Has the country’s foremost value-destroying monopolist finally seen the error of its ways? On the surface, that seems to be the case. In mid-July, Telkom meekly agreed to pay a R200m fine for anticompetitive abuses committed between 2005 and 2007, and to split its wholesale and retail businesses. TechCentral reported
Browsing: Opinion
For the longest time, little much has really happened in South Africa’s broadcasting sector. But big changes are now looming. Barely a week seems to go by now without significant new developments in broadcasting. In recent weeks alone, there’s been news of plans to launch South Africa’s first comprehensive trial of digital
Apple has hit a plateau. Its quarterly earnings results revealed flat revenues, falling iPad sales and markedly lower profits. But the company is not doomed to collapse, despite what some of the more excitable pundits are claiming. Apple is clearly going through a rough
Don’t look now, but something profound is happening at Telkom. The new management team, led by group CEO Sipho Maseko and board chairman Jabu Mabuza, appears to be actively trying to change (well-founded) perceptions that the company is a litigious and rapacious
On 18 July, Microsoft announced yearly profits of nearly US$22bn. Its shares immediately plunged by more than 11% and have yet to recover. What has made investors so nervous? Part of the problem is around expectations. Investment analysts had been expecting an additional $1,35bn in profit
South Africa is taking concrete steps towards introducing digital radio broadcasts using a standard known as DAB+, with a trial planned for 2014. The move will usher in greater competition in the radio sector, with digital eventually likely to replace the familiar FM and AM dials. Radio broadcasters
South Africans have an aversion to risk. We aspire to go to university or some other tertiary institution, but after that, instead of getting involved in a start-up or, heaven forbid, even founding a new business, we tend to go and look for the security of a corporate job. Americans, on
Google’s search advertising service, AdWords, is becoming increasingly contentious in trade mark law. When you buy a word from Google as an AdWord, this has the effect that whenever anyone enters that word as a search term, your pop-up advert will appear on the screen alongside your search results
Government has listened! Within days of newly appointed communications minister Yunus Carrim stepping into the shoes of his predecessor, the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) Amendment Bill
So, president Jacob Zuma has finally fired the feckless Dina Pule and South Africa has yet another communications minister, Yunus Carrim, the seventh person to hold the portfolio since 1994. Will he be any better than his predecessors? That’s hard to know. But the fact that he’s a card-carrying member