Microsoft’s share price is in the doldrums. For 10 years, the stock of the world’s largest software maker has languished while those of rivals like Apple have soared. But the company remains a cash and dividend machine and the product pipeline has
Browsing: Duncan McLeod
Mobile operators are desperate to associate their brands with Apple and its iconic iPhone smartphone and iPad tablet computer. It’s ironic, because the business model the US electronics giant employs threatens to turn wireless carriers into little
The great broadband price wars of 2011 are hotting up. Barely a week goes by without a mobile operator or Internet service provider announcing lower tariffs or a new special offer on bandwidth. Arguably, though, they’re just getting
The international media is filled with tales of woe about BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM). The Canadian smartphone company’s share price has lost half its value since the beginning of the year. Yet BlackBerry is SA’s sexiest
Telkom’s new mobile operator, 8ta, last week introduced a mobile broadband special offer that deeply undercuts its parent’s own fixed-line broadband prices. It’s a bizarre situation that underscores Telkom’s lack of a coherent long-term
Telkom, SA’s incumbent fixed-line telecommunications operator, must face up to the fact that it has reached an inflection point. It ought to invest tens of billions of rand to take high-speed fibre-optics into millions of homes and businesses before someone else does
Last week’s purchase by Visa of Cape Town-based mobile payments company Fundamo in a US$110m all-cash deal demonstrates clearly how the race is on to provide electronic financial services using cellphones, especially in emerging markets
The keynote address by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco was distinctly underwhelming. Is the world’s most valuable technology company running short of groundbreaking new ideas?
Just as undersea and terrestrial fibre connectivity is booming around and in Africa, an explosion in satellite capacity serving the region is also under way. The “dark continent” is getting connected to the global village. This week’s annual Satcom conference
When broadcasters switch to digital television, a valuable chunk of radio frequency spectrum will be freed up for broadband. The country ought to have a debate now about how to use this spectrum to bring affordable Internet