Qualcomm coughs up to China

Canon's buyout of Axis, and Qualcomm's anti-trust fine of almost $1 billion made the headlines in the ICT world last week.

At home, Nedbank's further investment in the ICT sector (it already owns MB Technologies), and GK Software's opening of a local office were the main stories.

* Very good interim numbers from Adapt IT, with revenue up 37.5% and profit up 48.3%.
* Mixed Q3 numbers form Mix Telematics, with revenue up 13.5% but profit down 28.5%.
* Positive trading updates from Morvest Group and Mustek.
* Adapt IT acquired New Zealand-based Student Management Software Solutions.
* Nedbank Capital Private Equity made a 32.9% investment in GloCell, a distributor of prepaid airtime.
* GK Software, a European provider of integrated store solutions, has established a South African office, headed by MD Emma Murray.
* MyWiGo, a Spanish multinational, has continued its southern Africa expansion through a distribution deal with Esquire Technologies.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by Telkom SA.
* The appointment of Stuart Blythe as CEO of Silverbridge's Software Solutions business.

* Mediocre quarterly figures from Millicom Cellular International, with revenue marginally down and profit also down.
* Nairobi has been ranked the 'Smartest City in Africa' for the second year in a row, and the only city in Africa in the top 21 rankings. This listing is compiled by The Intelligent Community Forum.
* Google will open an office in the DRC in the near future.
* The appointments of Byron Clutterbuck as CEO of Seacom; and Peter Correia as MD of Airtel Zambia.

Nairobi has been ranked the 'Smartest City in Africa' for the second year in a row.

* Accenture acquired Agilex Technologies, a provider of digital solutions.
* Arm Holdings bought Offspark, a Dutch specialist in security software.
* Canon purchased Sweden's Axis, a network video solutions provider, for $2.8 billion.
* Hitachi Data Systems acquired Pentaho, a big data company.
* HP bought Voltage Security, a provider of encryption and tokenisation technology.
* Microsoft purchased N-trig, an Israeli digital pen maker, for more than $200 million.
* Twitter acquired Niche, a start-up that facilitates advertising deals for social media stars.
* Vector Capital bought Saba Software, an enterprise software provider, for $268 million.
* Alibaba made a $590 million investment in Meizu, a Chinese smartphone maker.
* Microsoft and Samsung ended their contract dispute regarding the latter's use of the Android operating system.
* IBM is suing Priceline for patent infringement.
* Qualcomm is to pay a $975 million anti-trust fine to China, and is also being investigated in South Korea for anti-trust activity.
* Excellent quarterly results from CyberArk Software.
* Very good quarterly figures from Japan Display.
* Good quarterly numbers from Arm Holdings, Baidu, Cognex, J2 Global, Nvidia, Qlik Technologies, Qualys and Zayo Group.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Akamai Technologies, AOL, Applied Materials, Cisco, Diebold (back in the black), Diodes, Equifax, Forrester Research, Himax Technologies, Omnicom Group, Reliance Communications, ViaSat (back in the black) and Vonage.
* Mediocre quarterly results from CenturyLink and NetApp.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Am'erica M'ovil, with revenue up but profit down; Amkor Technology, with revenue up but profit down; Cray, with revenue down but profit up; Entegris, with revenue up but profit down; Insight Enterprises, with revenue up but profit down; Millicom Cellular International, with revenue up but profit down; NCR, with revenue up but profit down; Newport, with revenue up but profit down; Orbotech, with revenue up but profit down; SMIC, with revenue down but profit up; and Softbank, with revenue up but profit down,
* Very poor quarterly figures from Groupon (but back in the black),
* Quarterly losses from CSC, FireEye, Guidance Software, Imation, Liberty Global, MTNL (India), Sohu, Web.com and Zynga.
* The appointment of Thomas Gruenwald as CEO of Westell Technologies.
* A satisfactory IPO on Nasdaq by Inovalon Holdings, a technology company that provides advanced cloud-based data analytics and data-driven intervention platforms for the healthcare industry.

EMEA/Africa:
* According to Morocco's telecommunications regulator, mobile subscribers have reached 44 million, while the number of Internet users has reached 9.97 million.
* Nigeria will have 182 million mobile users by 2019, according to Pyramid Research.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide personal and entry-level storage shipments remained flat year-over-year in 2014, finishing the year with 75.7 million units, according to IDC. Annual shipment values were down -1.5% year-over-year to $6.6 billion.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.9% (highest-ever weekend close at just under 53 000)
* Nasdaq: Up 3.1% (highest weekend close since the dotcom days of the year 2000 at almost 4 900)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 1.1% (highest-ever weekend close at just over 18 000)
* S&P 500: Up 2% (highest-ever weekend close at just 2 100)
* FTSE100: Up 0.3% (highest weekend close since 1999)
* Nikkei225: Up 1.5%
* Hang Seng: Flat (just up)
* Shanghai: Up 4.2%
* Top SA share movements: Adapt IT (+8.1%), Ansys (+10.5%), Morvest (-8.3%), Mustek (+12%) and Poynting (-12.3%)

International:
* Further developments regarding the future (possible break-up) of EMC, Pivotal and VMware.

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding MTN and Telkom SA.

It wasn't long ago that the idea of a pre-IPO start-up with a $1 billion market value was a fantasy. Google was never worth $1 billion as a private company. Neither was Amazon, nor any of the other alumni of the original dotcom class. Today, according to Fortune magazine, the technology is crowded with them. The following are some examples of the 80 or so that fall into this category:

* DocuSign: >$1.6 billion
* Dropbox: $10.4 billion
* Palantir Technologies: $15 billion
* Pinterest: $5.1 billion
* Pure Storage: >$3 billion
* Snapchat: $10 billion
* SpaceX: $10 billion
* Square: $6 billion
* Theranos $9 billion
* Xiaomi Technology $46 billion