Author: Duncan McLeod

Media and technology group Naspers’s share price touched fresh record highs on Wednesday after China’s largest Internet company, Tencent, in which it holds a 34% stake, beat analysts’ expectations in the first quarter. According to Bloomberg, net income of just over 4 billion

The application for the .durban domain has passed the initial evaluation phase of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), meaning it’s likely websites with .durban appended to their addresses will make an appearance this year. That’s according to the .ZA Domain

Johannesburg-listed multinational technology distribution and services group Datatec has reported a slight decline in headline earnings per share for its financial year ended 28 February 2013, despite a 4% improvement at the top line and a strong performance by its Logicalis subsidiary

Microsoft plans to work with the CSIR and the State IT Agency (Sita) to launch a trial network in South Africa’s Limpopo province that will test the feasibility of using so-called television white-spaces spectrum to offer more affordable wireless broadband access. The trial will be the third white-spaces trial

BlackBerry has surprised the market by announcing that it will make its popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) available to iPhone and Android users. The move raises the stakes in the mobile instant messaging market, where the cross-platform WhatsApp is rapidly entrenching itself as a market leader. BBM will be

The Advertising Industry Tribunal has upheld a decision of the Advertising Standards Authority, in the process handing a victory to MTN, which had complained that a radio ad campaign by Cell C belittled its popular “MTN Zone” prepaid calling plan and its “Mahala Thursdays” promotion. In the Cell C

Telkom has tapped a member of Trevor Manuel’s National Planning Commission as its new head of strategy. Miriam Altman will join the troubled telecommunications operator on 1 June. Altman, who will report directly to newly appointed Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko, will support

Usage-based insurance telematics, where insurance companies are able to determine everything from a customer’s driving habits to who really was responsible for an accident, will be the next big growth engine for the stolen vehicle tracking and recovery industry. That’s the view of Altech

The department of communications on Monday went on the offensive against the Sunday Times, accusing the newspaper of “peddling slander and salacious rumours” in a “desperate attempt to convict” the minister “in the court of public opinion”. The department’s newly appointed spin doctor, Wisani Ngobeni

It’s a bit of this and a bit of that in this week’s podcast as your hosts Duncan McLeod and Craig Wilson chat about everything from local-loop unbundling (and what’s happened to it) to the latest raids by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa on a telecommunications operator over the alleged