ZTE shuffles its hand

Changes at the top of ZTE and Brocade's acquisition of Ruckus Wireless were the main stories of the international ICT market last week.

At home, First Distribution's acquisition of Linux Warehouse was one of the main local events.

* A positive trading update from Datacentrix.
* Dimension Data acquired Ceryx, a privately-owned Toronto-headquartered company that offers a suite of services across the Microsoft Messaging and Collaboration Suite, including Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint and Skype for Business.
* First Distribution bought Linux Warehouse, which will become the open source division of the former.
* Net1 UEPS Technologies purchased a 60% interest in Masterpayment, a specialist payment services processor based in Munich, Germany.
* MTN Holdings has converted to a public company named MTN Holdings.
* The appointment of Lawrence Kandaswami as MD of SAP SA.
* The death of Philip Cowles, a founding member of Software Connection (later the Connection Group).

* Botswana Telecommunications listed on the BSE.
* Orange made a EUR75 million investment in Africa Internet Group, a Nigerian e-commerce group. It also become a shareholder.
* Airtel Sierra Leone has commissioned a $10 million data centre in Freetown.
* Telecoms operator Angola Cables SA and Japan's NEC Corporation will spend $160 million to construct the first subsea fibre-optic cable system to connect Africa and South America. It is planned to be operational in 2018.
* The appointment of Joseph Gondwe as CEO of Vodafone Zambia.

First Distribution bought Linux Warehouse, which will become the open source division of the former.

* Blackstone Group acquired a majority stake in Indian IT outsourcing services provider Mphasis from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise for $1.1 billion. It is the US asset manager's single-biggest investment in India.
* Brocade bought Ruckus Wireless for $1.5 billion, in a move to exploit the growing demand for WiFi access over large areas such as offices and stadiums.
* Corning purchased Alliance Fiber Optic Products, a designer and manufacturer of high-performance passive optical components.
* Crown Castle International Corporation acquired Berkshire Partners-owned Tower Development Corporation for $461 million. The latter operates towers in the United States and Puerto Rico.
* Ericsson bought NodePrime in a move designed to accelerate software-defined infrastructure.
* Ingram Micro purchased Ensim Corporation, a leader in enabling the distribution of cloud applications.
* Teledyne Technologies acquired CARIS, a developer of geospatial software designed for the hydrographic and marine community.
* Teledyne Technologie bought Frontline Test Equipment, a provider of electronic test and measurement instrumentation, and also a market leader in wireless protocol analysis test tools.
* Atairos, an independent private company focused on supporting growth-oriented businesses across a wide range of industries, made a $250 million investment in Groupon.
* Verizon Communications made a $160 million (24.5%) investment in AwesomenessTV, whose YouTube channels are among the most popular on the video site.
* Investment group 3i made a £75 million investment in mobile mast firm, Wireless Infrastructure Group, as mobile operators push to boost their coverage in rural areas.
* Good year-end numbers from ZTE.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Global Payments.
* Mixed year-end figures from Quanta Computer, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Rovio and SeaChange International.
* The appointments of Jos'e Mar'ia 'Alvarez-Pallete as CEO of Telefonica; Vyomesh Joshi as CEO of 3D Systems; Edward Terino as CEO of SeaChange International; and Zhao Xianming as president of ZTE.
* The resignation of Shi Lirong, president of ZTE.
* The departures of Jay Samit, CEO of SeaChange International; Sehat Sutardja, CEO of Marvell Technology Group (stays on as chairman); and Weili Dai, president of Marvell Technology Group.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide semiconductor revenue totalled $334.8 billion in 2015, a 2.3% decline from 2014, according to Gartner. The combined revenue of the top 25 semiconductor vendors fell by 0.5% during 2015. This was a better performance than the rest of the market, however, which saw a 6.9% revenue decline. The top 25 vendors accounted for 73.5% of the market, down slightly from 74% in 2014.
* Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.49 trillion in 2016, a decline of 0.5% over 2015 spending of $3.5 trillion, according to Gartner.
* The worldwide converged systems market increased revenue 8.5% year over year to $3.1 billion during 4Q15, according to IDC. The market generated 1 547 petabytes of new storage capacity shipments during the quarter, which was up 26.9% compared to the same period a year ago. For the full year 2015, worldwide converged systems market revenue increased 8.3% to $10.6 billion when compared to 2014.
* Vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew 21.9% year over year to $29 billion in 2015, according to IDC, with vendor revenue for 4Q15 growing 15.7% to $8.2 billion.

* JSE All share index: Down 0.3%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.3%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 1.2%
* S&P 500: Down 1.2%
* FTSE100: Up 0.9%
* DAX: Down 1.8%
* Nikkei225: Down 2.1%
* Hang Seng: Down 0.4%
* Shanghai: Down 0.8%

International:
* Amazon.com and Microsoft taking minority stakes in the HERE digital mapping service.
* Apex Technology acquiring Lexmark International.

South Africa:
* The possible merger of Broadband Infraco and Telkom SA.

Fortune magazine has published its 2016 'World's 50 Greatest Leaders' list. From a technology viewpoint, the list includes the following individuals:
* 1: Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon;
* 5: Tim Cook, CEO of Apple;
* 12: Huateng "Pony" Ma, chairman and CEO of Tencent Holdings; and
* 37: Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com.