Choosing a database product to keep all your important data safe can be a very simple task, or a tremendously complicated and fractious ordeal. It is easy when you don’t have a choice. Many applications are written to work with only one database. When you choose the application, the database is chosen for you.
The Seacom submarine fibre-optic cable system should be back online by late next week after a repair ship arrived at the site of the fault in the Indian Ocean. “The designated ship has been deployed to the location of the fault where it will proceed to locate the cable on the seabed,” a Seacom spokesman says.
Episode 2 of TechCentral’s TalkCentral podcast is live. SA’s first business technology podcast is hosted by TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod and deputy editor Candice Jones and is a weekly wrap-up of the big technology stories we’ve covered over the past week. In our second episode — the show now has its own jingle — we talk about what was arguably the busiest news week on the tech front this year.
Senior managers at Telkom must be brought to book for alleged corruption and fraud at the parastatal, the Communication Workers Union said on Friday. This included managers who were resigning, said union spokesman Matankana Mothapo, who questioned the timing of the resignations.
If you played videogames in the early 1990s, you probably spent many hours engrossed by the devious puzzles and tight storytelling of LucasArts adventure games such as Maniac Mansion, Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis and The Secret of Monkey Island. Though LucasArts itself has since become a sausage factory that churns out Stars Wars games of variable quality, some of the maverick designers and writers responsible for its classic adventure titles are still around.
The Communication Workers Union is “horror-struck by infightings” in the communications department led by minister Siphiwe Nyanda. “We have observed that there is a battle of power that is hampering progress between the director-general Mamodupi Mohlala and the minister of communications,” the union said in a statement on Friday.
With MTN’s cellular network acquisitions in emerging markets on hold, analysts say the group can probably be considered a mature business. But there are still opportunities in the business services sector, they say. MTN told shareholders on Thursday that acquisition opportunities in emerging markets are becoming harder to find.
The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) on Friday extended the time for written submissions on the draft numbering plan regulations to 26 July. The communications sector regulator said it had reviewed requests for an extension and decided to change the initial 19 July deadline.
Dimension Data’s telecommunications division Internet Solutions (IS) may make use of some of the innovative technology coming out of Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp (NTT) as it steps up the roll-out of its own telecommunications network infrastructure. That’s the word from Didata chairman Jeremy Ord, who was speaking to TechCentral a day after the London- and Johannesburg-listed group announced it was being acquired by NTT in an all-cash deal worth R24,4bn.
The Democratic Alliance will refer communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda to the Public Protector. It wants the government watchdog to investigate tenders that Nyanda may be involved in. The DA’s shadow minister for communications, Niekie van den Berg, says the DA will decide later on Friday when it will approach the Public Protector.
