Browsing: Duncan McLeod

Hundreds of millions of people around the world are intimately familiar with it. It’s been a cornerstone of Microsoft’s operating-system software since then-CEO Bill Gates unveiled Windows 95 more than 17 years ago. Yet, this Friday, when the US software giant releases Windows 8 to the general

Speculation in recent weeks that Cell C and Telkom are in talks has got tongues wagging. Though suggestions that the country’s third mobile operator could merge with Telkom’s 8ta seem implausible, some sort of partnership, even a wide-ranging one, may make sense

Within the space of a week, all of SA’s four cellular operators have outlined plans to build fourth-generation (4G) mobile broadband networks based on long-term evolution (LTE) technology. But it’s more a marketing effort for now and consumers shouldn’t get too excited

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

These are anxious times for the world’s largest software company. Microsoft has watched as long-time nemesis Apple has reinvented the smartphone and tablet businesses, carving out most of the industry’s profits for itself. Today, Apple is worth

It’s all come down to this. Fifteen years after Telkom was partially privatised and nine years after it was listed on the JSE, communications minister Dina Pule was scheduled to present three options for the future of the company to President Jacob Zuma and members of his cabinet on Wednesday

Terrestrial television offers remarkably little choice to SA consumers, who are limited to three SABC channels and commercial free-to-air channel e.tv. Not much has changed in the past decade, except that e.tv has eaten into the SABC’s viewership while DStv, owned by Naspers’s MultiChoice, has grown steadily more dominant as

The days of watching YouTube videos buffer, even high-definition ones, may soon be over — for some consumers, anyway. Telkom this week launched the commercial trial of its new 20Mbit/s and 40Mbit/s digital subscriber line services. These speeds are far greater than anything offered by the fixed-line operator to date and

To understand the importance — and irony — of last week’s court victory by Apple, it’s necessary to go back to 1979. It was 33 years ago that a young Steve Jobs paid a visit to the Palo Alto Research Center (Parc), a research and development facility in Silicon Valley owned by Xerox. Xerox Parc is renowned for having

It’s not often I find myself cheering when reading through government documents, but I did just that last week as I took in the plan’s revised proposals for the information and communications technology sector. Here, in black and white, a government commission has laid out many