Salesforce.com shops up a storm

A handful of small acquisitions, including ones by Autodesk, Bharti Airtel, Salesforce.com and Xerox, were the highlights of the international ICT market last week (a very quiet one).

At home, the announcement of Alan Knott-Craig Jnr's new venture was the main local story.

* Mixed year-end figures from Metrofile Holdings, with revenue up 3.9% but profit down 18.3%.
* Positive trading updates from EOH and Silverbridge Holdings.
* Project Isizwe CEO and former iBurst boss Alan Knott-Craig Jnr has launched a wireless Internet service provider, HeroTel, to provide wireless broadband to homes and businesses.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by MiX Telematics.
* The appointment of Francois Stols as MD of Altech Multimedia.
* The resignation of Danie du Toit, MD of Altech Multimedia.

* The appointments of Jean-Pierre Brulard as senior VP and GM of EMEA for VMware; and Cynthia Gordon as the new CEO of Millicom's African business.
* The departure of Maurizio Carli, senior VP and GM of EMEA for VMware.

* Accenture acquired AD Dialeto, an independent Brazilian digital agency, strengthening its digital marketing services provided through Accenture Interactive, part of Accenture Digital.
* Autodesk bought SeeControl, a San Francisco-based developer of an enterprise Internet of things cloud service platform.
* Bharti Airtel purchased defunct mobile broadband operator Augere Wireless.
* Qualcomm UK Spectrum (QUKS) has agreed to sell the entirety of its UK L-Band spectrum in two separate transactions. Vodafone agreed to purchase 20MHz of the spectrum, and under a separate transaction between QUKS and Hutchinson 3G UK (H3G), H3G has agreed to purchase 20MHz of the spectrum.
* Inovalon, a technology company providing cloud-based data analytics and data-driven intervention platforms to the healthcare industry, acquired Avalere Health, a provider of data-driven advisory services and business intelligence solutions to the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry.
* Salesforce.com bought Kerensen Consulting, Tempo AI and Toopher for over $57 million. These deals involving start-up companies have only just been released.
* Xerox purchased RSA Medical, a provider of health assessment and risk management for members interacting with health and life insurance companies.
* Intel invested in Mirantis, a company that sells a subscription version of the open source software OpenStack.
* Microsoft has avoided a potentially costly setback to its mobile phone business as the US International Trade Commission declined to block the import of its devices in a longstanding patent dispute involving InterDigital.
* The Mexican watchdog will probe Carlos Slim's Telmex Group.
* Nokia has agreed to create a Chinese joint venture with Huaxin in a move that could pave the way for China's approval for Nokia's proposed takeover of Alcatel-Lucent. The joint venture, to be named Nokia Shanghai Bell, will be built on a similar, long-time joint venture between France's Alcatel-Lucent and China Huaxin, which is a state-owned Chinese investment company.
* Very good quarterly figures from Veeva Systems.
* Very good half-year figures from Gemalto.
* Good half-year numbers from ZTE.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Daktronics and OmniVision Technologies.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Avago Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; and QAD, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Autodesk, Splunk and Workday.
* A half-year loss by Bouygues Telecom.
* The appointments of Shang Bing as chairman of China Mobile; Michel Combes, ex-CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, as chairman of Numericable-SFR and COO of Altice; Max Granryd as director general of the GSMA; Chang Xiaobing as chairman of China Telecom (was chairman of China Unicom); Francisco Valim as president of Nextel Brazil (ex-CEO of Oi); and Wang Xiaochu as chairman of China Unicom (was chairman of China Telecom).
* The departures of Xi Guohua, chairman of China Mobile; and Gokul Hemmady, president of Nextel Brazil.
* Line, a smartphone messaging application that is hugely popular in Japan, scrapped its proposed IPO.

South Africa:
* The South African tablet market bounced back from a disappointing performance in Q115 to record strong on-year growth of 56% in Q215, although this growth was spurred by devices from the lower price ranges of the market, according to IDC.

Alan Knott-Craig Jnr has launched a wireless Internet service provider.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide server shipments grew 8% in Q215, while revenue increased 7.2% from Q214, according to Gartner. Dell took over the number two slot from IBM, with HP remaining at number one.
* The worldwide hardcopy peripherals market experienced a 5.9% decline in 2Q15, according to IDC. Total shipments fell to 24.1 million units, while the corresponding shipment value dipped by 3.4% to $13.2 billion over the same period.
* Large-format printer shipments increased by 1.3% from the second quarter of 2014 to the second quarter of 2015, while revenue was flat, according to IDC.
* Smartphone shipments are expected to grow 10.4% in 2015 to 1.44 billion units, according to IDC. This is lower than IDC's previous smartphone forecast of 11.3% year-over-year growth in 2015. It expects to see a noticeable slowdown in smartphone shipments in 2015 as China joins North America and Western Europe in a more mature growth pattern. However, steadily falling average selling prices will fuel steady growth through the end of the forecast period, with global shipments reaching 1.9 billion units in 2019.
* Vendor revenue in the worldwide server market increased 6.1% year over year to $13.5 billion in 2Q15, the fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth, according to IDC. This quarter, revenue grew in rack-optimised, blade, and density-optimised form factors, while towers declined slightly. Worldwide server shipments totalled 2.29 million units in 2Q15, an increase of 3.2% when compared with the second quarter of 2014.
* In its first appearance in the wearables market, Apple finds itself within striking distance of the established market leader, Fitbit, according to IDC. In Q215, Apple shipped a total of 3.6 million units, just 0.8 million units behind Fitbit's 4.4 million units. Total shipment volume for the quarter came to 18.1 million units, up 223.2% from the 5.6 million units shipped in 2Q14.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.9%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.6%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 1.1%
* S&P 500: Up 0.9%
* FTSE100: Up 1%
* Nikkei225: Down 1.5%
* Hang Seng: Down 3.6%
* Shanghai: Down 7.8%
* Top SA share movements: AEEI (+8%), Ansys (+6.1%), Blue Label Telecoms (+6.8%), Metrofile Holdings (+14.6%), MICROmega Holdings (+6.1%), Naspers (+6.6%), Silverbridge Holdings (+14.4%) and Stella Capital Partners (-8.7%)

International:
* A possible buyer for Acer.
* Further information regarding the planned splits of HP and Symantec.

South Africa:
* The fate of Cell C, as Oger Telecom has reportedly been approached by six companies keen to buy its stake in the South African mobile operator.

Fortune magazine has released this year's fastest-growing companies list. This is a list of US-based public companies with the most stellar three-year profit, revenue, and stock growth; and Facebook makes its first appearance. From a technology perspective, the following are included:

7: Qihoo 360 Technology
10: Facebook
13: Alliance Fiber Optic Products
15: Methode Electronics
16: Envestnet
24: Universal Display
46: Netflix
49: Aspen Technology
52: SS&C Technologies
57: Ubiquiti Networks
59: EPAM Systems
65: Skyworks Solutions
68: Ultimate Software Group
79: Silicom
83: Lam Research
88: Maximus
94: Virtusa
98: Super Micro Computer
99: Net 1 UEPS Technologies
100: AMC Networks