In a first for the local market, Gartner has appointed two analysts in this country. They aim to provide local clients with additional depth and insight into the local market. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Absa will provide the latest version of Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security Version 14 free of charge to its more than 650 000 Internet banking customers. Designed to combat unpredictable malicious threats like phishing, spyware, spam, hackers, viruses, and more, PC-cillin Internet Security aims to offer home computer users comprehensive security in an automated, easy-to-use package. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Vodacom has introduced the Big Bonus Voucher to over 20m local customers. They can now purchase a once- off voucher which offers them continuous access to the Vodacom network for 12 months, with total control over their spending and at reduced per second rates, billed from the first second. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
The Reynolds and Reynolds Company has appointed local company Compatible Information Systems (CIS) to its global network as a value-added reseller of its international dealer management system (DMS), incadea. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
DVT, Microsoft SA and Metastorm are to host an executive seminar on the topic of 'Breakaway BPM: A New Era of Business Process Management' on 8 August. The seminar will be presented at Microsoft's offices in William Nicol Drive, Bryanston, starting at 8.30am. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Spectrum Visual Networks (SVN), a local media solutions provider, has renewed its contract with Primedia Outdoor to supply its digital technology solution for the plasma screens situated at the six luggage carousels situated in the domestic terminals at Johannesburg International Airport. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
eBucks has announced the launch of its highest unique bid auction. eBucks is to allow people to use their points to bid in an auction. The model differs from the traditional online auction format (in which the highest bidder traditionally wins). [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Progress Software SA is to hold its annual conference (Progress Technology World Africa) at Mabula Private Game Reserve, in the Waterberg from August 6 - 9. Key topics for the conference this year will be service-oriented architecture (SOA), the new-generation method for developing and delivering software applications, and application modernisation - how to move existing applications into the SOA environment. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
The Certified RFI Express Service is said to offer prospective enterprise software buyers access to pre-filled request for information documents (RFI), significantly reducing the time, costs, and risks associated with software selection. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are a growing opportunity for the local private sector and facilities management is a core component of these ventures. This is according to Bette McNaughton, organiser of the inaugural Facilities Management Africa 2006 (FM Africa 2006) exhibition, which will make its debut on the SA exhibition calendar from October 24 - 26 at Gallagher Estate. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Vodacom says that it has launched five base stations on the N7 route in the area of Springbok, the administrative capital of Namaqualand, thereby effectively bringing mobile communication to 15 000 community members, covering 90km of road. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
When representatives from national HR and payroll management solution provider, Accsys, walked through the doors of what was then known as the Industrial Wage Bureau, neither party realised the extent to which a relationship had been forged. According to the parties, the result of this two-decade long partnership has been regular, effective service and delivery to clients and smooth-running payroll management. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Motorola and Huawei Technologies have announced a collaboration aiming to bring an extensive portfolio of UMTS and HSPA infrastructure equipment to customers. By combining their expertise in UMTS, the companies intend to meet the needs of mobile operators today and in the future. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Motorola has announced the signing of David Beckham as a global brand ambassador. The three-year collaboration will kick off with major activities across Asia, including advertising appearances and extensive retail promotions across the network of Motorola stores and distributors throughout the region. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
The latest in a series of regular surveys published by GSA - the Global mobile Suppliers Association, confirms that 50 HSDPA-enabled devices have been launched by 16 suppliers. This means that the number of HSDPA products launched has doubled in five months. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Jeremy Kirk and Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service (London Bureau)
In a move to increase its online advertising revenue, AOL LLC says that it will make a range of its software and services free for Internet users worldwide. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service (Beijing Bureau)
The world's richest man joins Karl Marx and Nikita Khrushchev on a list of non-Chinese making the greatest impact on China, which was published by a state-run newspaper's Web site. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is stepping up its fight against online fraud with a new initiative called Operation Identity Shield, according to a senior FBI official. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, an Alcatel company, will showcase its industry standard self-service platform at SpeechTEK in New York from August 7 - 10. Genesys is offering to replace legacy IVRs (interactive voice response systems) with a next-generation open self-service platform. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
Security researchers David Maynor and Jon Ellch performed a digital drive-by at the Black Hat USA conference. Their target: an Apple Computer MacBook. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service (Dublin Bureau)
The US Federal Trade Commission has unanimously decided that Rambus unlawfully created a monopoly for certain technologies used in the dynamic RAM (DRAM) memory chip standard. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Motorola has announced a three-year managed optimisation services agreement with Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC) Kuwait, to improve the performance of operator's network across its serving area. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Avaya has announced that the company's board of directors has appointed Louis J. D'Ambrosio as president and CEO. D'Ambrosio has held a series of key leadership roles at Avaya, most recently as senior vice-president and president, global sales and marketing. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Unisys has announced a server architecture that is designed to enable four operating environments to run simultaneously on the same computer system in a single virtualised partition. The four operating environments are Microsoft Windows, Linux, Unisys OS2200 and MCP. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
SAP AG and IBM have announced a global agreement, aiming to offer midsize enterprises tighter, more seamless integration between mySAP All-in-One solutions and the upcoming version of DB2, code-named 'Viper'. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
ICT World exclusive
Xerox, distributed in 24 sub-Saharan countries by Bytes Document Solutions, has introduced the WorkCentre PE220 black-and-white multifunction system designed specifically for SMEs. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Symantec has announced Symantec Control Compliance Suite, an upgrade to the bv-Control portfolio of products that aims to help customers to reduce the cost and complexity of IT policy compliance through automated assessment of policies against industry regulations, standards and best practices. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Concilium Technologies partner, Sourcefire, says that it has introduced an automated network compliance solution, enabled by the next generation of Sourcefire's Real-time Network Awareness (RNA) technology. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Oracle has announced an agreement with IDS Scheer that is intended to help to accelerate the two organisations' Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives, by enabling greater collaboration between business and IT. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Acer has selected Symantec security solutions to protect its customers worldwide. Under the terms of the agreement, Norton Internet Security 2006 or Norton AntiVirus 2006 will ship pre-installed on more than 45m Acer desktop and notebook PCs globally. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Clickatell, a global mobile messaging operator, has announced that its enterprise-grade Multimodal Global Messaging Service (MGMS) is providing customers with immediate, reliable and cost-effective mobile messages anywhere, across any device. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Intel has introduced its NOR flash memory products, which are aimed at the emerging low-cost cell phone segment. The products have a pin sharing package designed to minimise pin count, and are configured to work with low-cost, single-chip baseband and RF solutions from chipset suppliers, the company says. Major handset vendors are expected to start introducing low-cost cell phones based on Intel flash products this quarter. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC) has announced a series of workstations that use Intel technology. The Celsius W350, Celsius M450, Celsius R540 and Celsius R640 workstations aim to provide greater performance and memory capacity and, thanks to their improved chassis and cooling technology, are said to be quieter than previous models. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Oracle has announced the general availability of Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET, a free plug-in that aims to enable developers to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to develop and deploy Microsoft .NET Framework-based applications with Oracle Database 10g. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Cisco Systems has introduced the Cisco Proactive Automation of Change Execution (Pace) solution, a suite of products and services that aim to help enterprises to meet compliance requirements, accelerate growth, enhance business continuity, and increase user productivity. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Panda Software SA has launched security suites onto the market for large businesses and SMEs. Both products aim to offer integral protection for all levels of the corporate network, from laptops to gateways, by combining reactive and proactive technologies such as Tru-Prevent, which is exclusive to Panda Software. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Intrusion prevention and security risk management company, McAfee, has announced the availability of McAfee Foundstone Starter Kits for its authorised McAfee SecurityAlliance Premier and Elite Partners in EMEA. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Centracell, a local service provider for least-cost routing (LCR) solutions, and Germany-based Vierling Communications have established a distribution partnership that will offer highly advanced Digital Gateway technology, based on the Vierling suite of products. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Centracell, provider of a comprehensive suite of solutions for routing voice traffic over alternative least cost routing (LCR) network platforms, has been awarded service provider status by wireless broadband provider, iBurst. Centracell is one of five companies within the Centratel Group of companies. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
In recognition of the important role that business partners play in the growth and success of its software business, IBM has announced an initiative that radically boosts financial rewards for business partners based on their role in the sales cycle. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Jane Geypen, Microsoft product manager at Axiz
Catering for the needs of a variety of users, from a software licensing perspective, is not an easy job. In a bid to ensure that it caters for the specific needs of its many users, Microsoft has a variety of licence types and categories. Here, we take a look at the licences that are most relevant to resellers - OEM, DSP and COA. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
D-Link introduces channel rewards programme
Networking specialist, D-Link, has introduced a further incentive for the channel with the launch of its 'Think D-Link. Think Rewards!' programme through PlusPoints. Through this initiative, resellers are incentivised by earning points by selling selected D-Link products; the points are redeemable for rewards which include 42-inch LCD TVs, ocean cruises, vouchers and other highly desirable indulgences. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Self-service solutions and technologies promise to change services industries as profoundly as assembly lines did manufacturing, by allowing for the mass delivery of better service more cheaply than ever before. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Barry Saxton, director, Barloworld Logistics
The difference between 3PL service providers and so-called 4PL companies in the supply chain field has been one of the great talking points in and outside the global industry for some years. While the industry is one characterised by generally off-putting and confusing jargon and acronyms, this one is a very important distinction for service providers and their customers to understand. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
David Less, director, End2End*
IT is an essential element for any SME and covers all areas of business operations. Businesses without a robust IT infrastructure to support growth may soon find themselves with unmanageable, duplicated information, disorganised systems and ineffective manual processes. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Business managers and executives have to understand organisational performance through accurate measurement in order to steer a company in a profitable direction. Successful Corporate Performance Management (CPM) requires focus, however. Performance dashboards act as a magnifying glass, highlighting important or strategic business issues, and are increasingly being put to use in organisations - big and small - to concentrate focus. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
Ashley Dugmore, MD of The Printer Distribution Company (PDC)*
Although sometimes cynically touted as a solution looking for a problem, the benefits of RFID are widely acknowledged. Early adopters of this technology have realised advantages in some, if not all areas of their business, making the business case for RFID a compelling one. [Issue:One hundred and ninety seven (31/7/06 - 4/8/06)]
