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Nithen Naidoo, founder and CEO of Snode Technologies, shares valuable insights on Snode and the cybersecurity space with TechCentral’s TCS+. -- Snode evolved from a consultancy to a product-focused company almost by accident. The product was developed on the ground, which led to the philosophy of customer-led design, emphasising solutions that directly addresses the problems customers are experien...

The Competition Commission is girding itself for a fight with Big Tech companies like Google and Meta Platforms after publishing its provisional findings in its investigation into the impact that Big Tech has had on the South African news media sector. To unpack the provisional report, which was published on Monday, Competition Commission senior analyst and technical lead Donnavan-John Linley join...

South Africa has a new player chasing the township fibre broadband market: Wire-Wire Networks has deployed fibre to 15 800 homes in Thembisa (previously Tembisa), a sprawling township in central Gauteng. CEO JP Schmidtke joined the TechCentral Show earlier this week to share exclusive details about the company’s growth plans and to talk about the business opportunity for fibre companies in South A...

South African logistics firm Bakers SA recently deployed the first electric trucks to its fleet of more than a thousand vehicles. Working with Stellenbosch-based EV charging and software company Zimi Charge, Bakers’ deployment points a potential future in South Africa in which planet-warming trucks are replaced with electric alternatives. Michael Maas, CEO of Zimi Charge, recently joined Duncan Mc...

China’s DeepSeek rocked US technology stocks last month after the company appeared to have developed an artificial intelligence model akin to OpenAI’s most advanced ChatGPT models at a tiny fraction of the cost. Stocks like Nvidia, Google and Microsoft cratered on the news as it raised serious questions about whether the tens of billions – if not hundreds of billions of dollars – that Big Tech is...

Enviro Automotive has launched South Africa’s most affordable electric car yet, the Dayun S5 Mini SUV – and TechCentral has taken the vehicle for a test drive. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, we are joined by Environ Automotive executives Gideon Wolvaardt and Francois Malan to unpack the new Chinese EV and why they believe the S5 Mini is a gamechanger for South Africa’s motoring industry....

Adam Craker has strong views on what’s needed to turn around South Africa’s fortunes and fix its biggest city, Johannesburg, which has fallen into a state of disrepair. The CEO of iqbusiness, a digital integrator in the Reunert stable formed recently though the merger of IQbusiness and +OneX, is our guest in this episode of the TechCentral Show. Craker – whose career has seen him working for the l...

Microsoft Azure SQL is a fully managed and scalable cloud database service – and its myriad benefits mean your company should be considering it if it isn’t already using it. To unpack this in more detail, Preegan Chetty, Microsoft Azure product manager at First Distribution, and Silicon Overdrive Microsoft business executive Jody Roberts join TechCentral’s business technology show TCS+. In the epi...

In the second episode of this series about migrating to Microsoft Azure SQL, the focus turns to what’s involved in moving from SQL Server to Azure SQL, and First Distribution’s Preegan Chetty returns to unpack the key priority of securing databases in the cloud. If you missed episode 1 in the series, you can find it here – or dive straight into this interview. Preegan Chetty, who is Microsoft Azur...

Is your company thinking about modernising its IT infrastructure? Is it planning to migrate from an on-premises Microsoft SQL Server database to the cloud-based Azure SQL solution? Then this podcast is for you. In this two-part series, we delve into greater detail on what’s involved in a cloud database migration. First Distribution’s Microsoft Azure product manager Preegan Chetty is our guest in t...

Matric Live is a study tool to help students in grades 10-12 supplement their in-class learning with additional exercises – and even get exam practice via a digital platform. And it recently won the FNB App of the Year award amid stiff competition from the likes of Checkers Sixty60 and TFG’s Bash. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Matric Live CEO Kagisho Masae and chief technology officer L...

The operating environment in South Africa for ride-hailing services like Bolt is fraught with complexity, while the country’s crime problem only contributes to the challenge of getting passengers safely from A to B. This complexity is compounded by the nuances of operating in different areas. Municipal districts have different permitting requirements, while competitive elements from other transpor...

Well-known South African technology entrepreneur Stafford Masie is one of the key backers behind an audacious bid to buy a stake of up to 40% in the South African Rugby Union (Saru)-owned entity that owns the commercial rights to the Springboks brand. Masie, who chairs JSE-listed Altvest Capital – a key player in the consortium making the bid – joins the TechCentral Show with Altvest CEO Warren Wh...

The South African Reserve Bank is working with its peers in the Southern African region to drive financial inclusion by digitising cash and making instant payments across borders an everyday reality. In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Tim Masela, head of the National Payments System department at the Reserve Bank – he has been with the Bank for the past 30 years – tells TechCentral’s N...

Companies moving to the cloud – and those already there – need to be aware of the Toxic Cloud Trilogy, three pitfalls in cloud computing that must be avoided. Bernard Montel, technical director at exposure management company Tenable for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, recently unpacked this for TechCentral’s audience in an episode of TCS+ (watch or listen to the interview below). Montel unpack...

Trace Network Operations, founded in 2016, provides bespoke network solutions in network management and network monitoring. Company founder Darryl Theron saw a gap in the market for a company that provides leading solutions in this space, stemming from his many years of experience in the pan-African infrastructure market. This episode of TechCentral’s TCS+ business technology podcast, hosted by Ja...

Information technology service management (ITSM) is more than another buzzword. It’s a concept that helps organisations design and deliver IT services to customers and, when well executed, it can have a huge impact on productivity as well as customer and employee experience. But too often companies don’t do it right, leading to headaches and lost productivity. To unpack the topic, Muggie van Stade...

Datafree Technologies, the company behind popular zero-rated messaging tool MoyaApp, has an ambitious plan to build a R1-billion/year business by tapping to the APN market provided by the mobile operators. In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Datafree chief commercial officer Kruben Pillay tells Duncan McLeod about the company’s plan to build a software-as-a-service-based APN – or “acces...

Veeam is helping organisations in South Africa and the rest of the African continent safeguard their most valuable asset: their data. In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, four senior executives from Veeam unpack the latest trends in data resilience and protection, and explore how African organisations can better protect themselves against a data disaster. To unpack this in detail, TCS+ is joined...

Eswatini is on a mission to roll out high-speed fibre broadband infrastructure for its citizens. According to Themba Khumalo, MD of The Eswatini Posts & Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC), the landlocked territory will draw lessons from leaders in national fibre roll-out in other markets as it deploys infrastructure to the population. In this episode of TCS+, filmed on-site in Cape Town during...

In the final episode of a three-part interview series with TechCentral’s TCS+, Digicloud Africa executives unpack what Google Cloud’s solutions mean for end-user organisations in Africa. Digicloud Africa is Google Cloud’s enablement partner on the continent, and the company’s CEO, Gregory MacLennan, and head of technical operations Louis van Schalkwyk return to the show to chat about what Google C...

Pinnacle, one of South Africa’s leading technology distributors, is going all-in on AI. The company, which represents some of the leading brands in the artificial intelligence space, is working closely with its vendors and channel partners to help local companies embrace the potential of the technology and expand employee productivity. Jacques Visage, GM for AI and Services at Pinnacle, is the man...

José Soares, director of IT at The Capital Hotels, Apartments and Resorts, fell in love with computers when his dad brought home a Sinclair ZX81. Through a series of upgrades – from the Commodore 64 to early Apple machines and eventually his first PC – Soares developed a passion for gaming and technology. Meet the CIO is presented by Wipro That passion led him to co-found a mobile gaming company a...

The digitisation of money is helping drive financial inclusion and improve access to complex financial services in South Africa and the rest of the African continent. In this episode of TCS+, Hannes Wessels, GM for South Africa at Binance, explains the role cryptocurrencies are playing in the digitisation of cash as well as the potential that blockchain technology offers in enhancing the security...

In the second part of a three-part interview series with TechCentral’s TCS+, Digicloud Africa executives unpack how African ICT companies can become reseller partners for Google Cloud in Africa. Digicloud is Google Cloud’s chosen enablement partner for Africa and works closely with the US technology giant to deliver its services across the continent – through a network of resellers. In this episod...