The banking group spent R7.5-billion on IT licences, maintenance and related costs in the 2019 financial year, up 17%, due to the weaker rand and costs associated with its move to the cloud.

The novel coronavirus has hit South African shores. The ministry of health said in a statement on Thursday that a suspected case of Covid-19, as the virus is called, has tested positive.

Policy documents in national treasury’s 2020 budget review suggest government will soon significantly relax controls over the export of South African-owned intellectual property.

Police have arrested five suspects belonging to one of South Africa’s largest battery theft syndicates, mobile operator Vodacom said on Thursday.

Data centre operator Teraco’s Internet exchange point NAPAfrica has topped 1Tbit/s, or a million megabits per second, of peak traffic for the first time.

Concerns over the coronavirus are putting an end to some of the biggest business conferences of the year. IBM is the latest to cancel its main annual event, which was scheduled to draw 30 000 people.

Huawei pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to racketeering charges filed last month by US prosecutors who accused the Chinese telecommunications equipment giant of a 20-year pattern of corporate espionage.

Apple has warned retail employees about shortages of replacement iPhones, another sign the coronavirus outbreak is straining the company’s supply chain.

Promoted | Vox has introduced an IoT solution that helps better protect areas such as residential, commercial and industrial estates, by providing notifications when boundary fences have been cut or tampered with.

Standard Bank will soon begin moving its operational SAP banking systems onto the Microsoft Azure cloud platform as it looks to create what it calls an “always-on bank”.