Author: Gugu Lourie
By Staff Writer Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund and startup accelerator, 500 Startups, has announced its 14th batch of startups, which includes the South African home cleaning service, SweepSouth. This is the first time a local company has been selected by 500 Startups, with only a handful of African companies being chosen to join the programme in the past. Of thousands of applicants for each batch, only 2% are successful, and the prestigious and effective 4-month accelerator programme also comes with $125,000 in funding. In the last five years, 500 Startups, lead by Silicon Valley veteran Dave McClure, has…
By Gugu Lourie Vox Telecom is taking big bets on acquisitions and fibre rollout as part of a five-year strategy to make the company more competitive and agile. The company, which was delisted from the JSE’s AltX in 2011 after a R500m buyout by shareholders including Lereko Metier Capital and Investec, offers voice solutions, data access and internet service provider (ISP) services, cloud services, a variety of PABX (private automatic brand exchange) and video conferencing services, telephony management systems, faxing and text messaging applications. PABX is an automatic telephone switching system used by corporates. After the withdrawal of an exploratory…
By Gugu Lourie More than 2, 300 employees at the country’s fixed-line telephone group Telkom have accepted voluntary severance packages, trade union Solidarity said late on Thursday. Solidarity said Telkom has approved 2, 293 applications for voluntary severance packages and added that these employees’ services will officially end tomorrow. Marius Croucamp, Solidarity spokesman, said this number of applications comes as no surprise to the union. “Given the volatile climate within Telkom, we anticipated that a significant amount of employees would prefer to leave the company. Nonetheless, we remain highly concerned about the exodus of skilled Telkom workers and how this will affect…
By Staff Writer. South African prisoners have access to communication devices that include: sim cards, chargers and DSTV walkers, and the DA is calling for the state to put signal jamming devices in prisons. This emerged from a reply to a DA parliamentary question from the Minister of Correctional Services, Mike Masutha, who revealed that the department is losing the battle against crime in prisons. The ministry has confiscated 98 413 illegal communication devices from inside prisons in the past five years. It said of the 98 413 devices, a total of 64 123 cellular devices have been confiscated from remand…
By Melissa Luu-Van, Facebook’s product manager We want everyone to have a safe experience on Facebook. That’s why we have dedicated teams and intelligent security systems working around the clock to help keep your account secure. We also provide optional security controls that you can turn on for added protection—you get to decide which features you want to use. Starting today, you can try a new tool called Security Checkup that makes it easier to find and use the security controls for your account. Sometime over the next few weeks, you’ll see a reminder at the top of your…
By Staff Writer The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) has won the inaugural MTN SA Foundation ICT Challenge and the overall National Championship title at the recent Enactus National Competition 2015. The championship title has qualified UKZN to represent South Africa at the Enacatus World Cup 2015 taking place in October at the Sandton Convention Centre where thirty five countries will be represented. The UKZN team, which comprised of 22 students, presented their Agri-Hub ICT application that provides farmers with basic information about farming, including giving advice on matching the farming and harvest season with certain crops. It also serves…
The proceeds to be used for future portfolio acquisitions of two telcos By Gugu Lourie JSE-listed telecommunications firm Huge Group, which is on a hunt for buys, is stepping up its acquisition strategy with the launch of two private placement of new shares to institutional investors for a targeted amount of $100 million (R1.2 billion). The company said on Thursday that it “is engaged in discussions involving the possibility of two further acquisitions”. Huge is currently trading under cautionary related a strategic acquisition of a telecom company. The telecoms firm – which has a market capitalisation of more than R388m…
By Staff Writer Tech firm Adapt IT has opened its third Knowledge Centre at the Rusthof Secondary School in the Western Cape to develop the ICT skills of students and educators in our country. This brings the company’s total knowledge centre investment to R1,6 million, after investments in Amaoti and Olievenhoutbosch in 2013 and 2014 respectively. “Adapt IT has invested in these knowledge centres in order to develop the ICT skills of students and educators in our country. It is imperative that we, as members of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, keep supporting the growth and development of…
By Steffen Sorrell “Ladies and Gentlemen, now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for” – Ed Sullivan It’s official – Windows 10 was released as a free upgrade in 190 countries as of yesterday. The question is, do the words of Pulp Fiction’s Ed Sullivan hold true as they did when W7, or even when W8 was released? Changing Times Make no mistake: the consumer and indeed, enterprise computing landscape has changed dramatically since the thing that had “no chance” in the market came out. Different CEO, different times. The “PC” is now: a smartphone, a tablet or a…
By Brendon Williamson, GM of PayGate The local e-commerce landscape is becoming an increasingly cutthroat and competitive space. According to a recent survey released by advisory firm PwC, SA’s online retail sector has a forecasted growth of 15.9% CAGR and will be worth an estimated R9.5bn in 2018. Unsurprisingly, the sector is seeing an influx of new entrants – which are all vying for a piece of what is shaping up to be a lucrative market. For both new and established merchants, credibility and brand equity will be a critical part of their success or failure. Without doubt, a key…