Liberty Interactive buys Zulily

The resignation of Pivotal Software's Paul Maritz and Liberty Interactive's acquisition of Zulily were the main international ICT stories last week.

At home, the MTN/Telkom news and Adapt IT's results took pride of place regarding the local ICT media space.

* Very good year-end figures from Adapt IT, with revenue up 39.5% and profit up 52%.
* Good year-end numbers from Blue Label Telecoms, with revenue up 13.6% and profit up 29.5%.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Net 1 UEPS Technologies, with revenue up 7.6% and profit up 37.9%.
* Positive trading updates from Digicore and Mustek.
* Telkom SA has terminated its discussions with MTN regarding the outsource management of its mobile radio access network to the latter and the two companies signing a bilateral roaming agreement, following recommendations by the Competition Tribunal that the transaction be prohibited.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Telkom SA.
* The appointment of Peter Griffiths as MD of Arrow Altech Distribution.
* The retirement of Andre du Preez, MD of Arrow Altech Distribution.

Telkom SA has terminated its discussions with MTN.

* Accenture acquired Schlumberger Business Consulting, the management consulting unit of Schlumberger, a global leader in oilfield services.
* Liberty Interactive Corporation, which owns home shopping network QVC, bought Zulily, an online retailer, for $2.4 billion.
* Oracle purchased Maxymiser, a maker of cloud-based software for mobile marketing.
* Seagate Technology acquired data storage system maker Dot Hill Systems for $645 million.
* Verint Systems bought Telligent, a pioneer in online communities.
* Totvs SA, the largest Latin American producer of enterprise software, purchased Brazilian rival Bematech SA, creating a company whose software will cater to more than half the restaurants, retailers and hotels in the country. The deal was worth $1 256 million.
* Investors, led by Alibaba, Foxconn and Softbank, have made a $500 million investment in India's Snapdeal, the 'Indian version of Alibaba'.
* Tencent made a $50 million investment in Kik Interactive, a Canadian mobile messaging company.
* Microsoft has filed an anti-trust suit against InterDigital regarding its patent licensing charges.
* Very good quarterly figures from Weibo (back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from Analog Devices.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Brocade Communications Systems and Mentor Graphics.
* Mediocre quarterly results from HP.
* Mixed quarterly figures from ScanSource, with revenue up but profit down; Sina, with revenue up but profit down; Synopsys, with revenue up but profit down; and Tech Data, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed half-year figures from China Mobile, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Intuit, NetApp and salesforce.com.
* The appointments of Jean Hu as acting CEO of Qlogic; Christine King as executive chairman of Qlogic; Rob Mee as CEO of Pivotal Software; and Indro Mukerjee as CEO of Quindell, the British insurance technology group.
* The resignations of Paul Maritz, CEO of Pivotal Software, part of the EMC Group; and Prasad Rampalli, CEO of QLogic.
* A planned IPO in 2016 from iSight Partners, a cyber security intelligence firm.

Worldwide:
* The number of cellular machine-to-machine (M2M) connections in the retail industry reached 23.1 million worldwide in 2014, according to Berg Insight. It forecasts the number of cellular M2M connections in the global retail industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.9% during the next five years, to reach 44.3 million connections in 2019. Shipments of cellular M2M devices for retail applications will, at the same time, increase at a CAGR of 7.1% from 9.4 million units in 2014 to 13.2 million units in 2019.
* Worldwide smartphone sales recorded the slowest growth rate since 2013 in Q215, according to Gartner. Worldwide sales of smartphones to end-users totalled 330 million units, an increase of 13.5% over the same period in 2014. Lenovo lost its number three slot to Huawei and was almost overtaken by Xiaomi as well.
* Global service provider VOIP (voice over IP) and IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) revenue was up 46% year-over-year in 2Q15, to $1.3 billion, according to the IHS Infonetics Service Provider VOIP and IMS Equipment and Subscribers report.

* JSE All share index: Down 3.5% (lowest weekend close this year)
* Nasdaq: Down 6.8%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 5.8% (lowest weekend close this year)
* S&P 500: Down 5.8% (lowest weekend close this year)
* FTSE100: Down 5.5% (lowest weekend close this year)
* Nikkei225: Down 5.3% (lowest weekend close this year)
* Hang Seng: Down 6.6%
* Shanghai: Down 11.5%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+13.8%), MiX Telematics (-10.4%), MICROmega Holdings (-8.2%) and MTN (-7.6%)

International:
* The acquisition by Motorola Solutions of Airwave Solutions, a UK-based communications company.

South Africa:
* The fate of Cell C.

Recent Gartner research found the percentage of female CIOs has plateaued, and that CIOs should take another look at their company's chief strategy officer. Read about these and other CIO trends identified by Gartner research here.