Twitch buys Curse

A number of small acquisitions, including ones by HPE, Microsoft and Samsung, were the highlights of the international ICT market over the last two weeks.

At home, activities involving Stella Capital Partners were some of the local ICT highs.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from MTN Zakhele, with revenue up 3.1% and profit up 5.6%.
* An interim loss from Stella Capital Partners.
* Very good year-end figures from Adapt IT, with revenue up 39% and profit up 53.7%.
* Positive trading updates from Blue Label Telecoms and Jasco.
* Negative trading updates from Cognition Holdings and Mustek.
* The R267.6 million acquisition by Stella Capital Partners of Amecor.
* The 35% investment by Tritech Media, owned by South African entrepreneur William Kirsh, in real-time location-based technology company ProximityID.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by M-FiTec International.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Amecor.

Worldwide spending on information security products and services will reach $81.6 billion in 2016, an increase of 7.9% over 2015, says Gartner.

* Amazon's game streaming service Twitch bought gaming content and resource platform Curse.
* BCE acquired all the equity it does not already own in Q9 Networks, the data centre operator providing outsourced hosting and other data solutions.
* Corel bought Spigit's Mindjet MindManager business, joining two of the biggest brands in visual communication in a move designed to bring customers and partners a more holistic solution.
* Dentsu Aegis Network purchased a majority stake in data marketing firm Merkle, as the Japanese advertising conglomerate continues its aggressive buying spree. US-based Merkle specialises in "customer relationship marketing", which includes crafting loyalty programmes for marketers and managing their vast customer databases that hold reams of consumer information. It also offers other digital marketing and technology services, including search advertising and data-driven ad buying and analytics.
* The $275 million acquisition by HPE of SGI, a provider of high-performance solutions for compute, data analytics and data management that enable customers to accelerate time to discovery, innovation and profitability.
* Intel bought Nervana Systems, an artificial intelligence start-up.
* Microsoft purchased Beam, an interactive live streaming service for gamers, in a move designed to boost the former's e-gaming capability.
* The $150 million acquisition by Samsung Electronics of US-based luxury appliances maker Dacor.
* Samsung Electronics paid $170 million for Joyent, a cloud services firm.
* The acquisition by ScanSource of Intelisys Communications, a technology services distributor of business telecommunications and cloud services.
* The $2.25 billion acquisition by private-equity firm TPG of cable-television providers RCN and Grande Communications.
* Wal-Mart Stores paid $3.3 billion for Internet retailer Jet.com and its innovative pricing software, in the largest deal to date for an e-commerce start-up.
* The EUR80 million (10.6%) investment by Enel in Metroweb; Swisscom's stake.
* The $1.8 billion investment by Singtel of shares in mobile operators in Thailand and India as part of efforts to broaden its access to mobile markets in Asia and Africa. The company agreed to buy 21% of Thailand's Intouch and 7.39% of India-based Bharti Telecom from its majority shareholder Temasek, increasing its economic interests in Intouch-owned mobile operator AIS and Bharti Airtel.
* A strategic partnership between French payments processing group Ingenico and China's Alipay that will enable Chinese tourists visiting Europe to pay for goods and services using the platform's popular e-wallet.
* Russia fined Google $6.75 million over Android restrictions.
* Univision won the bankruptcy auction for digital publisher Gawker Media, for $135 million.
* Excellent quarterly results from Acacia Communications.
* Very good quarterly figures from Asure Software, CyberArk Software, Tencent Holdings, Weibo and Yelp (back in the black ? just).
* Good quarterly numbers from Alarm.com (back in the black), Applied Materials, Cotiviti Holdings, Himax Technologies, Information Services Group, Loral Space, Lumentum (back in the black), Mimecast (back in the black), Nvidia, Sina, SMIC and Telkonet.
* Good half-year numbers from PCL Technologies.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Analog Devices, Aspen Technology, CACI International, ChipMOS Technologies, CSRA, Deutsche Telekom, Diodes (back in the black), E Ink (back in the black), Fairchild Semiconductor, Formula Systems, Magic Software, NetEase, On Semiconductor, Rackspace Hosting, Synopsys and Trend Micro.
* Satisfactory half-year figures from China Mobile.
* Mediocre quarterly results from AVG Technologies, Avnet, Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry), Mentor Graphics, Photronics, SFR, TDC, TechTarget and Tetra Technologies.
* Mediocre half-year numbers from Batelco and China Unicom.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Adata Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; Alibaba, with revenue up but profit down; Altice, with revenue down but profit up; Brother Industries, with revenue up but profit down; Cellcom Israel, with revenue down but profit up; Cisco, with revenue down but profit up; Convergys, with revenue down but profit up; EarthLink, with revenue down but back in the black; EchoStar, with revenue down but profits up; Idea Cellular, with revenue up but profit down; Lenovo, with revenue down but profit up; Mobile TeleSystems, with revenue up but profit down; MTS Systems, with revenue up but profit down; NetApp, with revenue down but back in the black; and, ViaSat, with revenue up but profit down.
* Mixed half-year figures from PCCW, with revenue up but profit down.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Ceragon Networks and SGI.
* Quarterly losses from Adesto Technologies, AU Optronics, Cree, CSC, D-Link, Document Security Systems, Envestnet, Epiq Systems, Gilat Satellite Networks, Harte-Hanks, Imation, JD.com, Lattice Semiconductor, LendingClub, Microchip Technology, NEC, NII Holdings, Nuance Communications, Oi, Renren, Twilio, Varonis, Viav Solutions, Xtera Communications and Zebra Technologies.
* The appointments of Rafi Ashkenazi as interim CEO of Amaya, owner of gambling Web sites PokerStars and Full Tilt; Ray Bingham as exec chairman of Cypress Semi (was chairman); Michael Burger as president and CEO of ESI; Hassane El-Khoury as CEO of Cypress Semiconductor; Gian Fulgoni as CEO of ComScore; and, Alexandra Reich as CEO of Telenor Hungary.
* The resignation of Edward Grady, president and CEO of ESI.
* The departures of David Baazov, CEO of Amaya; Christopher Laska, CEO of Telenor Hungary (moves elsewhere within group); Bill Maris, CEO of Google Venture, Alphabet's venture capital arm; and, Serge Matta, CEO of ComScore.
* A planned IPO on the London Stock Exchange by LoopUp, a UK start-up that provides software for conference calls and online meetings, in what will be one of the first initial public offerings in London since the UK voted to leave the EU.

EMEA/Africa:
* According to Gartner, its 2016 Hype Cycle for ICT in Africa shows Internet of things to have the most beneficial impact on local businesses in two to five years.
* According to a new GSMA study, more than half a billion people across Africa are now subscribed to mobile services as the continent continues to migrate rapidly to mobile broadband networks.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide spending on information security products and services will reach $81.6 billion in 2016, an increase of 7.9% over 2015, says Gartner. Consulting and IT outsourcing are currently the largest categories of spending on information security. Until the end of 2020, the highest growth is expected to come from security testing, IT outsourcing and data loss prevention.
* Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2016 reveals three distinct technology trends that are poised to be of the highest priority for organisations facing rapidly accelerating digital business innovation. Transparently immersive experiences, the perceptual smart machine age and the platform revolution are the three overarching technology trends that profoundly create new experiences with unrivalled intelligence and offer platforms that allow organisations to connect with new business ecosystems.
* According to Gartner, global sales of smartphones to end-users totalled 344 million units in Q216, a 4.3% increase over the same period in 2015. Overall sales of mobile phones contracted by 0.5%, with only five vendors from the top 10 showing growth. Among them were four Chinese manufacturers (Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and BBK Communication Equipment) and South Korea's Samsung.
* Worldwide revenue from public cloud services will reach more than $195 billion in 2020, says IDC. This will be more than double the $96.5 billion in revenue forecast for 2016 and represents a compound annual growth rate of 20.4% over the 2015-2020 forecast period.
* According to IDC, global revenue for the 3D printing market will reach $35.4 billion in 2020. This is more than double the $15.9 billion in revenue forecast for 2016 and represents a compound annual growth rate of 24.1% over the 2015-2020 forecast period.
* Worldwide revenue for the augmented reality and virtual reality market will grow from $5.2 billion in 2016 to more than $162 billion in 2020, says IDC. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 181.3% over the 2015-2020 forecast period.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.8%
* FTSE100: Up 1%
* DAX: Up 1.7%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.1% (all-time high reached during the last two weeks)
* S&P 500: Up 0.1% (all-time high reached during the last two weeks)
* Nasdaq: Up 0.3% (all-time high reached during the last two weeks)
* Nikkei225: Up 1.8%
* Hang Seng: Up 3.6% (highest weekend close this year)
* Shanghai: Up 4.4%

International:
* A possible acquisition by Cisco of Imperva.
* A possible acquisition of JDA Software by Honeywell.

South Africa:
* Further developments on the Cell C/Blue Label deal.

CRN has published its list of 'the 25 Most Influential Executives of 2016', this year's class of the most influential individuals in the technology industry. They are:

1 Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise
2 Michael Dell, CEO of Dell
3 Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco Systems
4 Diane Green, senior vice-president of Google Enterprise Business
5 Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com
6 Dion Weisler, CEO of HP
7 Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
8 Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel
9 Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services
10 Mark Mclaughlin, CEO of Palo Alto Networks
11 Larry Ellison, Executive chairman, CTO of Oracle
12 Christopher Formant, SVP, global president of Verizon Enterprise Solutions
13 Greg Clark, CEO of Blue Coat
14 Kris Hagerman, CEO of Sophos
15 George Kurian, CEO of NetApp
16 William Stemper, president of Comcast Business Services
17 Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite
18 Yang Yuanquing, CEO of Lenovo
19 Thomas Richards, chairman and CEO of CDW
20 Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware
21 Kevin Murai, president, CEO of Synnex
22 Michael Long, chairman, president and CEO of Arrow Electronics
23 Kevin Gilroy, executive VP, Samsung Business, Samsung Electronics America
24 James Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology
25 Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and CEO of IBM