This is my thirty,000 foot appear at activities in the ICT sector for February 2014.
A Tiny Heritage of prior year’s Februarys…
5 many years back in February 2009 the news was ALL about layoffs and economic uncertainty. Nortel, in addition to their layoffs sold their Alteon asset for less than $eighteen million, which they experienced acquired for $7 billion nine several years formerly! In February 2010 M&A activity was sluggish with no large buys. Google purchased Aardvark Oracle bought a couple of smaller entities IBM bought a modest community software program company that focuses on the telco vertical and Sybase purchased a organization that has a sturdy foothold in the economic providers vertical. There had been heaps of symptoms that the recovery was under way and Canada saw some job progress soon after a period of drop. February 2011 was another tranquil thirty day period for M&A with HP getting Vertica Opentext acquired Metastorm ($182 million) and Rackspace obtained Anso Labs. Entire world information was dominated by the well-liked uprisings in a growing quantity of countries and the reactions of those governments like the brutality of Gaddafi’s Libyan supporters. Two several years in the past, February 2012 was not a blockbuster month for M&A, but there was some intriguing exercise. The largest deal of the thirty day period noticed Oracle spend $one.nine billion for expertise management business Taleo. Siemens Canada paid $440 million for networking products firm Rugged.com. IBM bought BYOD firm Worklight Dell acquired backup and restoration firm AppAssure Apple purchased cell search business Chomp and LM Ericsson purchased Ottawa based BelAir Networks. Very last 12 months in February 2013 Dell went non-public in a $24.4 billion offer, that included a $2 billion expense by Microsoft. navigate here paid out $1.seven billion for networking organization Acme Packet Inc. Rackspace acquired massive info company ObjectRocket Telus was busy with two acquisitions, digital medical information division of the Canadian Medical Association and electronic forensics business Digital Wyzdom HP also sold the Palm running method to LG for their smart TVs.
Which brings us again to the existing…
February 2014 observed Facebook make a big move with $sixteen billion acquisition of Whatsapp, which is almost certainly good valuation news for Blackberry since its BBM merchandise would be a immediate competitor. Blackberry even so had yet another rough month when IDC released its figures as the firm’s smartphones accounted for only one.nine% of income in Q4 of 2013.
Another business with large information, though not essentially good was Sony. They seem to be reinventing themselves in their a variety of niches as they are closing their eReader store and divesting on their own of their Laptop division (Vaio).
In other M&A information Comcast is creating a $forty five billion perform for Time Warner Cable Oracle paid a reputed $four hundred million for information administration system organization Bluekai LinkedIn compensated $120 million for online job search firm Vibrant and Klout was acquired for about $a hundred million by Lithium Technologies. Google produced a pair of acquisitions, on-line fraud firm Spider.io and protected logon business Slicklogin. IBM is getting databases as a support organization Cloudant and Monster acquired a couple of firms, social profile business Talentbin and occupation aggregation and distribution technological innovation company Gozaic.
Other organizations making information this month consist of Microsoft who declared a new CEO, Satya Nadella (who replaces Steve Ballmer) plus a new Board Chair John Thompson (who replaces Monthly bill Gates). Dell started its new lifestyle as a personal business with key restructuring, ensuing in likely fifteen,000 occupation losses. On the very good news entrance, positions development and infrastructure additions in Canada arrive in the sort of new datacenters for Bell Aliant and for Telus.
In reports from numerous sources Android has about eighty% of the mobile OS market place share, with Apple a distant second. Samsung was the dominant handset hardware supplier with 32% share, with Apple second. Apple even so accounted for approximately 1/three of tablet product sales in Western Europe last calendar year, with Samsung next.
A Cisco review implies that users will boost cellular info utilization by a element of about eight over the coming five a long time… so make positive you have very good knowledge plans! The Canadian Federal Govt introduced an infrastructure investment decision to put broadband into rural communities and Gartner explain to us that IT paying was flat 12 months in excess of calendar year, for the 13th calendar year in a row!
Financial news was normally combined, with no key poor information and no big breakthroughs. Some occupation expansion in Canada and the US, some positive confidence indicators and some not so excellent. A single study appeared to sum it up for me, Careerbuilder found that fifty eight% of employers feel the economic downturn is even now lingering!
That is it for my seem at what was taking place in the engineering room more than the very last thirty day period, compared to the exact same thirty day period in previous several years.
I will be again at the conclude of March, right up until then… stroll quickly and smile!