The wages of sin No business can survive by selling its products for less than it costs to produce those same products. Hence, Agri SA reckons that the just-announced minimum wages for farmworkers will drive farmers to make tough decisions. As Johannes Möller, president of Agri SA says: "The 52% increase in the minimum wage for farmworkers, as announced by the Minister Oliphant ... will have drastic implications for this sector and related industries." It's also as well for farmworkers and Cosatu to realise once and for all, that it is government that sets the minimum wage. Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa has vowed to strengthen public order policing, and says public order policing in South Africa needs to reflect the ethos of human rights and dignity. Not before time, but it will be an uphill battle, given the somewhat less than stellar record when it comes to police brutality directed at the public, suspects and protesters... Tatane and Marikana spring to mind. One cannot help but feel that Eskom knows that they will never get the massive hikes they are demanding, but on the basis of go in high and settle for less, the Eskom public hearings kicked off in Gauteng. More than one player pointed out what impact such hikes will have on poverty, investment and a range of other issues, if granted. Perhaps one of the first things Eskom could do is stop placing ads on TV telling us how great they are and how they care about us. Chris Moerdyk asks whether there is light at the end of the Telkom tunnel, and points that perhaps... there is... and that is good news for consumers who for decades have been subjected to call and internet costs that are way out of kilter with what is reasonable. Rod Baker: Content Director
Submit your company news to itnews@bizcommunity.com. Exclusive contributions may be sent to contributors-it@bizcommunity.com. Top stories
[Pieter Streicher] 2013 will be a pivotal year for the South African SMS industry as the issue of interconnect fees is resolved and mobile networks charge each other for terminating application-to-person (A2P) SMS messages, doing away with the vagaries of the gentlemen's agreement between the operators that maintains the status quo. Read more >>
 Hosey Global Conference will be holding the International Consumer Technology Congress 2013 (ICT-Nigeria Congress 2013) at the National Art Theatre in Iganmu, Lagos, Nigeria from 14-15 May 2013. The theme for the congress is 'Change Tradition Through Innovation'. Read more >>
[Stefano Sessa] With mobile penetration in South Africa already well over 100%, an increasing number of enterprises are turning to this medium as a means of communicating with their customer bases. Mobile communications tools like SMS represent an immediate, personal and cost-effective mechanism through which to reach customers, allowing large organisations to send anything from account updates to discount vouchers at the click of a button. Read more >>
 [Issued by Bizcommunity] Come on, admit, you'd love R5000 in cash, right? Whisk your true love away for a romantic St Valentine's weekend... or not... Maybe it's that set of golf clubs you saw that need your fingerprints all over them... Well, here's your chance to do just that, and it's so easy... Read more >> visit press office >>
[Issued by Wits University] IBM biologists, engineers, mathematicians and physicians predict that computers will begin to mimic and augment the five senses - in their own way, to see, smell, touch, taste and hear. Dr John E. Kelly III, Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research, will give a public talk on Monday, 4 February, at Wits University. Read more >> visit press office >>
 [Chris Moerdyk] Could it be that a glimmer of light has appeared at the end of the Telkom tunnel with the decision to cut its data tariffs? Certainly, this is good news for South African consumers who are still paying far over the relative odds for their internet access. Read more >>
Business-to-consumer courier delivery volumes are escalating globally as the number of companies selling goods online increases and more consumers have access to the internet. Read more >>
MWEB has taken child safety online into consideration - as the internet becomes upgraded, so should parents' knowledge about online safety for their kids. With 71% of teens accessing the World Wide Web daily from school and home, it's imperative that parents are kept up to date with the dos and don'ts of online safety. Read more >>
 South Africa will miss the 2015 deadline to convert its analog broadcasting signal to digital, according to a report. Read more >>
 [Bevan Ducasse] The 2012 African Mobile Factbook (Blycroft Publishing) revealed a few interesting revelations. We know that commerce in Africa is steadily becoming dependent on mobile. Some analysts are even predicting that Africa will become the world's first post-PC region of the world, with countries such as Botswana, Gabon and South Africa having a mobile penetration of more than 100%. And with mobile being such a pervasive, sophisticated, and personal device, comes new and exciting opportunities. Read more >>
AV Comparatives selects Kaspersky Internet Security 2013AV Comparatives has selected Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 amongst its best products of 2012. The independent Austrian testing lab published its final summary of consumer protection test results in January 2013 and the Kaspersky Lab product delivered the best overall performance. This repeats the success of 12 months ago, when it also came out on top. Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 took first place in the overall testing results, sharing it with a Bitdefender product.
[Adam Simpson] Business owners and managers looking to capitalise on technologies that can increase efficiencies and reduce costs should be looking closely at cloud-based services, like a Hosted PBX business telephone system. Many might be surprised to learn that this technology is well established (web-based email has been around for more than a decade and is an everyday example of cloud technology ) and already well known to the businesses community. Read more >>
Ericsson has unveiled a new web development platform that will allow any connected device to be turned into an always-open communications device. The world's first IMS-based "Web Real Time Communications" (WebRTC) platform enables web applications that will greatly expand the ecosystem for enterprise and consumers. Read more >>
 ITS' new mobile applications now enables students at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) to access academic and financial information on their mobile devices. The applications were released to a pilot group of students mid-December 2012, and proved to be successful. Read more >>
 TOKYO, JAPAN: Wikipedia is aiming to use mobile phones to reach a billion people by 2015, a senior executive has said, doubling the present number of regular users. Read more >>
 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN: Troubled telecommunications equipment manufacturer Ericsson said it was confident about prospects this year as more operators boost network capacity to meet growing demand for video streaming services such as YouTube. Read more >>
 RESTON, US: comScore, Inc has the 'Digital Wallet Road Map 2013', a study which measures consumer awareness, perceptions and intent to use current digital wallet offerings. The study found that digital wallets, which store a virtual copy of the contents of a consumer's physical wallet to facilitate online or offline retail transactions, only had awareness among 51% of US consumers for wallets other than PayPal. Read more >>
 LONDON, UK: Facebook has revealed its financial performance for the fourth quarter. Eden Zoller, principal analyst at Ovum, has the following comment: Read more >>
 SAN FRANCISCO, USA: The Wall Street Journal reported last week that in his forthcoming book, Google chairman Eric Schmidt brands China as an "Internet menace that sanctions cyber crime for economic and political gain". Read more >>
 WATERLOO, CANADA: At the close of its BlackBerry 10 launch event earlier this week, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins introduced 14-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter and entrepreneur, Alicia Keys, as BlackBerry's new Global Creative Director. As an official member of the BlackBerry team, Keys will lead an array of new business initiatives that will drive engagement with BlackBerry and perception of the brand. Read more >>
NEW YORK, USA: It'll be computer scrolling, not ancient scrolls, for Jewish culture lovers when the world's most famous Yiddish newspaper relaunches its website on Monday (4 February) in a bid to stave off extinction. Read more >>
 LONDON, UK: Facebook has confounded critics who thought it would be incapable of making money from the rapid growth of mobile device usage. Not only has it revealed a strong performance in Q4 with revenues up 40%, its mobile ad sales have more than doubled on the previous quarter to total $306m, to account for 23% of the Social Network's overall ad revenues. Read more >>
 LONDON, UK: BB10 has launched. Adam Leach, principal analyst at Ovum, provides his initial reaction... Read more >>
 [Jeanniey Mullen] We already have a month in the books for 2013. As I look at the next 90 days to nine months, I see an almost harmonic convergence of market conditions for digital publishing. It will be a time of great change, but digital publishing is having its breakout year. Read more >>
 WASHINGTON, USA: BlackBerry's new smartphone platform launched this week faces an uphill battle to win back corporate and government users who helped spawn the "crackberry" culture, analysts say. Read more >>
 LONDON, UK: Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media comments ahead of the BB10 launch. The success of the first BlackBerry 10 device is vital for RIM's survival... Read more >>
 SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Microsoft on Tuesday (29 January) began letting people subscribe to Office as a service in the Internet cloud, shedding the need to buy the popular productivity software on a disk. Read more >>
 NEW YORK, USA: Apple on Tuesday (29 January) unveiled a new iPad with twice the storage capacity of the existing model in an effort to sell iPads to companies that share large amounts of data. Read more >>
More International...
Kenya's much touted first Technology City in Africa was commissioned by president Kibaki last week in one of his signature events before vacating office. Read more >>
 Safaricom, Kenya's mobile operator, is looking to CommProve to improve its subscriber network quality of experience. As part of the agreement, CommProve will deploy its next generation network monitoring solution, CommProve NetLedge across Safaricom's network. The deployment is scheduled for completion by the first half of 2013. Read more >>
More Africa...
 The Tax Administration Act kicked in towards the end of 2012 and the new legislation could have some scary consequences for individual taxpayers. Read more >>
More Government news...
Do you have a passion for programming? We are recruiting web application developers with energy and enthusiasm who is interested in developing web-based systems. Read more >>Our ambition is to be at the forefront of driving innovation and services levels through the collaboration of really smart people. That's where you fit in. Read more >>Web 2.0 software developer wanted! Experience optional. Raw skill non-negotiable. Read more >>
Click here to customise your jobs section
Click here to customise your events section
Print - Print any item in this newsletter.
Email - Email any item in this newsletter.
Comment - Comment on any item in this newsletter.
|
