Browsing: Duncan McLeod

This week, Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book reader went on sale in SA and around the world. E-books are finally coming of age. Here’s why you’re going to want to buy one and why you may be better off delaying your purchase for a short while. If anyone has any doubts that the future of book publishing is electronic, consider this: where Amazon stocks both

Cellular operators were set to receive a grilling in parliament this week. Politicians want mobile interconnection fees to come down. But it’s far from clear if the basic cost of calls will also fall. Can politicians avoid the temptation of interfering further?

Some commentators have speculated that the failure of talks between MTN and India’s Bharti Airtel points to a more protectionist approach by government. If so, it’s troubling. The country ought to be opening up to investors, not scaring them away

SA consumers got their first taste of a broadband price war last week when a small Internet service provider, Afrihost, slashed the price of bandwidth to below cost. It’s a promising start, but matters little until Telkom is forced to open its network to rivals. It was a ballsy move. Last week, Afrihost cut the cost of fixed-line bandwidth on broadband digital subscriber lines to just R29/GB. To put that in perspective, the average selling price for this type of bandwidth has, until now, been R50-R70/GB

Is Google a friend of the media, or a foe that will undermine journalism? It’s a debate that’s been raging in media circles. But no-one has been able to agree: is Google bad news for the news business? Newspapers are in trouble, especially in developed economies. That much is clear. What’s open to debate is whether it’s the worldwide economic crisis that’s to blame or whether it’s more to do with newspaper readers abandoning newsprint for online news sources

SA’s telecommunications industry is in such a poor state precisely because of secret deals done in smoke-filled rooms. So it’s…

The Internet is 40 years old next month. There can be little doubt that the worldwide network has changed the way we communicate as a species. And the change it’s going to bring has only just begun. Hold on to your seat. It’s going to be a wild ride

Apple’s iTunes Store now sells a quarter of all music, both physical and digital, in the US. The venerable compact…