Author: Gugu Lourie
The M B Ontwikkelings Trust is taking Cell C to court for “wrongfully and culpably” interfering in a contract it has with a large retail outlet that supplies starter packs. The trust, which is situated in Maletswai – previously known as Aliwal North – a town on the Orange River, is demanding more than R21.3 million in damages from the embattled mobile phone company. In papers filed at the Eastern Cape High Court, the trust claims Cell C wrongfully and culpably interfered with its contract with DNI Retail, the largest wholesaler of starter packs for the mobile company in the country. Herman Zurich,…
The U.S Supreme Court on Monday sided with Google against Oracle in a fierce copyright dispute over the software used in Android, the mobile operating system. The court found that Google did not violate the law when it used more than 11,000 lines of software code belonging to Oracle in building its Android mobile operating system. Oracle owns a copyright in Java SE, a computer platform that uses the popular Java computer programming language. In 2005, Google acquired Android and sought to build a new software platform for mobile devices. To allow the millions of programmers familiar with the Java programming…
LG Electronics Inc. (LG) announced on Monday that it is closing its cash-guzzling mobile business worldwide. The South Korean firm said the decision to exit the mobile phone sector will enable it to focus resources in growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence, platforms and services. LG said in a statement the decision was approved by its board of directors earlier today. “The wind down of the mobile phone business is expected to be completed by July 31 although inventory of some existing models may still be available after that,” the company said.…
Telkom has unveiled its April 2021 Big Deal, which promises to amplify the way you connect to the Internet. The uncapped fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) promotion for 25.5Mbps is available for R399 a month on a 12-month contract. The deal, which is only available on the Openserve Fibre Network, provides fibre services on a month to month basis. In cases where the router and installation are included, this is subject to the fibre service is active for 12 months. There is no FUP (Fair Usage Policy) thresholds apply. The offer has limited HD streams allowed during peak hours The promotional campaign runs…
Smile Telecoms, a Pan-African telecommunications group, announced on Thursday it has secured $51 million (R750 million) in fresh capital to avert liquidation and fund operations. The company said its restructuring plan has been approved and agreed with the lenders. Smile Telecoms said the debt restructuring plan sees an injection in fresh money funding from its majority shareholder, the Al Nahla, and rescheduling on debt repayment until post-March 2022. Al Nahla, a Saudi Arabian-based company owns 49% of Smile. The PIC is a minority shareholder along with Renven Investment Holdings, a pan-African investment vehicle; Verene, representing Smile senior management and social…
China’s Huawei Technologies on Wednesday posted a 3.2% rise in net profit to CN¥64.6-billion ($9.8 billion) for the 2020 financial year versus growth of 5.6% in 2019. It also said sales revenue in 2020 rounded off at CNY891.4 billion, up 3.8% year-on-year. In May 2019, the US commerce department added, Huawei into the Entity List, which prohibits the company from purchasing US technologies as well as software services. In 2020, the Donald Trump administration further restricted Huawei from purchasing semiconductor products and cancelled licenses for existing suppliers. The United States government has been campaigning against Huawei in the past two years…
Jeff Bezos and other Silicon Valley investors are taking a bet on an accounting startup Pilot that seeks to help small businesses and startups outsource back-office tasks. The San Francisco-based company closed a $100 million (R1,5 billion) funding round this week, doubling its valuation to $1.2 billion (R18 billion). The funding was led by Bezos Expeditions (the personal investment company of Bezos) and Whale Rock Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. Stripe and Index Ventures co-led Pilot’s $40 million (R600 million) Series B in April 2019. The latest financing brings the company’s total funding raised to over…
New York-based Chainalysis has raised $100 million (R1, 5 billion) and is now valued at over $2 billion (R30 billion). The blockchain analysis company announced on Friday that this latest round was led by Paradigm, with participation from TIME Ventures, the investment fund for Marc Benioff, and previous investors Addition and Ribbit. Chainalysis was founded in 2014 as the official investigators into the hack of Mt. Gox, then the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. “We’ll use the funds to accelerate business growth, expand our product portfolio and continue our mission to build trust in blockchains,” Chainalysis Co-Founder and CEO Michael Gronager and Jonathan…
In townships, people pay data by the minute, by the text, and by the gigabyte. This simply means any new network wanting to bring affordable data to this market needs to fit in with these township consumer habits. South Africa’s big mobile phone operators and fibre providers have so far failed to satisfy township consumers with their expensive products to access the Internet. As a result, many people continue to be excluded from the digital world. Eduard Walker, CEO of FibrePoynt, says an opportunity for a wireless fibre operator to connect townships, peri-urban areas, and small towns to the digital…
Remote work has created new job opportunities for some, offered more family time, and provided options for whether or when to commute. But there are also challenges ahead. The first annual Microsoft Work Trend Index reveals that high productivity masks an exhausted workforce working from home. “Self-assessed productivity has remained the same or higher for many employees over the past year, but at a human cost,” said Microsoft’s 2021 Word Trend Index. The survey finds that one in five global survey respondents say their employer does not care about their work-life balance. Fifty-four percent feel overworked. Thirty-nine percent feel exhausted.…