Author: Duncan McLeod

The banking group spent R7.5-billion on IT licences, maintenance and related costs in the 2019 financial year, up 17%, due to the weaker rand and costs associated with its move to the cloud.

The novel coronavirus has hit South African shores. The ministry of health said in a statement on Thursday that a suspected case of Covid-19, as the virus is called, has tested positive.

Data centre operator Teraco’s Internet exchange point NAPAfrica has topped 1Tbit/s, or a million megabits per second, of peak traffic for the first time.

Standard Bank will soon begin moving its operational SAP banking systems onto the Microsoft Azure cloud platform as it looks to create what it calls an “always-on bank”.

JSE-listed software services group Adapt IT said on Wednesday that it is not contemplating a rights issue “at this stage” as it moves to reduce its net debt to a more comfortable level.

Netflix has signed a distribution agreement with the Film and Publication Board, meaning the multinational streaming company must now obey local classification rules in the distribution of its content.

Technology group Alviva Holdings reported a slump in earnings for the six months ended 31 December 2019 due to woes in its ICT distribution segment, a change in accounting rules and foreign exchange losses.

MTN Nigeria, MTN Group’s largest operating subsidiary, turned in a robust performance in the 2019 financial year, with mobile subscribers rising by 6.1 million to 64.3 million and profit before tax up by 31.1%.

Though there is “significant doubt” over Cell C’s ability to continue as a going concern, the mobile operator’s biggest shareholder, Blue Label Telecoms, said on Friday that “management believes it is more likely than not” that the company will survive.

While big technology shares in the US have continued to hit new highs in 2020 – among them, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google and Nvidia – JSE-listed IT companies have had a torrid start to the new decade.