects this figure to reach $1.65 trillion in 2020, representing an increase of 0.9%.

• JSE All share index: Down 1%
• FTSE100: Down 0.8%
• DAX: Up 0.1%
• NYSE (Dow): Up 1.2% (all-time high reached during the week)
• S&P 500: Up 0.9% (all-time high reached during the week)
• Nasdaq: Up 0.8% (all-time high reached during the week)
• Nikkei225: Down 0.4%
• Hang Seng: Down 4.8%
• Shanghai: Down 2.5%

International:

• DXC Technology’s possible divesture of three of its five businesses.
• The merger of SoftBank’s Yahoo Japan and messaging app operator Line.

Africa:

• Visa buying a 20% stake in Interswitch, Nigeria’s largest electronic payments company.

South Africa:

• The outcome of the talks between Cell C and Telkom SA.

IDC recently published its predictions from the IDC FutureScape for Worldwide Digital Transformation. They are:

1: Future of culture: By 2024, leaders in 50% of G2000 organisations will have mastered “future of culture” traits such as empathy, empowerment, innovation and customer- and data-centricity to achieve leadership at scale.

2: Digital co-innovation: By 2022, empathy among brands and for customers will drive ecosystem collaboration and co-innovation among partners and competitors that will drive 20% collective growth in customer lifetime value.

3: AI at scale:By 2024, with proactive, hyperspeed operational changes and market reactions, artificial intelligence powered enterprises will respond to customers, competitors, regulators and partners 50% faster than their peers.

4: Digital offerings: By 2023, 50% of organisations will neglect investing in market-driven operations and will lose market share to existing competitors that made the investments, as well as to new digital market entries.

5: Digitally-enhanced workers: By 2021, new future of work practices will expand the functionality and effectiveness of the digital workforce by 35%, fuelling an acceleration of productivity and innovation at practising organisations.

6: Digital investments: By 2023, DX spending will grow to over 50% of all ICT investment from 36% today, with the largest growth in data intelligence and analytics as companies create information-based competitive advantages.

7: Ecosystem force multipliers: By 2025, 80% of digital leaders will devise and differentiate end-customer value measures from their platform ecosystem participation, including an estimate of the ecosystem multiplier effects.

8: Digital KPIs mature: By 2020, 60% of companies will have aligned digital KPIs to direct business value measures of revenue and profitability, eliminating today's measurement crisis where DX KPIs are not directly aligned.

9: Platforms modernise: Driven both by escalating cyber threats and needed new functionality, 65% of organisations will aggressively modernise legacy systems with extensive new technology platform investments through 2023.

10: Invest for insight: By 2023, enterprises seeking to monetise benefits of new intelligence technologies will invest over $265 billion worldwide, making DX business decision analytics and AI a nexus for digital innovation.