Browsing: World

A new study by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has revealed that the commercial value of unlicensed software in Nigeria exceeded US$287m in 2013. It estimates that 81% of the software installed on Nigerian PCs in Nigeria in 2013 was not properly licensed. In the Middle East and Africa, the commercial

In the main, Africa’s universal service agencies have not covered themselves in glory. Although money has been collected from operators, it has largely sat in the bank gathering interest. Even in countries such as Kenya, which have expended large amounts of energy and resources on putting in place broadband

MTN has named its former South African chief marketing officer, Brian Gouldie, as the new CEO of its operation in Uganda. Ugandan CEO Mazen Mroue has been named as the new chief operating officer of MTN Irancell, MTN’s affiliate in Iran. Ferdi Moolman, meanwhile, has named the current chief operations

Researchers at Ford and Heinz are collaborating to develop a bioplastic using … tomatoes. They’re investigating the use of tomato fibres in developing sustainable, composite materials for use in vehicle manufacturing. Specifically, dried tomato skins could become the wiring brackets

As a fourth-generation clan chief of a village in rural Cameroon, Gaston Donnat Bappa’s daily life is steeped in tradition.The 200 residents of the village have little if any access to electric power, phones, TV or radio – but the IT engineer, consultant and specialist has been immersed in the world of technology

Online video behemoth YouTube, owned by Google, is said to have reached a deal to buy Twitch, a company that streams video of people playing videogames, for more than US$1bn. But why? According to a report by Variety, in which it quotes unnamed sources close to the deal, the purchase will be an “all-cash offer” and will be announced

MTN plans to spend US$3bn (about R31bn) on its network in Nigeria over the next three years to improve quality of service. The company has previously had quality problems with its network in the West African country. According to website BDlive, the Nigerian Communications Commission banned MTN and two other mobile operators

Apple could be about to splash as much as US$3,2bn on Beats Electronics, the maker of a range of popular headphones. According to a report in the Financial Times, a deal could be announced as early as next week. But it may be less the headphones than Beats’s new music streaming service that has attracted the interest of Apple

Nigeria plans to double investment in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector from US$25bn to $50bn in the next few years, according to the West African nation’s communication technology minister, Omobola Johnson. Johnson said that her ministry and the Nigerian Communications Commission

Cameroon has offered mobile operator Viettel a year’s monopoly on the operation of the country’s first 3G network. But Viettel is no ordinary operator. It’s owned by the Vietnamese government and operated by its ministry of defence. Readers will recall I wrote about the wholesale network and landing station monopoly enjoyed