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Pieter le Roux is an technical expert who works as an Technical Director with one of the leading ICT solution provider from South Africa, The Webcom Group. In this article Pieter talks about the benefits of Virtualised desktops for standardisation, security and performance in distributed environments. Virtualisation is one of several buzzwords currently making the rounds within the Information Communication Technology (ICT) departments of most large corporates, heralded as a convenient way to reduce costs and improve the overall management of ICT, including licensing, within the organisation.Read More…

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The two studies, from the Enterprise Strategy Group and The Clipper Group, evaluated the costs of long-term storage for various scenarios that included tape and disk as the primary storage medium. In each case, the studies found that tape had considerable long-term cost advantages when compared to a scenario that relied on a disk-only solution. The Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program Technology Provider Companies, HP, IBM and Quantum, announced that two recently-released separate studies found that tape had significant total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits over disk, including lower cost per GB, lower operating expenses and lower energy costs.Read More…

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Paul McKibbin is an technology expert who is the Divisional CEO with one of the leading South African ICT organisations, Jasco Carrier Networks. Cloud computing is gaining ground in South Africa for a number of reasons. This includes vastly improved bandwidth capability, both in terms of quantity and quality, greater affordability of bandwidth and improved security technology that addresses many of the concerns businesses have had around the concept of the cloud in the past. Read More…

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Robert Brandt is an power solutions expert who works with a leading South African IT distribution company Drive Control Corporation as a Product Specialist for UPS & Infrastructure. The importance of power management and backup solutions for South African businesses cannot be argued. After all, even though we have seemingly moved past the infamous load-shedding incidents of 2008 our power remains notoriously unstable, with spikes, surges and dips in voltage that can cause damage to expensive equipment as well as frequent power failures that can cause loss or corruption of data. Read More…

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Riaan Leuschner is the Managing Director of Nology, a leading South African security-driven broadband, networking and communication hardware and solutions provider. As a result of recent investments into infrastructure, broadband is no longer a costly, exclusive commodity to be consumed sparingly. The opening up of the service provider market, along with several undersea cables that have landed, with more on the way, and fibre loops beginning to come into effect in metropolitan areas, have enabled bandwidth to become far more readily accessible, at higher speeds, with better quality, and at a reasonable cost.
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Roelof Louw, is an expert on Cloud Computing and he works with leading South African ICT outsourcing service provider, T-Systems. The proliferation of cloud computing, in whichever form, had led to a change in the way organisations approach their outsourcing strategies. Indeed, it has effectively moved from services-based approach to include specific bundled products – cloud computing in essence represents the next evolution in outsourcing.
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Steady growth in the cloud services sector reflects the rapid pace at which companies are moving all or portions of their computing, applications and data storage requirements to this emerging destination. According to Gartner, the industry is poised for strong growth through 2014, when worldwide cloud services revenue is projected to reach $148.8 billion. More and more organizations across the Middle East are discovering the benefits of cloud computing and are looking to embrace the cloud. Early adopters of cloud technologies have viewed the migration as a business imperative, despite the potential dark lining of service outages and exposure to security and privacy risks. Read More…

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The adoption of social media is rapidly accelerating among businesses in the Middle East region, strategically placing itself as an integral element to today’s marketing mix. This has led to a re-shaping of consumer attitudes and behaviour like never before and has become a key influence in positioning brands and images and influencing consumer perceptions. Krishna Gopal, vice president-Global Alliance and Sales for Middle East and Africa, Tech Mahindra was one of the lead panellists in a discussion titled “Impact of Social Media in the Middle East and the Government’s support, or lack thereof,” during the Arab Advisor’s 8th Media and Telecom Convergence Conference held in Jordan recently.
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In: Expert Views, Security

Cyber criminals are becoming increasingly resourceful and cunning and the sophistication of attacks threatening businesses today has reached unprecedented levels. Added to this is the growing reality of cyber espionage which threatens to divulge sensitive and sometimes confidential organisational information. The need for security is clear, but with the ever increasing number of laws and regulations governing data protection and accurate reporting the need to prove this security has also increased, on top of shrinking budgets and a desire to decrease administrative efforts. Research and experience have proved that connected enterprises face a large number of threats which are serious, pervasive and are constantly on the increase.
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As the world becomes increasingly digitalised, organisations are storing more and more data electronically, much of which is mission critical and essential to running their business. The integral nature of this data to the business world, as well as events such as the Enron debacle, led governments around the world to begin passing various pieces of legislation around the protection of electronically stored information. Compliance with legislation in this regard has forced organisations around the world to examine their data policies and adopt new guidelines for the retention, processing and destruction of electronic records and communication. One of the most notable regulations not only for the United States where this law was passed but for organisations around the world, particularly those is the financial sector, was Sarbanes-Oxley, or SOX.
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EMEA research shows that enterprises are putting the cloud at the heart of their IT strategy, with 48 percent seeing it as key to empowering agility and business performance. As organisations strive to compete in today’s economy, with workers demanding instant access to information wherever they are, the cloud is becoming a critical part of modern business strategy. Supporting this trend are the results from a new research project from Brocade indicating that 48 percent of EMEA businesses are already actively deploying cloud architectures, with more than half of respondents citing business agility as the key driver.
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In: Expert Views, Software, Telecom

Global research and analyst firm Gartners is predicting that worldwide smartphone sales will reach 468 million units in 2011, a 57.7% increase from 2010. According to Gartner, by the end of 2011, Android will move to become the most popular operating system (OS) globally and will build on its strength to account for 49% of the smartphone market by 2012. Sales of open OS devices will account for 26% of all mobile handset device sales in 2011, and are expected to surpass the 1 billion mark by 2015, when they will account for 47 percent of the total mobile device market. Read More…