Company News
ByteDance Forms TikTok Global as part of Oracle Deal
Sourced from Gadgets 360. ByteDance is creating a new company called TikTok Global that will be responsible for providing all TikTok services to users in the United States and most of the users in the rest of the world. TikTok Global is expected to be majority-owned by American investors, including Oracle and Walmart (20%), and with four Americans out of the five-member Board of Directors. It also aims to create more than 25,000 new jobs in the United States and pay more than $5 billion in new tax dollars to the US Treasury. As part of this deal, Oracle will become the company’s cloud provider and all of its data will be hosted at the Generation 2 Cloud data centres. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_135.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_135.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “Oracle will...
MTN Liberia and Sendwave Partner to Expand International Remittences
Sourced from The Techie Guy Lonestar Cell MTN has partnered with Sendwave to enable customers to receive international remittances from the US straight into their Mobile Money accounts. MTN believes that using MoMo for international remittances and daily financial transactions makes life easier, safer and more convenient. “We are excited and very proud to be at the forefront of innovative financial technologies and partnerships which can help Liberians live convenient and safer lives. Our international remittances partnership with Sendwave does just that,” says Christopher Ssali, Acting GM of Lonestar Cell MTN Mobile Money. “What is even better is that with our rapidly expanding MoMo ecosystem, MoMo customers can use the money they receive to pay bills, buy goods and pay for services...
Pinnacle Extends Huawei Distribution Agreement Further into Africa
Fred Saayman, Huawei BU Executive at Pinnacle Huawei and Pinnacle initially commenced their partnership in 2015 and have seen some terrific growth in the past five years, including their now extended distribution agreement. In 2017 the partnership saw a 74% growth in revenue, and in 2018 the revenue growth more than tripled to 261%. With the Pinnacle and Huawei team working closely together, there has been a major focus on the AirEngine WiFi-6, OceanStor Dorado and their recently launched IdeaHub. Pinnacle’s SADC Sales Manager, Roderick Pillay, is excited for the opportunities that this extension will be creating in the SADC regions. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_4a8.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_4a8.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “The majority of our partners are not even awa...
Instagram Founder could become New TikTok CEO
Sourced from Cosmico TikTok is reportedly talking to founder and former CEO of Instagram, Kevin Systrom. This comes after Kevin Mayer resigned from his position as TikTok CEO amidst contention between the video-sharing platform and the Trump administration. If Systrom were to take up this position, he would be in direct competition with his former boss, Mark Zuckerburg, at Facebook. Instagram’s Kevin Systrom becoming TikTok’s CEO and crushing Reels would be the ultimate revenge for Zuckerberg stripping his autonomy. So spicy! pic.twitter.com/CrxzgfeltM — Josh Constine -SignalFire (@JoshConstine) September 17, 2020 The Financial Times reports that TikTok’s GM, Vanessa Pappas, has taken over the CEO role in the interim. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_551.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; ...
Paratus Deploys 100Gig Fibre Ring in Zambia
Paratus Zambia confirmed the deployment of a 100Gig metro fibre ring in Zambia – marking a first for the pan-African telecommunications Group. The fibre ring is expected to utilise technology that increases bandwidth over an existing fibre network, meaning businesses can transmit data at speeds of up to 100Gbps. Coupled with the additional capacity of Paratus’ network footprint, businesses not only get speed but much-needed bandwidth for data-hungry applications, as well as reliable access to their branches, private data centres and cloud services such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon and Google Cloud. The telco believes that simply having a fast Internet connection is not enough, ‘businesses need a connection that won’t bite into their bottom line with the risk of outages. Staying operational i...
Telkom takes on eCommerce Partnership with Takealot
Image sourced from Bandwidth Blog Telkom has announced that a number of its products would now be available from Takealot.com. The companies believe that this new partnership will bring superior service and convenience to new and already existing Telkom customers. “This partnership with Takealot.com brings together a vision centred around one important stakeholder, the customer. The connectivity of our customers from the comfort of their homes during this pandemic has been our primary focus and with Takealot’s innovative e-commerce platform and success in customer service, we will leave no man behind. Our strategic partnership is sure to add much-needed comfort and value to our customers,” says Gugu Mthembu, Executive of Brand & Product Segments at Telkom. “Selected Telkom Prepaid...
Apple Brands Epic Games as a ‘Saboteur’
Epic Games has again gone to court in a bid to restore Fortnite to the App Store after its intial request was denied. Apple has since asked the court to reject the game developer, branding the company as “a saboteur, not a martyr” in its campaign against Apple’s payment system. Bloomberg revealed that Apple says “Epic started a fire and poured gasoline on it, and now asks this court for emergency assistance in putting it out”. “Epic has engaged in a full-scale, pre-planned media blitz surrounding its decision to breach its agreement with Apple, creating ad campaigns around the effort that continue to this day.” “Only a fraction of Epic’s customers access Fortnite using an iPhone, and Epic’s revenues from other platforms greatly exceed its revenues from iPhone players. It is clear that Epic...
Nokia to Expand LTE Network in Nigeria
Nokia and Tizeti have partnered to supply over one million subscribers in Nigeria with LTE technology. The telco will deploy Nokia’s AirScale Base Station TDD-LTE and Fastmile Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) gateways in order to deliver Internet and Virtual Private Network (VPN) services. The solution is expected to enable Tizeti to deliver a more robust, high-speed internet service to subscribers and the flexibility to seamlessly evolve to 5G Fixed Wireless Access when needed. Nokia says that its FWA solution will allow Tizeti to fast-track broadband access and provide a best-in-class broadband experience to its subscribers. Whereas its AirScale Base Stations ensure high-quality connectivity and coverage and enable Tizeti to evolve the network in line with customer demand. “We are committed t...
ByteDance Rejects Microsoft’s TikTok Bid
Sourced from Gadgets 360. Microsoft has confirmed that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has rejected its bid to acquire the video-sharing platform – the acquisition would allow Microsoft to own and operate the TikTok service in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The tech giant revealed that it would have made ‘significant changes’ to the way that ByteDance and TikTok deal with security, privacy and online safety – something that it believes would have been good for American users. In a statement, Microsoft says, “ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users while protecting national security interests. To do this, we would have made significant chan...
Cell C Makes Changes to Board
Image sourced from Town Press Cell C has appointed David Shimkins to its board, as one of the shareholder representatives for Net1. Shimkins will replace Paul Edwards with immediate effect. In line with Cell C’s shareholder agreement, Net1 can appoint two directors to the board. The Net1 representatives will be Alex Smith and David Shimkins. Net1 recently made these changes to its board. Shimkins is said to be a highly proficient deal executive with a deep knowledge of debt and capital markets and experience across a variety of industry sectors. He is the founder of Nitinol Capital, a company that invests in and facilitates alternative debt and equity transactions. Prior to this, he was a partner at Calculus Capital and Capital Investment Advisory and also held positions at Grin...
Huawei Introduces 6 New Gadgets at Global Launch Event
Huawei has unveiled six new gadgets at its global launch event, these include the FreeBuds Pro, the FreeLace Pro, the WATCH GT 2 Pro, the WATCH FIT, the MateBook X and the MateBook 14. These products are expected to bring a more ‘cohesive connected experience’ to consumers in their everyday lives. Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer BG, says that “great user experiences are always founded on innovation, but our journey of innovation always begins and ends with consumers.” Here’s a closer look at Huawei’s new gadgets: /* custom css */ .tdi_3_1ff.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_1ff.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Huawei FreeBuds Pro These are the world’s first true wireless stereo (TWS) earphones to support intelligent dynamic noise cancellation. Featuring both a hardware and ...
Google Launches Android 11 Go
Image sourced from The Verge Google has unveiled Android 11 Go – designed with low-powered budget devices in mind. A key feature of the stripped-down OS is that it is able to work on devices with 2GB of RAM or less. However, Google told The Verge that Android 11 Go is “only going to come out with new phones with that much memory”. Otherwise, Google expects Android 11 Go will allow apps to launch 20 per cent faster than on Android 10 Go. Google Launches Android 11 Google has launched the highly-anticipated Android 11 – the latest version of its mobile operating system – to a number of users who own select Pixel, OnePlus, Xiaomi, OPPO or realme devices. The tech company says that this update has been optimised for how people use their phones – “giving you powerful device contr...
