Oracle America accused of racism

Avaya's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection was one of the main stories of the international ICT market last week.

At home, it was very quiet.

* Stellenbosch-based EMSS Group invested in mobile and IOT app start-up Polymorph.
* Local smartphone brand AG Mobile has been liquidated.
* The appointment of Wayne Hull as MD and head of Accenture Digital for South and Sub-Saharan Africa.

* According to the Disrupt Africa Tech Start-Ups Funding Report, 146 start-ups from across Africa raised $129.1 million in funding over the course of 2016.
* The appointment of Giorgio Miano as VP EMEA for BandwidthX.

Avaya has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to reduce its debt.

* Accenture acquired the corporate advisory and aviation consulting businesses of the Seabury Group, a professional services firm focused on the aviation industry.
* ADP bought The Marcus Buckingham Company, an innovator in human capital management.
* Atlassian purchased Trello, adding a collaboration service to its portfolio of workplace software tools for teams. The deal was worth $425 million.
* US-based Cable One acquired privately held rival NewWave Communications for $735 million.
* CenturyLink bought SEAL Consulting, a SAP solutions provider for enterprise-wide business and technology needs.
* Citrix purchased Unidesk, the inventor of the groundbreaking Windows application packaging and management technology known as layering.
* Comcast acquired Watchwith, a video metadata technology provider.
* Coupa Software bought Spend360 International to help companies digitise antiquated processes for data classification.
* Digital International purchased SMART temps, a provider of real-time foodservice temperature management for restaurant, grocery, education and hospital settings as well as real-time temperature management for pharmacy, blood bank and laboratory environments.
* Electra Consumer Products (Israel) acquired mobile phone operator Golan Telecom for $91 million.
* Google has bought a unit from Twitter, called Fabric, which runs a tool for developers to make mobile apps.
* Help/Systems purchased TeamQuest, a company whose IT infrastructure optimisation products help organisations maximise the value of both present and future IT investments.
* HPE acquired SimpliVity, a cloud software company, for $650 million.
* Iron Mountain's Crozier Fine Arts bought Cirkers Williamsburg, a provider of general storage and transport services to the New York market, especially for antiques and art.
* Microsoft purchased Simplygon, a 3D data specialist.
* Novanta acquired the RFID assets of Trimble.
* Oracle bought Apiary, whose pioneering APIFlow solution provides the framework and tools for developing application programming interfaces that share enterprise services and data and help create modern, cloud-based applications and experiences.
* Perficient purchased RAS & Associates, a management consultancy with deep expertise in strategy, operations and business process optimisation consulting.
* ServiceNow acquired DxContinuum, a pioneer in intelligent automation.
* Software AG bought Zementis, a US-based AI software company.
* Synopsys purchased certain assets of Forcheck, a privately held software company based in the Netherlands that provides a static analysis tool for detecting coding defects and anomalies in Fortran applications.
* WNS acquired Denali Sourcing Services, a provider of strategic procurement BPM solutions.
* Portag3 Ventures, a financial technology fund backed by Canada's Power Financial Corporation, invested in finance start-up Street Contxt.
* The US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm, accusing the company of using anticompetitive tactics to maintain its monopoly on a key semiconductor used in mobile phones.
* The US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against D-Link, accusing the Taiwan-based manufacturer of failing to take reasonable steps to protect its routers and Internet-linked security cameras from hackers.
* The US Labour Department sued Oracle America, alleging the technology company systematically paid its white, male employees more than other workers and unlawfully favoured Asian applicants in its recruiting and hiring efforts.
* The US International Trade Commission has begun a patent infringement probe after ZiiLabs charged that several firms were importing products to the US in violation of its patents on graphics processors and DDR memory controllers.
* The US International Trade Commission has launched an investigation into whether Fujifilm Holdings was violating patents which Sony holds for certain magnetic tape cartridges.
* Apple is suing Qualcomm, alleging it demanded onerous terms for its technology and sought to punish Apple for cooperating in a Korean regulatory probe into Qualcomm's licensing practices.
* Avaya has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to reduce its debt, but at present, it has no plans to sell its call centre business.
* Very good quarterly figures from ASML and Netflix.
* Good quarterly numbers from Adtran.
* Good year-end figures from LoopUp and Veeam.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Check Point Software Technologies, Linear Technology and WNS Holdings.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Skyworks Solutions.
* Mixed quarterly figures from GE, with revenue down but profit up; and IBM, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed half-year figures from NCC (UK), with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Atlassian, Progress Software and PTC.
* A half-year loss from WANdisco.
* The appointments of Soren Abildgaard as CEO of T-Mobile Netherlands; Frank Calderoni as CEO of Anaplan; Qi Lu as COO of Baidu; Daniel Springer as CEO of DocuSign; and Raj Verma as president and COO of Hortonworks.
* A planned IPO in London by O2, the mobile operator owned by Telefonica.
* A planned IPO by Anaplan, a US software company that helps business with planning and forecasting.

South Africa:
* More than 40% of data science tasks will be automated by 2020, resulting in increased productivity and broader usage of data and analytics by citizen data scientists, according to Gartner.
* Total spending on IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage and Ethernet switches) for deployment in cloud environments will increase by 18.2% in 2017 to reach $44.2 billion, according to IDC.
* According to the African Digitalisation Maturity Report 2017, released by Siemens and Deloitte, SA has been rated as the country with the highest digital literacy in Africa.

EMEA/Africa:
* IT infrastructure spending for public and private cloud in EMEA grew 19.5% year-on-year to reach $1.5 billion in revenue in Q316, according to IDC.

Worldwide:
* PC shipments decreased 4.8% in 2016 to reach around 12 million, and the volume in 2017 is expected to stay flat, according to Digitimes Research.
* Worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to increase 2.9% in 2017 to $69.9 billion, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide semiconductor revenue totalled $339.7 billion in 2016, a 1.5% year-on-year increase, according to Gartner.
* Vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew by 8.1% year on year to $8.4 billion in 3Q16, according to IDC.
* Current major VR device players, including Sony, HTC and Oculus, are unlikely to enjoy a high growth rate in shipments in 2017, due to constrains in the supply of high resolution panels, high performance chips, and supporting software and firmware, according to industry sources.
* More than half the world's population does not use the Internet because of high broadband costs and inaccessibility, according to the ITU's State of Broadband 2016 report.

* JSE All share index: Down 0.5%
* FTSE100: Down 1.9%
* DAX: Flat (marginally up)
* NYSE (Dow): Down 0.3%
* S&P 500: Down 0.1%
* Nasdaq: Down 0.3%
* Nikkei225: Down 0.8%
* Hang Seng: Down 0.2%
* Shanghai: Up 0.3%

International:
* Telenor selling its Indian mobile operation to Bharti Airtel.
* Hon Hai Precision Industry and Sharp setting up an LCD plant in the US.
* Toshiba selling off part of its semiconductor business to Western Digital and possibly Canon.

South Africa:
* Further news regarding the Prescient/Stella Capital deal.

Software magazine recently announced its 2016 'Software 500 Companies' list.

The total software and service revenue for the 2016 Software 500 reached $705.8 billion, down 5.7% from the $748.7 billion reported in the 2015 Software 500.

Now in its 34th year, the Software 500 provides a detailed look at changes in the software industry from a revenue, employee and R&D perspective. The 2016 Software 500 is based on each company's 2015 fiscal year reports.

With insights taken from the extensive survey results, top growth areas include business process management, social analytics and database/data management, all offering an average growth per company above 50% over the 2015 fiscal year.

There are also changes in the top 10. The top four from 2015 - IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Accenture - all maintained their ranking. The former Hewlett Packard drops, but appears as two separate companies at numbers six and seven.

Market consolidation also factored into changes in the top 10. EMC was acquired by Dell, and Hitachi also dropped from the list, as the company decided not to disclose its software revenue within its 2015 annual report.