Nicolas Callegari

While the South African government has openly renewed its focus on the importance of ICT, its benefits and service delivery to its citizens, it is equally important for the private sector to form meaningful partnerships with government.

Last week saw IBM's personal computer division (PCD) officially begin the transition to becoming Lenovo, following its recent US$1.8 billion sale.The change in South Africa, says Rashid Wally, country GM for Lenovo, should be seamless, as the entire PCD division has migrated to Lenovo. "The 'Think' brand will also remain the same," he says, "but potentially we have a much wider portfolio of product to offer local businesses and consumers, as and when markets for these products develop."

After several complaints were received from various resellers, Computing SA learned late last week that there are a number of current and anticipated stock shortages, which could see longer waiting periods for new orders and warranty swap-outs.

Africa poses some very interesting challenges for any organization wanting to do business on the continent.

According to the Gauteng Economic Development Agency (GEDA), the SA call centre industry has evolved rapidly, growing by 100 per cent in the last two years.

Fifteen months ago, Cisco Systems Inc. acquired wireless equipment vendor, Linksys, in an attempt to boost its solution offerings to cater for the SoHo and consumer wireless networking market. According to David Kelly, EMEA director for sales at Cisco Systems, which was in South Africa (SA) last week for the launch of the brand in the country, since Linksys is already an established brand, Cisco has kept it intact.