Author: Duncan McLeod

Despite good revenue growth of 11% in the six months ended 31 August 2012, JSE-listed Altron’s profits have been pummelled due to margin pressure and writedowns at subsidiary Altech. For the period, Altron reported operating profit before capital items of R586m, from R627m previously. However, the problems at Altech

A decade ago, Steve Ballmer described the free and open-source Linux operating system as a “cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches”. The famously boisterous Microsoft CEO was attacking the General Public Licence which governs much of the software code developed by the

Communications minister Dina Pule is “surprised” by e.tv’s high court application against her in which the free-to-air broadcaster accuses her of acting unlawfully in appointing Sentech to manage the control system that will be used in the set-top boxes that are needed for consumers to receive digital terrestrial television signals

The attacks on rivals keep coming as SA’s third mobile operator moves to build market share. Cell C has now taken the wraps off a weekend promotion that offers prepaid users 100% of their weekly recharge value back in airtime for use on weekends. However, the free airtime applies only

Cell C added 782 407 customers on a gross basis in September, a sharp increase over the about 700 000 gross additions it notched up in August. Although the gross numbers don’t take subscriber churn into account, Knott-Craig says churn

Vodacom’s new CEO, Shameel Joosub, last week fired a shot over rival Cell C’s bows, warning that SA’s biggest operator will not give way to Cell C, now led by his former boss Alan Knott-Craig. Consumers have ringside seats to what is going to be an epic battle between two great tacticians

High-profile former First National Bank chief information officer Mike Jarvis, who led a dramatic modernisation of the bank’s IT systems and who left SA in 2000 to return to his native Britain, has returned to the country. Jarvis has established a new business with former Symantec regional director

Cell C will also switch on a fourth-generation (4G) mobile network using long-term evolution (LTE) technology in 2012, but the company is not saying where this network will be built or how many towers will be supported. CEO Alan Knott-Craig says

Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig has vowed to go after the high-spending customers of rivals MTN and Vodacom and the smaller operator’s recent deal with Discovery Vitality and recent cuts in its international tariffs represent first steps in that plan. “We

The status quo in SA’s telecommunications industry is “not sustainable” and a wave of consolidation is coming soon. That’s the view of Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig, who says he expects a big shake-up in the industry, possibly within the next six months, with smaller players reaching out to each