Three, O2 don't become one

In international news, the EU blocked Three and O2's proposed merger.

At home, Vodacom's closure of its M-Pesa activity in SA was the main local story.

* Mixed year-end figures from Datatec, with revenue up 1.8% but profit down 43.3%.
* A negative trading update from Telkom SA.
* Vodacom is closing its M-Pesa initiative in SA.
* Naspers has opened an office in San Francisco.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by ISA.
* The appointment of Babak Fouladi (ex-Vodafone) as group executive technology and information systems for the MTN Group.
* The death of Darryl Thwaits, former CIO of Tiger Brands.

* Good year-end figures from Safaricom, with revenue up almost 20% and profit up 19.6%.
* The appointment of Luca Rossi as SVP and president of Lenovo EMEA.
* The resignations of Eric Cador, SVP and president of Lenovo EMEA; and Kris Senanu, deputy CEO of Access Kenya Group.

Naspers has opened an office in San Francisco.

* Accenture acquired OPS Rules, a boutique analysis consulting company.
* Bango, the app store carrier billing specialist, bought BilltoMobile, the US-based carrier billing services of Danal, in order to expand its position in the US market. The deal was worth $3.5 billion.
* Comcast purchased StickyAds.tv, a French ad video tech company, for $100 million.
* IPG Photonics acquired Menara Networks, an innovator of enhanced optical transmission modules and systems.
* SeaChange International bought DCC Labs, a Poland-based set-top and multiscreen device software developer and integrator, in a move designed to advance the former's set-top, multiscreen subscriber device and application strategies. The deal was worth $8 million.
* Apple made a $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing.
* Groupon is suing IBM, accusing it of infringing a patent related to technology that helps businesses solicit customers based on the customers' locations at a given moment.
* IBM has filed a lawsuit accusing a long-time senior executive (Louis Attanasio) of stealing corporate secrets related to its cloud computing business and of joining a competitor (Informatica) in violation of a non-competition agreement.
* Cisco Systems has been ordered by a jury to pay more than $23.5 million to a non-profit research centre for infringing network-surveillance patents designed to identify hacking attacks on computer systems.
* The EU has blocked the proposed £10.5 billion merger of Hutchison's Three and Telefonica's O2.
* The Alibaba Group and SoftBank will form a joint venture to launch cloud computing services in Japan.
* Excellent quarterly results from ESI (back in the black), NetEase and Stamps.com (back in the black).
* Very good quarterly figures from SMIC.
* Good quarterly numbers from EA, NTT DoCoMo, Nvidia, Sapiens, Tower Semiconductor (back in the black) and Weibo (back in the black).
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Himax Technologies, Liberty Global, Rackspace Hosting and ScanSource.
* Mediocre quarterly results from ChipMOS Technologies, ON Semiconductor and TeleTech Holdings.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Alarm.com, with revenue up but profit down; Altice, with revenue down but profit up; CA, with revenue down but profit up; Convergys, with revenue down but profit up; Magic Software, with revenue up but profit down; Opera Software, with revenue up but profit down; Sunrise, with revenue down but back in the black; Symantec, with revenue down but profit up; TalkTalk, with revenue up but profit down; Trend Micro, with revenue down but profit up; and VimpelCom, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed year-end figures from Softbank, with revenue up but profit down.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Alaska Communications.
* Quarterly losses from Asure Software, Bouygues Telecom, Exar, HTC, Imation, JD.com, Jive Software, Lattice Semiconductor, NII Holdings, Nokia, Novatel Wireless, Nuance Communications, Quantum, Silver Spring Networks, Sina, SunEdison Semiconductor, Stratasys, Tessco Technologies, Tetra Technologies and Zebra Technologies.
* A full-year loss from Sharp.
* The appointments of Michael Cotoia as CEO of TechTarget; Liam Griffin as CEO of Skyworks Solutions; AldrichTai Jeng-wu as CEO of Sharp; John McAfee as CEO of MGT Capital Investments; and Greg Strakosch as executive chairman of TechTarget (was CEO).
* The resignation of David Aldrich, CEO of Skyworks Solutions.
* The departure of Kozo Takahashi, CEO of Sharp.
* A very good IPO on Nasdaq by Acacia Communications.

EMEA/Africa:
* The CEMA external storage market declined by 10% year on year in 2015, according to IDC. Total shipment value dropped below $2 billion, while total market capacity grew by 27%. It should be noted, however, that in euros, the market grew 7% in value over 2014.
* In the CEMA region, the number of pages printed in home and office segments (excluding pages printed on production devices) declined at a moderate single digit rate in 2015, according to IDC.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide notebook shipments will grow 9.7% sequentially in Q216, but will still be down 10% year on year, according to Digitimes Research.
* There were an estimated 44.89 million tablets shipped globally during the first quarter of 2016, falling 31.3% on quarter and 12.1% on year, according to Digitimes Research.
* Worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to decline 2% in 2016, to $62.8 billion, according to Gartner. This is up from the estimated 4.7% decline in Gartner's previous quarterly forecast.
* Mobile device users installed nearly 156 billion mobile applications worldwide in 2015, generating $34.2 billion in direct (non-advertising) revenue, according to IDC. A new forecast estimates these figures will grow to more than 210 billion installs and nearly $57 billion in direct revenue in 2020.
* Worldwide semiconductor revenue will fall for a second consecutive year to $324 billion, down 2.3% from the previous year, according to IDC. The forecast is that semiconductor revenue will log a compound annual growth rate of 1.9% from 2015-2020, reaching $364 billion in 2020.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.4%
* Nasdaq: Down 0.5%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 1.2%
* S&P 500: Down 0.5%
* FTSE100: Up 0.2%
* DAX: Up 0.8%
* Nikkei225: Up 1.9%
* Hang Seng: Down 1.9%
* Shanghai: Down 3%

International:
* The outcome of the Oracle versus Alphabet retrial regarding Android software copyright.
* The outcome of Telecom Italia's EUR820 million bid for Metroweb.

South Africa:
* The potential acquisition of Neotel by Econet and subsea cable operator Seacom.

Forbes has published its 2016 list of: 'The world's most valuable brands'. From a technology perspective, the following were included in the top 25:
1: Apple
2: Google
3: Microsoft
5: Facebook
7: IBM
11: Samsung
12: Amazon
13: AT&T
15: Cisco
16: Oracle
17: Intel
21: Verizon