General

By Muggie van Staden If you run a business chances are you already run part of your business “in the cloud”. And if you don’t then you will, in the very near future. The growth of cloud computing — or Internet-based applications and services — is becoming so pervasive that analysts such as Gartner expect […]

When the Absa Premiership season started I predicted that Orlando Pirates would be a hot contender for the league title. I had no doubt about that, based on the quality of their team and many other factors. They didn’t start their season well, but there was a ray of hope that things would improve and […]

Remember how we used to joke about corruption in “some countries” with the condescending tone of those who consider themselves above such? We’d laugh, half in wonder, half in condescension at talk that police could stop citizens randomly with no apparent offence being committed and search and interrogate them until a bribe was put forward […]

This essay (longer than my usual post length) first appeared in the catalogue for the Re-Sponse “retrospective” art exhibition that recently opened at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum (NMMAM) in Port Elizabeth, as a joint project between the Art Museum and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s School of Music, Art and Design. I have […]

Like a Parktown prawn that laughs in the face of doom, the Currie Cup continues to show a resilience that belies the crowded environment of its scheduling every season. Players keep going, or get injured and in most cases come back a few weeks later. Coaches exhaust the Standard Advised Media Etiquette protocol as the […]

By Gary Mathews When I finished primary school, I was sent to boarding school in the hope I might complete my education. It’s possible the primary reason I was shipped out was that my mother tired of my shenanigans and wanted to get rid of me. Either way, I ended up in the last year […]

The launch of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation and the Thabo Mbeki Africa Leadership Institute was met with unusual excitement by the media considering their belligerent attitude towards the former president in the past. As the Holy Scripture says: “A Prophet is not without honour except in his own hometown and his own house.” After ridiculing […]

By Wesley Lynch As the after-effects of the global recession continue to suppress demand, many businesses are discovering the benefits of an online strategy. A great example is British retailer Marks & Spencer. Hard hit throughout the recession, M&S reported mildly resurgent figures for the first quarter of 2011 in July 2010, mainly on the […]

By Wesley Lynch The e-business provider arena has grown into an enormous, complex industry with numerous specialist areas in the last 10 years. And yet providers continue to claim one-stop shop status and fail to carve out clear niches. As a result many top-flight projects stutter and fail as teams are forced to hire more […]

By Dr Pieter Streicher The fall-out from the ban of bulk SMS in India serves as a dramatic reminder about just how entrenched those 160 characters have become in the daily lives of both people and businesses the world over. When the Indian government banned application-to-person SMS messaging, people immediately stopped receiving notifications that transactions […]