The Internet is quietly being replumbed. That shouldn’t surprise anyone involved with it; the Internet is always being replumbed. But you might be more surprised to learn that the next few years will bring an unusual burst of changes in that plumbing, some with great potential consequences for anyone who relies on the Net. By its plumbing, I’m referring to the protocols and software that make the core features of the Internet work. These have been evolving steadily since 1969, but I don’t think any period since the early 1980s has experienced as much change as we’ll see over the next few years.
Computer assembler and technology distributor Mustek says dramatic price cuts in broadband, coupled with investments in telecommunications infrastructure, will lead to an improvement in the sales of PCs and monitors and other IT hardware in SA. The company, which published its annual results to 30 June 2010 on Monday, says rapid improvements in local telecoms have resulted in SA’s bandwidth almost reaching “parity with the rest of the world”.
SABC CEO Solly Mokoetle intends to challenge his suspension by the public broadcaster’s board and any disciplinary action that may follow, his attorney said in a statement on Sunday. “Mokoetle has been treated most unfairly. His suspension comes at a time when the functionality of the board that suspended him is an issue that is currently before the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications,” Jurgens Bekker attorney Bongani Dlodlo said.
In a surprising turn of events, Kelly Group has lifted the suspension Mthunzi Mdwaba. Less than a week after Kelly stripped Mdwaba of his directorship and suspended from the company, the group’s financial director Ferdie Pieterse released a memo to staff on Friday saying the suspension had been “lifted with immediate effect pending due process”.
SABC CEO Solly Mokoetle has been suspended by the public broadcaster’s board pending the outcome of a disciplinary hearing, SABC radio news reported on Friday. The board said the decision was made following a meeting with Mokoetle on Thursday. Formal charges were still being prepared and would be given to Mokoetle.
Nicolas Cage stars in two films that open on SA screens this week. Unfortunately, you’ll really need to hunt to find a cinema showing the more interesting of the pair. The awkwardly-titled The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans couples the mercurial actor with German director Werner Herzog in an offbeat character study about an unhinged policeman.
It’s Friday again and that means another episode of SA’s business technology podcast, TalkCentral. This week, your hosts Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones delve into the ongoing drama at the department of communications, where fired communications department director-general Mamodupi Mohlala has been reinstated — at least for now — by minister Siphiwe Nyanda.
The Democratic Alliance says communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda must explain to parliament why he sacked his director-general Mamodupi Mohlala. DA shadow deputy minister of communications Lindiwe Mazibuko says the agreement reached between Mohlala and Nyanda yesterday suggests the latter’s decision to fire the former was a mistake.
Was the suspension of IT industry personality Mthunzi Mdwaba as deputy CEO and director of JSE-listed Kelly Group part of a power struggle between him and the company’s CEO? TechCentral has learnt that Mdwaba’s suspension may have been the result of a battle with Kelly’s CEO, Grenville Wilson.
Finance minister Pravin Gordhan and the SA Reserve Bank have both given the green light to the R24,4bn all-cash acquisition of SA IT group Dimension Data by Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT). Didata said on Friday that both parties had approved the offer.