Tech’s war cries in 2012
The tech industry in South Africa has seen its fair share of fighting talk amid increasing competition – particularly in the mobile space where operators have been particularly busy in lowering voice and data prices in 2012.
BusinessTech looks at some of the fighting talk that made the headlines in 2012:
Shameel Joosub
In September, the then newly appointed Vodacom Group chief executive officer Shameel Joosub said that Vodacom would stay competitive amid a flurry of voice and data cuts by rival operator Cell C.
“Vodacom is not going to roll-over,” Joosub said. “He’s been a leader in the industry….he’s a very clever guy, but he has got his work cut out,” Joosub said of Cell C CEO, and former Vodacom CEO, Alan Knott-Craig.
Jose Dos Santos
Speaking at the 2012 MyBroadband Conference in October, Cell C chief commercial officer Jose Dos Santos said that mobile termination rates need to keep coming down to create a more competitive mobile market.
In reference to Joosub’s intention to take on Cell C in dropping prices, Dos Santos said that nobody had stepped into the ring to ring the bell for the fight to start…”so ding ding ding, let the fight begin,” he said.
Alec Hogg
Alec Hogg, founder and CEO of Alt-X listed media group Moneyweb, announced his rather sudden resignation as an executive director of the company in October, following a disagreement with majority shareholders, Caxton.
“It took long enough for me to have progressed through the first three emotional stages of major change. I’m past Anger and Rejection and now at Acceptance. The Commitment stage will come.
“An old friend and successful tech pioneer Derek Kreunen sent me a reminder yesterday of Steve Jobs’s Stanford Commencement Speech.
“We can’t connect the dots going forward, but need to have faith that looking back, they do connect. If there’s one thing I do have it’s Faith. A deep belief that God has a Plan for each of us, and if we leave it to him, the Plan works quicker and better. I’m trying hard to get out of the way.”
John Holdsworth
John Holdsworth, founder and chief executive of start-up AppChat, has had a long running dispute with listed firm Reunert which has included numerous court dates.
Holdsworth stepped down as CEO of ECN Telecommunications, just a few months after the company was bought out by Reunert for R171.9 million, to start another venture which Reunert argued successfully, was similar in its product offering, to that of ECN.
In October however, Holdsworth said that, despite “challenges along the way”, the company was still eyeing a launch date of February 2013.
“We have had a few challenges along the way, but cowboys don’t cry.”
The ICT entrepreneur criticised the current mobile landscape in South Africa for being “as liberal as North Korea”.
Holdsworth claimed that people trusted estate agents more than they did mobile operators. “We want to take the mobile market and turn it upside down and inside out,” he said, adding that AppChat would aim to offer simple easy to understand mobile plans.
Related articles:
AppChat’s Holdsworth: “Cowboys don’t cry”
Knott-Craig has his work cut out: Joosub
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