The ICT market last month was dominated by Nvidia’s abandonment of its UK-based ARM deal, the finalisation of the AMD/Xilinx deal and AT&T’s planned spin-off of WarnerMedia in a deal valued at $43 billion.
Key local news
- The SA-based Mara Phones smartphone manufacturing facility is no more.
- Salesforce has established its first legal entity in SA.
- Vumatel has acquired a 45% non-controlling stake in Herotel, a fixed wireless internet service provider.
- The R1.3 billion investment led by Arrowroot Capital, with participation from Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, Endeavor Global and Harvest in SA-founded Clickatell.
- The appointments of new CEOs and MDs at Cisco and XLink.
Key African news
- Seacom will acquire selected infrastructure assets from Africell in Uganda that wound down its operations last year.
- The $250 million investment led by Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global in Nigeria-based Flutterwave, an Africa-focused fintech firm.
- The appointments of new CEOs and MDs at Africa Data Centres, Cisco, Park Place Technologies and Westcon-Comstor.
Key international news
- Altair acquired Cassini, a next-generation cloud native technology for Industry 4.0.
- Anexinet bought Veristor Systems, a fellow list maker.
- Apple purchased AI Music, a start-up that uses artificial intelligence to generate tailor-made music.
- AudioEye acquired Square ADA, a trusted accessibility solution in the Squarespace ecosystem.
- BCE bought Canada-based EBOX, an internet, telephone and television service provider.
- Bharti Airtel purchased a strategic stake in Aqilliz, a ‘blockchain as a service’ company, and formed an agreement to acquire about a 25% equity stake in Lavelle Networks, an SD-WAN start-up.
- Carlyle Group acquired Involta, a hybrid IT, cloud computing and data centre services company.
- Check Point Software Technologies bought Spectral, which focuses on code safety and trust, fast code scanning and providing a simple developer experience.
- UK-based Chess has announced the acquisition of TTNC, a telecommunications solutions provider.
AMD has finalised its $50 billion acquisition of Xilinx.
- Cloudflare bought Vectrix, a company that provides businesses with one-click visibility and control across all of their SaaS applications.
- Concord purchased SwiftWIN Solutions, a provider of digital consulting services.
- Converge Technology acquired German-based Visucom, a fellow solution provider.
- Daisy bought UK-based XLN Group, a business broadband provider.
- Datadog purchased CoScreen, the collaboration platform for technical teams.
- Descartes Systems Group acquired NetCHB, a leading provider of customs filing solutions in the US.
- FIS bought Payrix, an innovative fintech company that specialises in enabling SaaS-based platforms to embed payments and financial technology into their offerings to enhance the payments experience for SMEs.
- ForeScout purchased CyberMDX, an early-stage healthcare security vendor.
- The GB Group acquired Cloudcheck, a New Zealand-based provider of electronic identity verification and anti-money-laundering solutions.
- General Informatics bought CMS IP Technologies, an MSP.
- Godspeed Capital purchased the Savli Group, a provider of software and IT automation solutions to mission-oriented federal agencies.
- Gupshup acquired Knowlarity Communications, a global leader in cloud communications, offering cloud telephony and contact centre automation ($100 million).
- HP bought Choose Packaging, a packaging development company and inventor of the only commercially available zero-plastic paper bottle in the world.
- IBM purchased Sentaca, a telco consulting services and solutions provider, and Neudesic, a Microsoft Azure partner.
- Juniper Networks acquired WiteSand, a pioneer of cloud-native zero trust network access control solutions.
- Lemongrass bought Wharfedale Technologies, adding new specialisations in SAP migration and management on Microsoft Azure.
- UK-based Midwich purchased UK-based distributor Nimans along with other subsidiaries from Nycomm Holdings.
- NetApp acquired Fylamynt, a developer of CloudOps automation technology.
- NewRocket bought Service Stack Technologies, a ServiceNow partner.
- nLIGHT purchased the assets of plasmo Industrietechnik, an Austrian-based provider of automated quality assurance and diagnostic solutions.
- Razorpay acquired a majority stake in Curlec, a leading Malaysian fintech start-up.
- Radware bought SecurityDAM, a cloud DDOS network operator.
- Resideo Technologies purchased privately held Arrow Wire & Cable, a leading regional distributor of data communications, connectivity and security products.
- Ricoh acquired Axon Ivy, provider of a digital process automation platform.
- SovTech bought MACS Software, one of the UK’s leading independent providers of warehouse management services.
- Softline Holding purchased India-based Umbrella Infocare, a cloud services company.
- Spotify acquired Podsights and Chartable, two services that provide greater insights for advertisers and podcasting publishers.
- Snyk bought Fugue, a cloud security posture management vendor.
- The Channel Company, parent of CRN, purchased bChannels, a 23-year-old global channel marketing powerhouse with a breakthrough AI-based precision marketing platform.
- The Purple Guys acquired Technology Pointe, a fellow MSP.
- Tyler Technologies bought eDirect, a provider of technology solutions for campground and outdoor recreation management.
- Upstack purchased DVP Technologies, which provides networking, data and cloud solutions, and Subsidium Technologies, which specialises in communications, cloud and collaboration solutions.
- Veritas Capital acquired Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company, a learning technology company ($2.8 billion).
- Xerox bought Powerland, an IT services provider in Canada.
- 3D Systems has entered into an agreement to acquire Kumovis, a German-based additive manufacturing solutions provider for personalised healthcare applications.
- Akamai has agreed to purchase Linode, which bills itself as an alternative to Amazon Web Services ($900 million).
- AMD has finalised its $50 billion acquisition of Xilinx.
- Apple and Broadcom have persuaded a US appeals court to throw out a jury verdict requiring them to pay $1.1 billion for infringing California Institute of Technology patents related to WiFi technology for iPhones and other Apple devices.
- Irish IT procurement and services firm Arkphire has rebranded to Presidio following its acquisition by the US reseller in 2020.
- AT&T will spin off WarnerMedia in a $43 billion transaction to merge its media properties with Discovery.
- Atlassian will be acquiring chatbot service Percept.AI.
- AVI-SPL has agreed to acquire Dublin-based AV integration specialist Sonics.
- Belden has inked a deal to sell its cyber security subsidiary ($350 million).
- BlackBerry will sell its legacy patents primarily related to mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking to a special purpose vehicle, Catapult IP Innovations, formed to acquire the company’s patent assets ($600 million).
- Citrix Systems is to be taken private for $16.5 billion, including debt by affiliates of Elliott Management and Vista Equity Partners.
- Cloudflare has agreed to purchase Area 1 Security, an e-mail security company.
- Darktrace has agreed to buy attack surface management vendor Cybersprint.
- EMCORE has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets and liabilities of the L3Harris Space and Navigation Business.
- EQT and Verdane have agreed to sell SaaS provider Forsta to Press Ganey, a healthcare analytics company.
- Equifax has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Efficient Hire, a provider of cloud recruiting, onboarding and HR management solutions.
- Georgian and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec have agreed to buy a 50% stake in ESentire, a cyber security company.
- Help/Systems has signed an agreement to acquire Tripwire to extend its cyber security portfolio.
- Intel has signed a definitive agreement under which it will acquire Tower Semiconductor ($5.4 billion).
- London Stock Exchange Group has agreed to buy cloud-based technology provider TORA ($325 million).
- LogMeIn is now officially following the launch of a new platform, GoTo Resolve that combines support and communication solutions all in one application.
- Mohalla Tech, the parent company of India’s ShareChat, will acquire local rival MX’s short-video platform ($700 million).
- Nvidia’s plan to acquire British chip designer Arm for $40 billion has been abandoned.
- Panjit International has announced plans to acquire up to a 30% stake in power management IC specialist Champion Microelectronic.
- Persistent Systems will acquire assets of Data Glove, a provider of cloud and application transformation and infrastructure and managed services.
- PriceRunner, a Swedish price comparison firm, was suing Alphabet-owned Google for about €2.1 billion, the latest firm to take legal action alleging the search giant manipulated search results.
- Resideo Technologies has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire First Alert, a leading provider of home safety products ($593 million).
- SoFi is buying banking software provider Technisys.
- Sony Interactive Entertainment will acquire Bungie, the original creator of the Halo video game and developer of Destiny ($3.6 billion).
- Syria’s telecommunications authority has awarded Wafa Telecom a licence to be the country’s third mobile telecoms operator.
- Telefonica SA has agreed to buy – with its partner, fashion retailer Zara’s owner Amancio Ortega – a 40% stake in its unit Telxius, a telecoms infrastructure operator (€216 million).
- Tenable Holdings has signed an agreement to acquire Cymptom, a leader in attack path management.
- Privileged access management vendor ThycoticCentrify has renamed its business Delinea.
- Toshiba aims to break up into two companies with the spinning off of its devices business.
- ViacomCBS will change its name to Paramount.
- The investments by Accenture in SwayBrand, a multicultural media technology platform that helps brands connect with diverse influencers, and Talespin, a spatial computing company focused on workforce talent development and skills mobility.
- The $760 million investment by Apollo Global Management in Legendary Entertainment, the studio behind recent films such as Dune and Godzilla vs Kong.
- The $100 million investment by Blackstone in media-tech firm Cloudinary.
- The $325 million investment by Georgian and CDPQ in eSEntire, a managed detection and response vendor.
- The investment by Insight Partners in Gamma, a provider of integrated multi-physics system simulation software.
- The $200 million investment by India’s Reliance in Glance, a lock screen content company backed by Alphabet and owned by ad-tech firm InMobi.
- The investment by Saudi Aramco of a 7.4% stake in Norwegian industrial software group Cognite.
- The investment by Wipro in vFunction, a start-up that has developed a scalable, AI-based technology platform for modernising Java applications and accelerating migration to the cloud.
- The $100 million investment led by Evolution Equity Partners in multi-factor authentication provider Beyond Identity.
- The $116 million investment led by 20VC in Tripledot, a casual mobile games developer.
- The investment led by Alkeon Capital in Starburst, a data analytics firm.
- The $140 million investment led by an Alphabet unit in Salt Security, Palo Alto’s cyber security start-up.
- The $140 million investment led by Capital G in Salt Security, which offers protection against attacks on APIs.
- The $500 million investment led by Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala in Asian data centre operator Princeton Digital Group.
- The $250 million investment led by Liberty Strategic Capital in cyber security services provider BlueVoyant.
- The investment led by Lightspeed and Silver Lake in Alchemy, a Web3 developer platform.
- The investments led by NEA in Branch, a developer of a mobile linking and attribution platform designed to unify user experience and measurement across devices and channels ($300 million), and Uniphore, developer of a conversational automation platform designed to help enterprise businesses manage interactions with their customers ($400 million).
- The $450 million investment led by Sequoia India in Polygon, which offers a decentralised Ethereum scaling platform designed to help developers build and manage apps.
- The $200 million investment led by Temasek in Amber Group, developer of a global digital asset platform.
- Investments led by Tiger Global in Genesis, provider of an application development platform for financial institutions ($200 million); Israel-based Cheq, a creator of go-to-market cyber security products that protect customer data from bots and fake users ($150 million); and Timescale, which offers an open source time-series SQL database ($110 million).
- The $250 million investment led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Global in Chargebee, an enterprise software start-up.
- The $1 billion investment led by Vista Equity Partners in cloud-based security solutions provider Securonix.
- The appointments of new CEOs at Adjust, ARM, Brightcove, Chinadata Group, Diebold Nixdorf, ExtraHop, Keysight Technologies, Orange, SecureAuth, Sharp, Swisscom, Verisk and Vishay Intertechnology.
- An IPO filing from Cybereason (USA).
- IPOs/listings from Anghami (Nasdaq), Direct Digital Holdings (Nasdaq), Elm (Saudi Arabia), Maris Tech (Nasdaq) and Qingdao AInnovation Technology Group (Singapore).
Research results and predictions
- Overall spending on ICT across the Middle East, Turkey and Africa will top $229 billion this year, an increase of 2.7% over 2021, according to IDC.
- The Middle East and Africa personal computing devices market, which is made up of desktops, notebooks, workstations and tablets, posted strong year-on-year growth of 11.5% in the final quarter of 2021 with shipments reaching 6.8 million units, according to IDC.
Stock market changes
- JSE All share index: Up 1%
- FTSE100: Up 0.3%
- DAX: Down 6.9%
- NYSE (Dow): Down 1.9%
- S&P 500: Down 1.1%
- Nasdaq: Down 0.6%
- Nikkei225: Down 0.9%
- Hang Seng: Down 3.3%
- Shanghai: Up 2.7%
Look out for
- An Alphabet stock split.
- KKR orchestrating an Optiv IPO or sale at more than a $3 billion valuation.
- Microsoft buying Mandiant.
Final word
Fortune magazine recently published its latest ‘The World’s Most Admired Companies’ list. In the top 10 were:
1: Apple
2: Amazon
3: Microsoft
7: Alphabet
9: Netflix
Click Here For The Original Source.
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