Huawei’s Windows Phone 8-powered 4Afrika smartphone, the first device to be launched under Microsoft’s new initiative to grow its presence in Africa, will cost less than US$200 (about R1 800 at the current exchange rate) and will go on sale in South Africa before the end of March
If you launched a brand new product just before Christmas and then sold around 700 000 units, you’d be pretty pleased. But if your company was Microsoft, and the product was the Surface tablet, those numbers would look a bit pitiful. But wait a minute
Signs of the traditional gaming industry’s decline are everywhere. They’re in the financial results of the giants of games publishing such as Electronic Arts, which saw revenues drop nearly 8% year-on-year in its latest quarter, and of THQ, which was this forced into bankruptcy early this year. They’re in the
When was the last time you heard people, young or old, arguing the merits of different rock bands? I’m guessing it’s been a while. But what about a tiff about their choice of mobile phone? In the last five years, I’ve heard too many to count. Does that make personal technology the rock ‘n roll of this century? The
Fifty billion dollars was wiped off Apple’s valuation in after-market trading on Wednesday after it published first-quarter results that spooked investors, despite lifting sales by 18% to a record US$54,5bn. The question on investors’ lips now is whether this marks the bottom of an aggressive sell-off
Despite the relatively small number of fixed-line Internet connections and the still relatively high cost of mobile data, South Africa now has three music streaming services vying for consumers’ attention. And this is before the launch of Microsoft’s Xbox Music, expected soon. TechCentral
Expect to see a lot of machines like Hewlett-Packard’s new Envy X2 tablet/laptop hybrid on sale this year. It’s a form factor both Microsoft and PC makers are keen to bring to the market as they fight off the threat posed by Apple’s iPad and inject new energy and innovation into the PC business. It’s
The year is barely two weeks old and the technology space is already crazy-busy. In the second TalkCentral podcast of the new year, your hosts Duncan McLeod and Craig Wilson bring you another packed episode in which we look at the investment plans for France Telecom’s Orange in South Africa
South Africa’s online streaming music market has gone from nowhere to crowded in a matter of months. This week, another online music service, France’s Deezer has been launched — or “soft-launched”, according to a company source. France’s Deezer, which enjoys a close
If Microsoft’s nascent Windows Phone platform is going to succeed, it’s in the corporate market, where the company is already strong with its desktop and server tools, where it arguably has the greatest chance of success against rival platforms such as Google’s Android and Apple, with the iPhone. Now, its ambitions
