SAP AG has named Pfungwa Serima as MD for SAP Africa.  

Worldwide photoresist sales in the semiconductor industry grew for the sixth consecutive year in 2007, according to Gartner. Worldwide photoresist revenue reached $1,2bn, up by 14,5% from 2006 revenue of $1,1bn. 

On June 25 Vodacom claimed to have ’revolutionised’ Internet on the cellphone. It claimed that millions of Vodacom customers now (effectively) have the same experience of the Internet on their cellphones as they do on a PC.  

Nokia plans to acquire all of Symbian, which develops an operating system for mobile phones. The Finnish phone giant currently owns about 48% of the company, and will pay 264m Euros ($410m) for the rest. 

Many business leaders are sceptical of investing in virtual worlds because of the continuing lack of clarity regarding their proven benefits, but there are steps IT leaders can take to encourage corporate investment, according to Gartner.  

Approximately 65% of the national GDP is contributed by SA’s top three provincial powerhouses, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. It follows that an even greater proportion of the R100bn combined IT and telecoms business spend in 2007 is attributable to these provinces.

JSE-listed IT services and solutions company Faritec is to offer Google Enterprise Solutions in the region. 

Rampant theft by Post Office workers has infuriated the Internet retailing giant Amazon so much that it will no longer send goods to SA by post.  

For the past few years, online advertising has been touted as the Holy Grail for advertisers. However, there is often little solid proof that this advertising spend is being put to good use.

Microsoft’s global crackdown on counterfeit and illegal software shows no sign of slowing, with the software maker this week announcing the filing of 21 lawsuits in 14 states in the US against resellers allegedly engaging in the sale of pirated software, including some alleged repeat offenders.  

Judging by the latest advancements in the production of mobile & wireless hardware, and the increased level of functionality, it is clear that manufacturers targeting the global mobile and wireless market are moving rapidly towards the launch of all-in-one devices. 

Worldwide silicon wafer revenue totalled $12,5bn in 2007, a 22,5% increase from 2006 revenue of $10,2bn, according to Gartner. 

Organisations spend a great deal of time, money and resources to get their users to adopt and make frequent use of their business intelligence (BI) tools. 

Verizon Wireless is to acquire Alltel for $5,9bn, plus the assumption of debt, in a deal that is expected to create the biggest mobile phone company in the US. 

Local software firm, TimBukOne, is expanding into information security (IS) training by bringing the SANS training course back to this country. 

Intel will delay the launch of its upcoming Centrino 2 platform for laptop computers by nearly two months to resolve issues related to the chipset and the antenna used with the wireless chipset. 

Vodafone Group CEO, Arun Sarin, will step down in July, the company says. 

SARS has modernised its PAYE administration requirements and announced hefty penalties for late submissions to this improved process, says Rob Cooper, a Softline VIP director and chairman of the Payroll Authors’ Group.  

The 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley regulations served as a wake-up call for CIOs to formalise document retention policies to meet compliance requirements. But regulatory demands - and the number of documents produced daily - continue to grow. So a solid document management process is a necessity. CIOs struggle with creating the policies, getting buy-in from the end-users and managing the technology.  

Worldwide server shipments for the first quarter of 2008 increased by 7,6% over the same quarter last year, while worldwide server revenue for the same period climbed by 4,3% according to Gartner. Worldwide server revenues totalled $13,6bn for the quarter, as worldwide servers shipments reached just under 2,3m units.  

Service Parts Logistics (SPL), an ICT service parts solutions supplier in Africa and the Middle East, has implemented SAP Business One, aiming to fully automate its business processes and to manage its complicated supply chain.  

Applying Knowledge Management (KM) within a business preserves institutional knowledge, captures new knowledge and makes relevant information more widely available throughout the organisation. This improves business efficiencies and enhances decision making and planning tenfold.