A good way to think of the computer industry is to see it as a series of platform wars. When a new computing platform is still young, many different systems fight it out until one or two standards emerge. Data from Asymco, a consultancy, illustrates that this was the case with the personal computer and is now

Telkom should be structurally separated into two businesses, wholesale and retail, to facilitate greater competition in SA’s telecommunications industry, says new Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow communications minister Marian Shinn. Speaking to TechCentral in her first wide-ranging media interview

TopTV chairman and acting CEO Eddie Mbalo is “shocked” that the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) wants to introduce new pay-TV operators just a few years after licensing a range of new players, one of which collapsed. “I’m shocked that after having awarded these new licences

JSE-listed telecommunications distribution specialist Blue Label Telecoms generated R795m in cash from operating activities in the six months to 30 November 2011, helping push accumulated cash resources on its balance sheet to R2,3bn and giving the company a war chest for its offshore expansion plans

Launching on 19 March, a new Internet start-up, LiveBids, hopes to shake up the SA online retail market with a combination of online auctions, pay-per-bid sales and group buying. Conceived two-and-a-half years ago, LiveBids is the brainchild of two Capetonians

For years, Google and Facebook have been waging trench warfare for big-brand advertising budgets. Billions of dollars are up for grabs, and since this money constitutes the bulk of revenue for both companies, the stakes are high. Twitter, which last week launched a self-service ad platform, is a relative

In his international bestseller The Hare With Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal traces the fortune of a collection of carved Japanese netsuke figurines. Readers grew so entranced by the story of these objects that they started clamouring to see them. So after the hardback, the e-book, and the paperback came the

Apple is introducing new features to its Mac OS X operating system that sometimes appear somewhat counterintuitive and are slowly driving this writer to consider alternatives. I admit I was a reluctant convert to Apple, but switched to the Mac platform with the release of Mac OS X 10.5

It’s no secret that Nokia is in trouble. It lost close to US$1,5bn in 2011, its market share, particularly in the profitable smartphone market, continues to plunge and its big bet — a partnership with Microsoft — has yet to produce significant revenues. So when I received a review model of Nokia’s newest phone, the Lumia 800

With the announcement about whether SA or Australia will host the core site of the giant Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope expected on 4 April, the likelihood of the project coming to SA has received a boost from finance minister Pravin Gordhan, who says the project will qualify for “VAT relief”