Polycom plays the field

AVG Technologies' acquisition and the Polycom moves were the main stories of the international ICT market last week.

At home, it was a very quiet week from an ICT perspective.

* South Africa has jumped 10 places to 65th position overall worldwide in the latest edition of The Global Information Technology Report's Networked Readiness Index, published by the World Economic Forum.
* The appointment of Stephen van Coller as MTN's VP: strategy and mergers & acquisitions.

Huawei Technologies has filed another patent lawsuit against smartphone rival Samsung Electronics in China.

* Avast Software acquired AVG Technologies, a developer of business, mobile and PC device security software applications, for $1.3 billion.
* Convergys bought Germany-based buw, an owner-operated customer management company for EUR123 million.
* KKR spent $3.3 billion to purchase Epicor from Apax Partners, which bought the latter for $976 million in 2011.
* Huawei Technologies has filed another patent lawsuit against smartphone rival Samsung Electronics in China, adding to the legal battle between the two Asian electronics giants.
* French operator Iliad has confirmed it will set up a fourth operator in Italy if two existing operators, Three and Wind, are allowed to merge.
* Polycom has cancelled its merger deal with Mitel in favour of a $2 billion rival bid from private equity firm Siris Capital.
* Good quarterly numbers from Barracuda Networks (back in the black).
* Satisfactory quarterly results from LG Electronics.
* Mediocre quarterly results from CSI.
* Mediocre half-year figures from Chunghwa Telecom.
* A full-year loss from Imagination Technologies.
* The appointments of Udi Mokady as chairman of CyberArk (was CEO); and Ian Powell as chairman of Capita, a UK-based outsourcing company.
* The departure of Gadi Tirosh, chairman of CyberArk.
* A planned IPO, probably later this year, from Coupa Software, a provider of applications that help companies run their financial affairs.
* An IPO filing in Hong Kong by Hon Hai Precision Industry's cable and connector unit.

Africa:
* The public cloud services market in the MENA region is projected to grow 18.3% in 2016 to total $879.3 million, up from $743.1 million in 2015, according to Gartner.
* IT infrastructure spending (server, disk storage, and Ethernet switch) for public and private cloud in EMEA grew by 17.6% year on year to $1.3 billion in 1Q16, according to IDC.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide IT spending is forecast to be flat in 2016, totalling $3.41 trillion. This is up from last quarter's forecast of -0.5% growth. The change in the forecast is mainly due to currency fluctuations and was pre-Brexit.
* Total spending on IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switches) for deployment in cloud environments will increase by 15.5% in 2016 to reach $37.1 billion, according to IDC. In comparison, spending on enterprise IT infrastructure deployed in traditional, non-cloud, environments will decline by 4.4% in 2016, but will still account for the largest share, 63.4%, of end-user spending. Spending on private cloud IT infrastructure will grow by 10.3% year over year to $13.8 billion, with more than 60% of this amount contributed by on-premises private cloud environments. Spending on public cloud IT infrastructure will increase by 18.8% in 2016 to $23.3 billion.

* JSE All share index: Down 2.1%
* FTSE100: Up 1.9%
* DAX: Down 1.5%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 1.1%
* S&P 500: Up 1.3%
* Nasdaq: Up 1.9%
* Nikkei225: Down 3.7%
* Hang Seng: Down 1.1%
* Shanghai: Up 1.9%

International:
* Deutsche Telekom selling off its German mobile mast portfolio for a rumoured EUR5 billion.
* Madrid-based Hispasat and Japan's JSAT Corporation among the companies in talks about buying the satellite business, Asia Broadcast Satellite, that Permira, the UK private equity group, acquired in 2010 for about $200 million.
* Vodafone acquiring Telenor India.
* The potential sale by Altice of SFR Belgium.

South Africa:
* Further news regarding the future of Cell C.

IDC recently published its 2016 list of its HealthTech rankings. They are as follows:

* Top 25 (all US-based, except number four and number nine):
* 1: Optum
* 2: Cerner
* 3: McKesson Technology Solutions
* 4: GE Healthcare
* 5: Epic Systems
* 6: Allscripts
* 7: Nuance Communications
* 8: athenahealth
* 9: Agfa HealthCare
* 10: Premier
* 11: Truven Health Analytics
* 12: The Advisory Board Company
* 13: Leidos Health
* 14: InterSystems
* 15: Medical Information Technology (MEDITECH)
* 16: Quality Systems (NextGen)
* 17: Inovalon
* 18: eClinicalWorks
* 19: Change Healthcare (formerly Emdeon)
* 20: Greenway Health
* 21: MedAssets
* 22: Omnicell
* 23: M*Modal
* 24: CIOX Health
* 25: Sunquest Information Systems

* Enterprise Top 25:

* 1: IBM
* 2: Siemens
* 3: HP
* 4: Royal Philips
* 5: Microsoft
* 6: Dell
* 7: Intel
* 8: Cisco
* 9: Cognizant Technology Solutions
* 10: Accenture
* 11: Oracle
* 12: EMC
* 13: Fujitsu Group
* 14: SAP
* 15: Wolters Kluwer
* 16: General Dynamics
* 17: Avnet
* 18: 3M
* 19: CSC
* 20: CGI Group
* 21: Deloitte
* 22: NetApp
* 23: Tata Consultancy Services
* 24: Capgemini
* 25: FujiFilm