Event organiser Kinetic has confirmed that industry-giant Performanta has signed on as platinum sponsors for this year’s anticipated 6th edition of their successful flagship event; the IT Leaders Africa Summit.

The event, taking place from 18 - 19 March 2015 at The Maslow Hotel in Johannesburg, is set to go beyond your usual routine business conference, evolving to deliver on a more exciting, topical, trendy and current platform, utilising both the latest technologies coupled with the latest in conference trends internationally.

Together with Performanta, the event aims to deliver an expert-lead agenda that features an educational conference program backed by the latest in technology workshops and demonstrations. 

Performanta’s workshop; Safeguard your organisation now, your wallet will thank you later; focuses on measuring your organisation against the industry on 10 information security and privacy measures, derived from real-world assessments.

Performanta Consulting was established by Anthony Olivier 4 years ago, aligning information security consulting services to the Performanta Technology & Services stable. Performanta Consulting has provided services to primary South African banks, insurance companies, brokers, mining companies, service and retail organisations. Their key differentiator: senior, qualified, experienced consultants, integrated frameworks and fair pricing. Furthermore, the team has assisted in addressing security problems in seventeen African countries and has a thorough understanding of the continental landscape.

As thought-leaders in the industry, they are amongst the most active South African participants in industry conferences, blogs and podcasts.An expert-led advisory panel will lead the summit with industry giants Robert Sussman, co-founder and joint-CEO of Integr8; Hugo Timmerman, Head of IT Southern Africa at British American Tobacco; and Tunde Coker, MD of Rack Centre (A Jagal Group Company).

The event also features over 35 speakers, keynotes, panel discussions and numerous educational workshop sessions hosted by key industry providers, all sessions led by some of today’s most notable individuals who are shaping the IT landscape in South Africa and beyond.

Speakers, just to name a few, include; David Visser, CIO of Coca-Cola Southern Africa; Anthony Hlungwane, Group IT Director of Mr Price Group; Sal Laher, CIO Eskom; Rocky Gwewera, Global Head of Infrastructure Architecture at Sasol; Stephan Ekbergh, CEO and founder of Travelstart; and Sunil Joshi, MD and CEO of Neotel.

Some sponsors and partners include; Telkom Business, HP, Performanta and Blue Coat Systems, SITA, Airwatch, Kofax, Dimension Data, Neotel, Meso Systems, Sage Pastel Accounting and ERP Africa, and Blackberry.

For more information on the event to register to attend or to sponsor, visit www.itleaders.co.za or contact the event organisers Kinetic on +27 21 180 4700.Follow the event and stay up to date on Twitter. @ITLeadersAfrica and join in on the conversation using #ITLAfrica.

Broadband will be the deciding factor as soon as Broadband becomes faster the Internet will change overnight. The Internet is destined to become a fully audio visual medium like TV but better as people will be able to interact live with each other. The future of the Internet will be a video platform.

People don’t want to have to read as much as they currently do whilst browsing. Our weakness as humans is that we expect information without having to work for it, reading is more work than just watching a video so we prefer to do that. Already youtube.com is the second largest search engine after Google for South African audiences and they are not watching YouTube they are watching a video.

If you want to fix a leaking pipe without calling a plumber then watch a video how to do it. If you want to cook a delicious meal and are looking for a particular recipe then watch a video, if you’re looking for health advice watch a video, if you want to see the latest fashion trends then you can watch a video, if you want to know how to extract DMT from Mimosa Hostilis and use it to awaken your pineal gland watch a video.

The benefits to your business If you have a business and provide a service to clients let them watch a video of what you have to offer, the same with a product show your customers how to use your product. With video on the web you can create a better relationship and more trust for visitors to do business with you from your website.

The winners will be the ones that have recognised that people would like to be “spoon fed” information rather than have to work for it by reading text. Today on YouTube there is tons of this content already, people are able to search on any topic they like and can find out more information. People make their own video about plumbing and cooking etc. No matter how good or bad the video quality is people want information and they don’t want to have to read much to be able to get it.

Do these videos have your brand on them? No they don’t. Brands in South Africa today need to wake up and produce their own content, not for YouTube alone but for all social media and more importantly for their websites. Even now before the year 2020 bandwidth has becomes faster video is growing and is starting to overtake everything you see on the web. The TV stations are already gearing up for this as well as other major media players in the South African industry.

You only have to look at DSTV, SABC and NETFLIX to see how growth in this sector has already caught on here. The massive investment in live streaming is overwhelming and new technology is created every day. Corporations are all working on video solutions it is happening all around us with new technology and new hardware being announced almost daily. Video Production for the Web. Video for the web is more like a TV news or Reality news it is more unrehearsed and instantly produced, unlike your company developing a TV commercial which has a really high degree of production values which also comes with a high budget requirement. This will affect how we communicate with each other. Cost of live streaming and video production has drastically reduced due to lower cost of entry. Companies can purchase very good quality High Definition cameras. You no longer need to bring in expensive film crews and with HTML5 video technology as well as software devices like SKYPE which exists today but other software which will be faster and better. SKYPE and Google Hangouts will not be the only Apps. to be able to run visual communications’ it will become normal on every website and web platform. With new hardware solutions you will be able to see and talk to your customer directly from your website. Or at the very least, due to privacy issues, your website visitor will be able to see and talk to you.

Imagine being able to have a one on one live video chat with a customer instead of the usual written word chat. How we will market ourselves in the year 2020 is happening now in South Africa are you ready for this? People want VIDEO they do not want to have to read tons of words, the winners in the future will be the websites that take this into account. Sure the written word will always be important but the web is going to be a video platform and nobody can stop it or even want to stop it.

Search engine optimisation in the year 2020 Visual rankings Search engines will read the video content and your site will rank accordingly. Content on the web will be in the main, how to fix a leaking pipe, how to cook the best roast duck, how to approach your bank manager, how to, how to… Reading and ranking your content Even today YouTube has significant ability to read the content of any video you upload.

Music sound tracks have a digital signature which can be read for copyright reasons however YouTube can even read background music played at a wedding reception by the DJ with the main soundtrack of people talking and generally enjoying themselves in the foreground. There is no digital signature on this “noise” however YouTube can read the music. I know because I have uploaded such a video and YouTube pointed out that I was using the exact songs in my video, how do they do that? Profanity is also recognised by YouTube. So in the future, as YouTube is owned by Google, they will rank you according to your content but this will include your Video content as well. Homeland Security in the USA uses this technology where “chatter” is monitored across the globe.

It’s not people listening for this chatter it is computers that have been programmed to monitor in various languages certain keywords or key phrases and once alerted an operator will take over and examine it. Same as you will be doing on Google by 2020 you will search for keywords and they will produce a list of “chatter” from videos in your keyword search results. YouTube Viral Video An example of the Power of video.

Here is a link to YouTube for the, Dover Police DashCam Confessional (Shake it Off), although your videos don’t have to go viral this guy has had nearly 27 million views in just 1 week, and it cost nothing to produce? Whilst these kinds of videos are exceptional it just goes to show how much interest and how large an audience and opportunity is out there for your own marketing.
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XFBUM8dMqw

Website: www.epnet.co.za

If you haven't heard about it let me tell you more. Cybatar is a new social networking and collaboration application that allows users to send SMS messages to mobile phones for free. The network also allows users to share document files besides media files which is uncommon with all available social networks.

The company responsible for this product has developed their first application, being made available on stores and only available on Android devices for now. The development team on Red Diamond World is confident that it has developed an awesome product which will go viral a soon as the public becomes aware of it.

Cybatar comes as a more innovative service, on a different market with common social networking websites Facebook and Twitter and is not looking to substitute them but co-exist with them as the are very important especially for companies and professionals to increase their online presence which is a contribution Cybatar will make to users. This shows that Red Diamond World is in this for the long-run like big internet companies Facebook, Amazon and Google.Users can find the application on various Android application stores from today.

The application will reach more stores as time goes by and more application for Apple and Windows devices will be developed. Cybatar is currently available on HTML5 for all devices with internet access on http://www.cybatar.com and users are able to access all features.

Cape Town, South Africa – September 17, 2014 – Onsoft today announced the successful hosting of their Service Management Solution for the Nigerian-based Benin Electricity Distribution Company.

Onsoft was approached by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), based in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria, for a solution to address their service delivery requirements.

Key elements of the Service Management Solution required by BEDC were that it had to be 100% web based and that it should be hosted by the service provider. This meant that BEDC need not invest in costly hardware infrastructure and server software.

BEDC required a Service Management Solution that would allow them to log calls from consumers and ensure that all customer requests were attended to timeously and resolved successfully.

A needs analysis was conducted by Onsoft and the findings presented to management. An agreement was concluded between Onsoft and BEDC where both parties agreed that the BMC FootPrints Service Management Solution would be implemented in a hosted environment.

One of the clauses of the agreement was the training be provided for all BEDC service desk agents by qualified trainers from Onsoft. This training was completed before the Service Management Solution went live.

All configuration and daily management of BMC FootPrints is done by qualified administrators based at the head office of Onsoft, in Cape Town South Africa.

Onsoft has over 15 years experience as specialist providers of service management software solutions that address a range of customer requirements from Customer Service to IT Help Desks. These solutions are available as a hosted or on-premises option.

Onsoft has implemented BMC FootPrints Service Management Solution for several clients in Nigeria working with a local reseller partner. Based on Onsoft’s successful track record, BEDC selected BMC FootPrints as their solution of choice.

In close collaboration with BEDC, Onsoft implemented a proof of concept BMC FootPrints Service Management Solution that the client signed off on.

Contact Information:

Ryan Danvers: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sales: – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Onsoft Support: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
World Wide Web: http://www.onsoft.co.za
Phone: +27 21 447 6106
Fax No: +27 21 4476652

 

What commodity innovations are taking place in trade finance, what is outlook for Africa’s trade corridors, what is South African banks role in an ever-changing trade finance environment? Exploring the state of trade finance, trends in the market and the concerns involved in making the financing of trade possible, the Trade Finance Conference 2014, hosted by Trade Conferences International, will address these issues, and more.

The Trade Finance Conference will take place on 5 & 6 November 2014, at Focus Rooms, Sunninghill, in Johannesburg. The speaker panel includes the likes of:Francois Visagie, Head: Structured Trade and Commodity Finance, ABSA Capital;Richard Harvey, Structured Trade Finance, First Rand Bank;Vanessa Miller, Managing Director, VM Consulting;Yusuf Ali Khan, Trade Head for Africa, CitiBank;Tsepo Tsotetsi, Documentary Trade Product Manager – Africa, Standard Bank;Graham Megaw, Head: International Banking Finance and Operations Support Services, Bidvest Bank;Meluleki Nzimande, Partner in International Trade, Webber Wentzel; amongst others.

Addressing industry developments and trends regarding the challenges associated with entering foreign market trade; innovations in commodity technology, the threat of growing trading companies to banks’ financing, integration across trading platforms, intra-African transactions across multiple regions, and global trading systems and investments, to name a few.

Network with your colleagues in the field dealing with corporate foreign exchange, commodity and export finance, corporate trade and cash, finance and securitization, cross-border negotiations, and Treasury and foreign assets control, to name but a few.

Hurry! The early bird discount rate is still on. Email Jason Joseph, project manager to secure your seat at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Call 011 803 1553 for more information on the conference or speaking opportunities.

{pp}It’s 2010 – the year that South Africans have been breathlessly anticipating since 2004. We’ve had six years to prepare, and now, with a few months to go until the kick-off of the FIFA World Cup, South Africans are white-knuckled with excitement at the prospect.

{pp}In May 2009 Google reported 239-million searches per day. How can you ensure that some of that traffic reaches your website? The answer lies in search engine marketing (SEM).

{pp}If you need qualified traffic fast, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is still the easiest and most efficient way to target the right audience. PPC goes hand in hand with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as the foundation of search engine marketing (SEM).

{pp}Social media has been around for a number of years although we’ve only recently seen an increase in the number of South African social media campaigns. With South African Internet usage escalating and consumer behaviour changing, more and more brands are starting to see the array of possibilities presented by social media.