Microsoft gets LinkedIn

A raft of acquisitions, including significant ones by Microsoft and Symantec, dominated the international ICT market last week.

Look out for the listing of MTN's Nigerian operations, as part of its fine settlement.

At home, it was an extremely quiet week.

*A positive trading update from Naspers.
* Net1 UEPS Technologies acquired the remaining 40% of Masterpayment that it didn't already own. Masterpayment is a specialist payment services processor based in Munich.
* The Huge Group's listing will transfer from the 'Telecommunications Equipment' sector to the 'Mobile Telecommunications' sector from today (20 June).

• * The Bank of Khartoum acquired Etisalat's Sudanese landline operator, Canar, for $95.2 million. Etisalat previously agreed to sell Canar to Zain, but the Bank of Khartoum owned a blocking 3.7% stake in the landline operator and exercised its option to prevent the sale. The bank also exercised an option to buy Etisalat's 92.3% stake and is paying the same price that Zain had offered for the company.

• * The appointments of Aldo Mareuse as CEO of Telkom Kenya; and Nhena Nyagura as CEO of Dandemutande, following its merger with iWayAfrica Zimbabwe and Africa Online.

• * ASML Holdings bought Hermes Microvision, a fellow chip-making equipment supplier, for $3.1 billion.
• * Cavium purchased QLogic, a network equipment maker, for $1.36 billion.
• * Beijing Jianguang Asset Management (JAC Capital) and Wise Road Capital acquired NXP Semiconductor's Standard Products Business unit for $2.75 billion.
• * Broadridge Financial Solutions, a global provider of investor communications and technology-driven solutions for capital markets, wealth management and asset management firms and corporations, acquired DST's North American Customer Communications business for $410 million.
• * CenturyLink bought ElasticBox, a multi-cloud application management service.
• * D"atwyler Holding, the Swiss manufacturing group, purchased Premier Farnell, the British electronics group behind the low-cost Raspberry Pi mini computer, for £615 million.
• * Electronics For Imaging acquired Optitex, an emerging, fast-growing global leader in integrated 3D design software that enables the textile industry's digital transformation and accelerates the adoption of fast fashion.
• * Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, in the largest deal to date undertaken by the former.
• * Microsoft also purchased Wand Labs, a start-up whose messaging technology will help upgrade the software giant's efforts in chatbots.
• * Pinterest acquired the team that built Fleksy, the maker of a keyboard app that uses predictive technology to improve typing on touch-screens.
• * Samsung Electronics bought US cloud services company Joyent.
• * Symantec purchased Blue Coat Systems for $4.65 billion, just two weeks after the latter filed for an IPO. Bain Capital bought the latter just over a year ago for $2.4 billion.
• * VMware acquired Arkin Net, a provider of software-defined data centre security and operations.
• * Cisco made a $15 million investment in Elastifile, an Israeli storage software start-up.
• * Twitter made a $70 million investment in SoundCloud, a Berlin-based music service.
• * VimpelCom and Ericsson have formed a strategic software partnership in a deal worth more than $1 billion, which will radically transform the former's global IT infrastructure. The partnership encompasses a complete overhaul of VimpelCom's IT infrastructure across 11 countries and 12 time zones, on a scale that is the largest and most ambitious in the industry's history. It involves digitising and globalising its Business Support Systems infrastructure using Ericsson's new software and cloud technologies.
• * TSYS has acquired the remaining 45% ownership share in its TSYS Managed Services EMEA joint venture from The Merchants Group (a Dimension Data company).
• * China's home-grown competitor to Uber Technologies, Didi Chuxing, has raised $7 billion in its latest fundraising effort, giving it a host of powerful allies, including Apple, to fend off the global ride-hailing champion locally.
• * Satisfactory quarterly results from Finisar.
• * Mixed quarterly figures from Oracle, with revenue down but profit up.
• * Very poor quarterly figures from Jabil Circuit.

• * The appointments of Greg Clark as CEO of Symantec (was CEO of Blue Coat); and Ashok Vemuri as CEO of Conduent, the name of Xerox's business process outsourcing unit, after the company splits into two publicly traded entities.
• * A planned IPO from AppDynamics, an application intelligence software company.

EMEA/Africa:

• * Total EMEA external storage systems revenue fell 4.9% year-over-year to $1.64 billion in 1Q16, according to IDC. The capacity shipped in the quarter also dropped 3.5%, indicating a move away from external storage to internal storage in the region.

Worldwide:

• * Global shipments for smartphone-use touch panels will reach 369.49 million units in Q216, increasing 11% sequentially and 6.2% on year, according to Digitimes Research. Touch panel shipments for notebooks and 11-inch and above tablets will reach 6.339 million units, growing 2.5% sequentially and 78.1% on year.
• * 3D printer shipments in the US grew by almost 20% in 2015 compared to 2014, according to IDC. Moreover, total 3D printer shipments in the US are expected to experience a CAGR of more than 16% through 2020.
• * Worldwide shipments of wearable devices are expected to reach 101.9 million units by the end of 2016, representing 29% growth over 2015, according to IDC. The market for wearable devices will experience a CAGR of 20.3%, culminating in 213.6 million units shipped in 2020.
• * Worldwide purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA) factory revenue grew 6.2% year over year, totalling $762.2 million in 1Q16, according to IDC. Total PBBA open systems factory revenue increased 8.3% year-over-year in 1Q16, with revenue totalling $703.2 million, while the mainframe market experienced a decline of 13.9% for the same period. Total worldwide PBBA capacity shipped in 1Q16 reached 886 petabytes, an increase of 39.7% from a year ago.

• * JSE all share index: Down 1.9%
• * Nasdaq: Down 1.9%
• * NYSE (Dow): Down 1.1%
• * S&P 500: Down 1.2%
• * FTSE100: Down 1.5%
• * DAX: Down 2.1%
• * Nikkei225: Down 6%
• * Hang Seng: Down 4.1%
• * Shanghai: Down 1.4%

International:

• * Tencent Holdings buying the Finnish maker of the popular "Clash of Clans" game, in a deal that values the company at more than $9 billion, a move that could thrust the Chinese Internet giant atop the fast-growing and lucrative mobile games industry.
• * Liberty Global, the owner of Poland's largest cable operator, UPC, acquiring cable company Multimedia.

Africa:

• * The listing of MTN's Nigerian operations, as part of its fine settlement.

South Africa:

• * Further news on the discussions between Prescient and Stella Capital Partners.

Fortune magazine has released its 2016 Fortune 500 listing of America's largest organisations. From a technology viewpoint, the following were in the top 150:

• * 3: Apple (was 5)
• * 10: AT&T (was 12)
• * 13: Verizon Communications (was 15)
• * 18: Amazon.com (was 29)
• * 20: HP (was 19 and rating done prior to split)
• * 25: Microsoft (was 31)
• * 31: IBM (was 24)
• * 36: Alphabet (was 40, as Google)
• * 37: Comcast (was 43)
• * 51: Intel (was 52)
• * 54: Cisco (was 60)
• * 64: Ingram Micro (was 62)
• * 77: Oracle (was 81)
• * 102: Avnet (was 108)
• * 108: Tech Data (was 107)
• * 110: Qualcomm (was 113)
• * 113: EMC (was 121)
• * 116: TWC (was 130)
• * 119: Arrow Electronics (was 131)
• * 150: Xerox (was 143)

Analysis will follow next week.