CommScope spends $7.4bn

Paul Booth.

---

CommScope's acquisition of Arris was the largest deal in the international ICT market last week.

At home, another acquisition by Adapt IT was the main local story.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from ISA Holdings, with revenue up 2.6% and profit up 43%.
* Good republished year-end figures from Jasco, with revenue up 10.7% and back in the black.
* A quarterly loss from Net1 UEPS Technologies, with revenue down 17.5%.
* A positive trading update from Ayo Technology Solutions.
* Adapt IT Holdings acquired Conor Solutions, which provides turnkey technology solutions to mobile operators, financial institutions, enterprises and SMEs in Africa and South America. The deal was worth R80 million.
* Enterprise Outsourcing, a provider of IT solutions and managed online services, bought PwC SA's technology solutions division of its Managed IT Services business.
* Silversoft, a provider of enterprise software and information solutions for project-based and professional services firms, purchased Magnetic, an agency management software firm based in Cape Town.
* Private equity investments firm Conexus Capital Growth Fund made a R27 million investment in AltX-listed digital solutions company, Etion.
* Ethos, a private equity investment firm, is looking to raise R1 billion to invest in South African companies involved in artificial intelligence.
* Trading in Jasco shares has resumed.
* Telkom has agreed to a roaming and facilities leasing agreement with Vodacom.
* The appointment of Robert Burger as acting MD of Huge Telecom.
* The resignation of Gunter Engling, MD of Huge Telecom.

* Econet Wireless Zimbabwe plans to list its financial units as a single entity on the country's stock exchange and sell a majority stake in network operator Liquid Telecom Zimbabwe back to the firm's parent company.
* Zimbabwe's former ICT minister, Supa Mandiwanzira, has been arrested and charged with criminal abuse of office.

* Accenture acquired Intrigo Systems, a provider of advisory and systems integration services for SAP enterprise and cloud solutions in e-commerce, supply chain and procurement.
* Altair bought Datawatch, a data intelligence provider of enterprise data preparation, predictive analytics and visualisation solutions that fuel business analytics.
* CommScope purchased Arris International, a telecoms equipment maker, for $7.4 billion.
* CVC Fund VII acquired ConvergeOne Holdings, a global IT and managed services provider that went public less than a year ago. The deal was worth $1.8 billion.
* DXC Technology bought TESM and BusinessNow, two ServiceNow partners.
* Far EasTone acquired (70%) Nextlink Technology, a cloud managed service provider.
* II-VI bought Finisar, a global technology player in optical communications, $3.2 billion.
* IPG Photonics purchased privately held Genesis Systems Group (Genesis), specialising in the integration of robotic welding and automation solutions.
* Mphasis, an India-based IT services firm, acquired US-based Stelligent Systems, a cloud technology services company.
* One Stop Systems bought Bressner Technology, a specialised high-performance computing supplier in Europe.

Zimbabwe's former ICT minister, Supa Mandiwanzira, has been arrested and charged with criminal abuse of office.

* Symantec purchased Appthority, a privately held company that offers comprehensive mobile application security analysis; and Javelin Networks, a privately held company that offers advanced software technology to defend enterprises against Active Directory-based attacks.
* Talend acquired Stitch, a player in the fast-growing, self-service data integration market.
* Thoma Bravo, a private equity investment firm, bought Veracode, provider of next-generation application security testing, for $950 million.
* VMware purchased Heptio, a leader in the open Kubernetes ecosystem.
* Virtu Financial acquired ITG, a financial technology company, for $1 billion.
* Accenture invested in Quantexa, a data analytics firm that provides technology solutions to uncover new intelligence.
* Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Fund invested in Hyperoptic, as it looks to fast-track its plans to roll-out FTTH services across the UK.
* Opera invested in StarMaker, a fast-growing technology-driven social media company focused on music and entertainment.
* SoftBank's AI business DeepCore made a $29.5 million investment in British start-up Engineer.ai.
* A US federal judge ruled Qualcomm must license some of its technology to competitors such as Intel.
* GE has significantly reduced its stake in Dell-backed Pivotal Software, the platform-as-a-service developer that helped the conglomerate build its industrial Internet of things platform.
* Samsung Electronics plans to invest $22 billion in artificial intelligence technology by 2020.
* Verizon Communications will reorganise its business segments into Consumer, Business and Verizon Media Group/Oath.
* Zayo Group Holdings plans to separate into two publicly traded companies: one to focus on providing core communications infrastructure and another to leverage infrastructure to provide solutions for a broad set of enterprise customers.
* Excellent quarterly results from Alteryx, eMagin (back in the black), Entercom Communications, SailPoint Technologies (back in the black) and Square (back in the black).
* Very good quarterly figures from CyberArk, EnerFlex, One Stop Systems (back in the black) and Tactile Systems Technology.
* Good quarterly numbers from Altair (back in the black), Ceragon Networks, ChipMOS Technologies, Diodes, Ebix, Envestnet (back in the black), IIJ, Lenovo, Nice, nLight, Opera, Radware, Ubiquiti Networks, WT Microelectronics and Zebra Technologies (back in the black).
* Good half-year figures from Sophos.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Alaska Communications, Altice USA, Ansys, ARC Document Solutions (back in the black), Cable One, CGI group, CommScope, CSG Systems International, eGain (back in the black), Fabrinet, Genpact, ITG (back in the black), Kratos (back in the black), OTE, RadNet, Sapiens, ScanSource, Shenandoah Telecommunications, Skyworks Solutions, Synaptics (back in the black), Take Two Interactive Software, TechTarget, Telus, Tetra Tech, TransAct Technologies, Unisys (back in the black) and Yelp.
* Satisfactory half-year numbers from Softbank.
* Mediocre quarterly results from AAC Technologies, Activision Blizzard, Arris International, Casa Systems, Chroma Ate, Coherent, Cohu, Himax Technologies, Oclaro, Radcom, Singapore Telecoms, Sykes Enterprises, Veon and Zayo Group.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Amdocs, Discovery, EchoStar, Entravision Communications, GCP Applied Technologies, GoDaddy, J2 Global, Microchip Technology, Orbotech, Pegasystems, Perceptron, Presidio, SBA Communications, Sogou, Trend Micro, TTEC Holdings, UTStarcom, and Xperi, with revenue up but net income down; and from Avid, CDK Global, CenturyLink, Changyou.com (back in the black), Dish Network, DXC Technologies, ePlus, Groupon, Information Services Group, Insight Enterprises, Reliance Communications, WideOpenWest (back in the black) and Windstream (back in the black), with revenue down but net income up.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Worldpay.
* Quarterly losses from Adesto Technologies, Alarm.com, Allot Communications, Applied Optoelectronics, Asure Software, BEST, Bottomline Technologies, Cincinnati Bell, Conduent, Dropbox, Everbridge, Everspin Technologies, ExOne, Five9, ForeScout Technologies, Frontier Communications, Glu Mobile, GTT Communications, Harte-Hanks, Hortonworks, ID Systems, Identiv, Infinera, Inovalon, Inseego, Liberty Global, Maxwell Technologies, Mimecast, NII Holdings, Pandora Media, Pctel, PDF Solutions, pdvWireless, Plantronics, Qualcomm, QuickLogic, Quotient Technology, RadiSys, Rapid7, RealNetworks, Rimini Street, RingCentral, Roku, SendGrid, Sierra Wireless, SMIC, Sohu.com, Synacor, Synchronoss Technologies, Tableau Software, Talend, Team, Telecom Argentina, Telecom Italia, Tetra Technologies, TiVo, Twilio, Uniflex and Upland Software.
* The appointments of Robyn Denholm as chairman of Tesla; Brian Krzanich, the ex-CEO of Intel, as president and chief executive of CDK Global; Olivier Roussat as chairman of Bouygues Telecom (was CEO); and Richard Viel as CEO of Bouygues Telecom.

EMEA/Africa:
* IT spending in EMEA is projected to total $973 billion in 2019, an increase of 2% from the estimated spending of $954 billion in 2018, according to Gartner.

Worldwide:
* Global tablet shipments reached 44.89 million units in Q318, up 21.1% on quarter and 6.1% on year, according to Digitimes Research.
* Worldwide notebook shipments are forecast to increase 2.8% sequentially to their highest levels for 2018 in the fourth quarter, thanks to strong seasonal demand and improving Intel CPU supply, according to Digitimes Research.
* Global server shipments are forecast to fall 9% sequentially in Q418, due partly to the impact of the US-China trade war, according to Digitimes Research.
* The total 5G and 5G-related network infrastructure market (5G RAN, 5G NG core, NFVI, routing and optical backhaul) will grow from approximately $528 million in 2018 to $26 billion in 2022, at a CAGR of 118%, according to IDC. IDC expects 5G RAN to be the largest market sub-segment through the forecast period, in line with prior mobile generations.
* Worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $122.7 billion during Q318, an increase of 4.1% over the previous quarter and 13.8% more than the third quarter of 2017, according to SEMI.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.8%
* FTSE100: Up 0.2%
* DAX: Up 0.1%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 2.8%
* S&P 500: Up 2.1%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.7%
* Nikkei225: Up marginally
* Hang Seng: Down 3.3%
* Shanghai: Down 2.9%

International:
* BlackBerry buying cyber security company Cylance for as much as $1.5 billion.
* Thoma Bravo acquiring Symantec.
* Xilinx buying Mellanox Technologies.

South Africa:
* Further news regarding MTN's issues in Nigeria.

Fast Company's 2018 edition of the World's Most Innovative Companies, which has recently been published, spans more than 350 enterprises across 36 categories, from the world's most valuable firm and its continuing transformation of consumer electronics, to a small outfit selling natural gum to preserve rainforests. Included from a technology perspective are:
* 1: Apple, for delivering the future today
* 2: Netflix, for mastering the smallest screen
* 3: Square, for extending the benefits of banking
* 4: Tencent, for honouring content as king
* 5: Amazon, for becoming a larger-than-life presence
* 9: Spotify, for pointing fans towards new artists
* 12: Instagram, for making people drool
* 16: Bytedance, for nosing out the news
* 17: Reliance Jio, for putting India on the fast track
* 18: Nintendo, for changing the game, at home, on the go, and beyond
* 27: Darktrace: for adapting to cyber security threats
* 31: Paytm, for pioneering the cashless economy
* 32: Slack, for making inboxes obsolete
* 41: Pinterest: for turning cameras into keyboards