Browsing: News

One of the country’s leading business intelligence software companies, Harvey Jones, has been forced into a dramatic restructuring after its UK parent, London-listed Avisen, refocused its business. It’s understood that Harvey Jones, which had employed about 30 people, has been forced to reduce its headcount dramatically. Now MD Keith Jones is leading a management buyout of the local company but he says he is unable to comment until the deal is wrapped up, probably sometime next week.

The Congress of the People (Cope) found it “unacceptable” that communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda was reportedly let off the hook on four out five complaints they lodged against him relating to comments he made about former Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama. “We find it unacceptable,” party member Julie Killian said on Monday. “We believe that this is the time that President Jacob Zuma must demonstrate that he is against corruption,” she said by phone from Brazil.

UK-based tower infrastructure company Eaton Telecom has opened an office in Tanzania. Eaton, founded by three top-level telecommunications industry executives, has had its sights set on the booming African mobile market for some time. The company builds, buys and manages base stations on behalf of cellular operators, a business that is starting to gain traction with African operators.

Pay-TV incumbent MultiChoice will unveil a streaming mobile television offering at R59/month on 1 August. DStv Mobile communications manager Maiyo Simapungula says the service is already available in a soft-launch phase. The service is not technically a broadcast, but rather is streamed over 3G compatible handsets using Vodafone Live, Vodacom’s content platform.

Durban-based software developer and occasional TechCentral columnist Greg Mahlknecht has built a free map showing the world’s submarine telecommunications cable systems. The map, which took Mahlknecht several months to complete, is free of charge and will remain so. It’s available at cablemap.info.

Telecommunications research and training body, the Link Centre at Wits University, has called on the department of communications to scrap the proposed Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) Amendment Bill. The Link Centre says the proposed changes to the act will have “profound public interest implications and potentially a far-reaching impact on policy, governance and regulation across the entire communications technology sector”.

Axed communications department director-general Mamodupi Mohlala was planning to challenge her dismissal, Business Day reported on Monday. “There is no settlement. They dismissed me. And I will be challenging the dismissal,” said Mohlala.

Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda has fired his director-general, Mamodupi Mohlala, saying that trust between the two had “broken down irretrievably”. “In the interests of the department, the staff and the government, the minister has come to the conclusion that it would be best to release Mohlala from her position as director-general with effect from 23 July 2010,” Nyanda’s spokesman Tiyani Rikhotso said in a terse statement issued on Friday evening.

Vodacom has lost one of its top executives to Kenya’s Safaricom. The JSE-listed cellular group announced after the markets closed on Thursday evening that its chief officer for corporate affairs, Bob Collymore, was leaving to take over as CEO of Safaricom. Collymore, previously a Vodafone executive, will join Safaricom in September. Both Vodacom and Safaricom have significant shareholding from the UK’s Vodafone. Like Vodacom in SA, Safaricom is Kenya’s largest mobile operator.

President Jacob Zuma on Thursday told a press conference in Pretoria that he had heard from his communications minister, Siphiwe Nyanda, that there was a “problem” involving the department’s director-general, Mamodupi Mohlala. “The minister in passing indicated there is a problem. He has not given a proper and formal report. Once this happens, we move in,” Zuma said.