Telkom ‘failed to follow its own procedures’

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Telkom’s management team failed to follow internal tender procedures and is to blame for a court interdict on Friday that prevents it from continuing with work to improve its access network into homes and businesses. This is the allegation levelled against the operator by networking equipment vendor ZTE Mzanzi, a joint venture between China’s ZTE and local black empowerment

Cape Town’s Snapdisk takes on Dropbox

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Cape Town-based start-up Snapdisk is a cloud backup and syncing service of the sort made popular by Dropbox and Box.net. Where it differs, though, is the scale of its offering and the fact that it’s offering its basic package of 500GB of online backup space for free for a year. The service went live at the beginning of February and, although most

Microsoft halts IE Web browser slump

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Internet Explorer has been sliding downhill in market share for the past few years, but recently mined stats show something the critics never expected to see: a small but significant uptick in IE’s numbers since the beginning of 2012. Data from NetMarketShare show that while IE had indeed been in a slump for quite some time

Up to 1,5m credit card numbers compromised

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Credit card processor Global Payments released a statement on Monday admitting that its systems have been compromised. The announcement came after reports surfaced that thousands of credit card accounts had been breached through its machines. Last week, security researcher Brian Krebbs discovered Visa and MasterCard were alerting US banks

Bono, The Edge revealed as Dropbox investors

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Cloud storage powerhouse Dropbox revealed on Monday that half of the popular rock band U2, Bono and The Edge, are investors in the company. Dropbox closed a jaw-dropping US$250m round in October 2011, so it appears Bono and The Edge were part of that round that also included names like Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital

Telkom hits back at ZTE over court challenge

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Telkom has hit back at ZTE Mzanzi, a networking equipment vendor that was successful in bringing an interdict against the fixed-line operator in the high court on Friday, saying the court order will delay the roll-out of its upgraded access network and ultimately harm consumers. The operator said it was “confident” that its “robust procurement policy and the process

Netstar cleared of anticompetitive charges

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The supreme court of appeal has dismissed, with costs, applications from the Competition Commission and tracking company Tracetec against Altech Netstar in which they claimed Netstar engaged in anticompetitive behaviour. The original complaint was lodged in February 2005 and the alleged anticompetitive behaviour related to the period between

Lower broadband prices as soon as this week

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News on Friday that the cost of IP Connect, the product Internet service providers have to buy from Telkom to access the fixed-line operator’s last-mile broadband network, was to fall by 30% from 1 April should lead to lower retail prices as early as this week. However, service providers polled by TechCentral on Monday still want to understand the mechanics

The Godfather is still the king of the mob, 40 years on

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Is any other film ageing as gracefully as The Godfather, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in March this year? Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia saga is as compelling now as it was then, a film that perfectly fuses a director’s personal vision with epic themes and that effortlessly reconciles artistic flair with cracking entertainment. The Godfather is