South African Internet users purchasing goods, especially virtual services and content, from international suppliers are hurting the fiscus and making local businesses less competitive. That’s the view of a tax specialist at auditing firm Deloitte, who says VAT is seldom levied on these purchases
In a widely expected move, Microsoft is buying Nokia’s handset division, giving it the hardware it needs to compete in the new war of ecosystems against Apple and Google. The only surprising thing is that Microsoft paid more for Skype (US$8,5bn, in May 2011) than it did for Nokia ($7,2bn)
The constitutional court will hear arguments on Tuesday relating to the awarding of a social grant tender, which was found to be invalid by a lower court. The unsuccessful bidder, AllPay Consolidated Investment Holdings, argues the tender process was procedurally flawed and unfair, and violated
The ZA Central Registry (ZACR), which administers the .co.za domain and will soon oversee four new geographic generic top-level domains (gTLDs), says the general public should be able to register these new domains from mid-July next year. ZACR CEO Neil Dundas says that
Telkom and its former subsidiary, Nigeria’s Multi-Links, have won a high court order setting aside arbitration proceedings with Blue Label Telecoms and paving the way for a bruising court battle in which Telkom is seeking $528m in damages from Blue Label. Telkom is
Trust is the world’s most valuable intangible commodity. Economies, political systems, partnerships and marriages rise or fall based on it. All commerce – both online and offline – rests on it. And yet the US’s National Security Agency is actively and recklessly undermining
Tough action will be taken against employees found to have been responsible for last week’s power outages, Johannesburg electricity utility City Power said on Monday. “While we respect our employee’s right to withhold their labour following lawful processes, interfering or sabotaging the network
South Africa’s hard-working new communications minister, Yunus Carrim, is tackling the challenges in his portfolio with such gusto that he appears to have taken many industry players by surprise. I had the opportunity twice this past week to watch Carrim in action
The South African iteration of Google’s Big Tent event, which brings together leaders in business, technology and politics to exchange ideas on the intersection between the Internet on society, took place in Midrand on Thursday. It featured communications minister
The future will be about getting more people online, sometimes in unexpected ways, about technology that interacts without our physiology, about reevaluating how education works, and about expanding our existing communications networks beyond our own planet
