The South African economy loses about R150bn per year to white collar crime, most of which can be attributed to technology security breaches within a business. That’s the word from Steven Powell, head of forensics at law firm Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs.
The news earlier this year that Bungie had signed a publishing agreement with Activision-Blizzard to create a multiplatform game rocked the game world to its roots. This is the developer that created Halo, the games series that has carried Microsoft’s Xbox brand on its shoulders from the day it was born. But at least Bungie gifted Microsoft with a magnificent parting shot in the form of Halo Reach before it leaves the franchise behind for good.
Wireless broadband operator iBurst claims that its business is starting to bounce back after a difficult period that saw it retrench employees, restructure its operations, and lose its chief executive. The company says that renewed focus on the consumer market, a new strategy and significant investments in infrastructure have all positioned it to start growing again.
JSE- and London-listed IT group Datatec has acquired security distributor Biodata IT for an undisclosed amount. The group plans to merge Biodata IT with its Westcon business in line with its strategy boost its presence in the IT security market.
E.tv and M-Net plan to launch a trial of the upgraded European digital television standard, DVB-T2, in response the news that a pilot of the rival Brazilian and Japanese standard will soon get underway. The local broadcasters’ pilot will take place in Soweto. State-owned signal distributor, Sentech, is establishing test transmission sites to pilot digital terrestrial television broadcasts based on Brazilian and Japanese standards.
The Companies & Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) has taken steps to secure its database after the high-profile “hijacking” of black-owned metals firm, Kalahari Resources.
Microsoft believes that the latest version of Internet Explorer will enable it to recapture market share it has lost to Mozilla’s Firefox browser and Google Chrome in recent years. The beta version of Internet Explorer 9 launched yesterday.
Internet Solutions (IS) and Symantec have partnered to build a multimillion rand data centre in Johannesburg that will provide hosted data security services across Africa. The companies have declined to disclose the value of the investment. But the new data centre is essentially a replica of Symantec’s own data centres in other parts of the world, says Symantec’s VP for hosted services in the EMEA region, Jesper Frederiksen.
JSE-listed technology services business, EOH, has grown its market capitalisation to R1bn off the back of a strong set of financial results. The company’s share price today climbed 2.4% to R12,80 at the time of writing, nudging its market cap just past the R1bn mark.
Cell C’s third-generation (3G) cellular network went live in Bloemfontein today, making the city the second in SA to benefit from the operator’s 3G offering. Bloemfontein residents hoping to start using the network will have to wait until Friday, which is when the modems will become available.