TCS - The TechCentral Show

It’s been eight months since Werner Kapp took the reins from Mteto Nyati at Altron. Now firmly in his new role, Kapp joins the TechCentral Show (TCS) to unpack his strategy for the storied JSE-listed technology group. Kapp, who previously led Dimension Data, talks about Altron’s financial results for the year ended 28 February 2023 and how, despite the rotten economy, it still managed to produce r...

Planetworld, a distributor of audio gear from brands such as Sonos and Shure, has proven that there is still strong demand among South African consumers for specialist audio. The company, which was founded by four brothers, has built a strong niche in the audio market, led by Sonos, but also representing brands such as JVC, Kenwood, Cambridge Audio, Alpine, Pioneer, Onkyo and Savant. Planetworld c...

For years, Cell C was the only game in town for brands wanting to launch a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). That’s changing -- fast -- and now MTN has said it is positioning itself as the “go-to network backbone partner” in South Africa. MTN South Africa wholesale executive Quintus de Beer joins Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show (TCS) to unpack in detail what this plan means for other n...

Muggie van Staden is CEO of one of South Africa's largest and oldest open-source software companies, Obsidian Systems. But ask him what he runs on his desktop, and he'll tell you it's a Mac. And he recently moved to it from ... Microsoft Windows. Van Staden says his desktop computing choices are based on the fact that he's not particularly technical, and prefers the relative ease of use of both Wi...

South African Internet entrepreneur Calvin Collett is launching his latest venture, mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Melon Mobile, next week, hoping to lure customers looking for a simpler proposition for their telecommunications needs. Collett joined TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show (TCS) on Thursday to unpack the new company’s plans. Melon Mobile, which will be laun...

Jan-Jan Bezuidenhout, CEO of MetroFibre Networx, believes fibre network operators (FNOs) in South Africa will soon find a way to deliver fibre broadband profitably into underserviced areas. Speaking on the TechCentral Show (TCS), Bezuidenhout – who replaced former Absa boss Steve Booysen as CEO of MetroFibre in mid-2022 – said he is confident a solution to the challenge of delivering fibre afforda...

Clive Butkow is one of South Africa’s leading experts on venture capital investment in technology start-ups. The founder and CEO of Kalon Venture Partners joins Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show (TCS) to chat about why the VC investment business has changed radically, especially since the world, led by the US Federal Reserve, started hiking interest rates last year to tame inflation. Monetary...

When Dutch colleagues and business partners Lars Veul and Derk Hoekert came to South Africa on assignment with e-commerce marketplace Groupon in 2012, they soon realised there was a problem: up to 30% of local online orders were not getting delivered. This was due to various reasons, including consumers not being at home at time of delivery, office premises being difficult for couriers to access a...

MTN South Africa hosted a media event in Soweto on Thursday to demonstrate to journalists the severe impact that criminal vandalism is having on its base stations. In this interview, conducted at the site of an MTN base station in Mofolo South in Soweto, the company's chief technology and information officer, Michele Gamberini, tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the attacks taking place...

The PC industry has been through a boom-and-bust cycle in the past few years, with demand first spiking higher due to Covid and work-from-home measures, only to fall back as people returned to the office. Despite this, there’s plenty happening in the PC space, including interesting experimentation with new form factors, including dual-screen laptops. Lenovo, the world’s biggest PC maker, recently...

Robert Brine, director of Cyber & Intelligence Solutions at Mastercard in Southern Africa, joins the TechCentral Show (TCS) to talk about security in the global payments industry. Brine tells TechCentral’s Duncan McLeod about the security challenges in the fintech and financial services space, and what consumers and businesses need to know to protect themselves. In this episode of TCS, Brine unpac...

TechCentral on Tuesday broke the news about Toco, a new payments platform and associated digital currency, toco, backed by the founder of Vumatel. Now Toco CEO Paul Rowett joins the TechCentral Show (TCS) to chat about the project, which aims to fight climate change by “fixing the current economic model so it places a value on the environment”. Read all the details about the launch of Toco and its...

Naked Insurance, the South African digital insurance start-up, announced earlier on Wednesday that it has secured US$17-million (R306-million at the time of writing) in a series-B funding round. Alex Thomson, Naked’s CEO and a co-founder of the company, joins Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show (TCS) to unpack the investment, which includes funding from the International Finance Corporation and...

Convergence Partners CEO Brandon Doyle joins Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show (TCS) to unpack the recently announced closing, at $296-million (R5.3-billion), of the private equity company’s new Digital Infrastructure Fund. Convergence Partners, which is chaired by well-known South African technology investor and entrepreneur Andile Ngcaba, unpacks what the fund – which surpassed its initial t...

Tim Humphreys-Davies, CEO of Alviva Holdings-owned technology distributor Pinnacle, believes the worst of the supply-chain challenges that afflicted the global and local tech industries in recent years is largely over. Speaking on the TechCentral Show (TCS), Humphreys-Davies explains that although there are still some challenges in the networking space, the chip shortages that affected the PC indu...

AfriForum, the vocal Afrikaner civil rights organisation, wants to deploy pebble-bed modular nuclear reactors (PBMRs) in South African communities to help solve the country’s crippling energy woes. But why PBMRs? And how will the project work exactly? It might seem strange for a non-governmental organisation like AfriForum to want to involve itself in electricity generation, but the move makes per...

In the final TC|Daily interview of 2022, Duncan McLeod is joined in the TechCentral studio by +OneX founder Rob Godlonton for a wide-ranging discussion on the company and the South African IT sector more broadly. Godlonton tells McLeod about his career history, including the 10 years between 2009 and 2019 he spent in senior management at EOH Holdings. Godlonton, who EOH CEO Stephen van Coller said...

Despite being one of South Africa’s oldest companies – it was founded in 1888 and listed on the JSE in 1948 – Reunert is a picture of health. The group, which owns assets in engineering, electronics, IT and defence, last month reported a 16% improvement in full-year revenue to 30 September 2022 and a 17% improvement in operating profit – not bad for a company operating in an economy that’s going n...

How would you like a R3-million TV in your living room? Samsung Electronics is happy to oblige – and they’ll even help you install it. Next year, the Korean consumer electronics giant will launch its new range of ultra-high-premium micro-LED televisions in South Africa – and the top-end model, which measures a staggering 126 inches, will set you back a cool three bar. If that’s too much moolah, a...

Kayamandi, a township next to Stellenbosch, is the subject of two interesting experiments, which, if they succeed, could transform the way South Africans – and the world – connect to the Internet. The township is the site of two fibre deployments, one being led by Vumatel and the other by Isizwe. Both companies are experimenting with driving down the price of uncapped high-speed fibre to previousl...

EOH Holdings is about to embark on a rights offer, seeking up to R600-million from its long-suffering shareholders as it moves to deal with the unsustainable debt on its balance sheet. At the same time, the share price – R3.10 at the time of publication – has fallen to levels last seen in early 2020, soon after the start of the Covid-19 hard lockdown sent equity markets crashing. Is it all bad new...

Joao Zoio is a man on a mission. As CEO of Acumen Software, he is overseeing the development of My Smart City, a platform that integrates with municipalities to try to resolve service delivery issues quickly and efficiently. The platform, available on the Web or via smartphone apps, allows residents to log issues that need attention, from potholes to broken streetlights. It also allows people to c...

The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has sent shockwaves through the crypto community worldwide. In this episode of TC|Daily, Jon Ovadia, CEO of South Africa crypto exchange OVEX, joins TechCentral’s Duncan McLeod from Dubai to talk about FTX’s bankruptcy and what it means for South African crypto players and for the ecosystem more broadly. FTX, which is a shareholder in OVEX, was forced to...

Former Altron Group and MTN South Africa chief executive Mteto Nyati has strong views on South Africa, specifically regarding the country's potential with the right leadership in place. Nyati joins Duncan McLeod on TechCentral's TC|Daily technology show to chat about the announcement this week that he has acquired a 40% stake in technology and business consultancy BSG (Business Systems Group) and...

Russell Southwood probably knows more about the communications revolution in Africa than anyone. The founder and CEO of Balancing Act Africa, Southwood has covered the industry for decades. In a new book, he's now shared the story of how Africa went from having fewer telephone lines than Manhattan in 1986 to having telecommunications serve as a platform for sweeping changes in the way Africans com...