There is something exciting being created behind the scenes for MXit’s new office space that will be completed and revealed in 2012. The new premesis in Stellenbosch will accommodate and consolidate the 120 employees of the growing company. These 120 employees “run an active base of about 11 million in over 100 countries” says CEO Alan Knott-Craig in his interview with BandwidthBlog.

Watch the teaser video below:

If you have ever wondered what it looks like inside the warehouses of Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, then this will satisfy your curiosity.

These images were taken from Amazon’s Swansea fulfillment center in Wales, one of the largest Amazon warehouses in the world. As expected, all goods are precisely and systematically packaged, organised, labelled and stored for further delivery to customers.

Amazon.com reported an annual revenue of $34, 204 billion for the 2010 financial year.

View the gallery below:

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The Daily is reporting that Microsoft is readying a version of Office for Apple’s very popular tablet computer. Microsoft has for a long time made Office for Mac, which is very popular with the Mac faithful. Even with the iPad’s limited functionality compared to the PC, the demand for the tablet is incredible. If iPad was considered a laptop computer, Apple would be the number one seller in the US. The iPad has also made significant inroads into enterprise, perhaps more so than any Apple product before it. Now Microsoft cannot stand by and watch this happen.

The iPad already has a few productivity solutions available to it from a variety of developers, the most popular being Apple’s own iWork apps which are going for $10 each. Despite their popularity, people have been clamouring for better file compatibility with an official Office software bundle for the iPad. When Microsoft does roll out Office for iPad, the bigger question would rather be what at price point it will go for. Office is traditionally quite a high priced item, but almost a necessity to many people. If Microsoft can match the $10 per app price, the demand will likely be massive.

Microsoft is no stranger to the Apple iOS platform, they already make a version of OneNote for the iPhone, and they have a few other apps as well. There is one problem though – Apple takes 30% of every app sold in the AppStore. Now will Microsoft be willing to part with this cash? Only time will tell.

Microsoft is not willing to confirm anything, but we reckon it will be a smart move by Microsoft.

Details are beginning to emerge about the construction of a new high-capacity submarine telecommunications cable to serve the African continent. Named the Wasace cable, it will be connecting Africa with South America, North America and Europe and will be project managed by the David Ross Group from the United States.

Ramon Gil-Roldan, CEO of the Wasace Cable Company Worldwide, a multinational development company, says that the new cable will be one of the largest in the world and the largest ever mounted in the Atlantic Ocean, that’s purpose is to link all the major markets of the four continents. While it is unknown when the cable will be ready for service, Wasace claims the system will be the first to employ next-generation 100Gbit/s fibre-optic technology, offering “ten times the capacity of previous systems”.

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Alan Knott-Craig is likely the most talked about local Internet entrepreneur at the moment. After his tenure as MD of wireless Internet provider, iBurst, Alan moved to Stellenbosch and started a mobile applications investment company. Enter World of Avatar, consisting of approximately 14 mobile related businesses, some of which were launched and incubated from within WOA while others were acquired.

Then Alan made his boldest move yet – he met with Herman Heunis, founder of South Africa’s most popular social network, MXit, and convinced him to sell. The acquisition was widely covered and the price was said to be a massive 9 digit number.

Some say Alan bought a technology past its prime with the likes of BlackBerry’s BBM and Whatsapp enjoying huge growth on smart phones. Alan saw it differently. With the next billion or two of the African population not even connected to the Internet yet, there is huge scope to provide communication tools to ‘feature’ and ‘dumb phone’ users. However, they aren’t overlooking MXit for smart phones and will aim to release a new version – said to be a game changer – in April 2012.

Alan Knott-Craig is a deal maker and with a huge community as bait, has set out to close several deals that will continue to drive MXit’s growth and revenue. Recently he setup an embed deal with Opera and has several similar deals in the pipeline. (more…)

In the past, enterprise was the natural habitat for BlackBerry – but with the recent shift in popularity to other smartphones it means that businesses are stuck with BlackBerry because of previous capital outlay for Blackberry Enterprise Servers. RIM is now approaching the Mobile Device Management market, and has smartly built in control of Android and iOS as well in its upcoming solution.

Research In Motion today introduced BlackBerry Mobile Fusion – the Company’s next-generation enterprise mobility solution and RIM’s entry into the multi-platform Mobile Device Management (MDM) marketplace. Building on years of leading enterprise mobility management solutions from RIM, BlackBerry Mobile Fusion will simplify the management of smartphones and tablets running BlackBerry, Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems.

“We are pleased to introduce BlackBerry Mobile Fusion – RIM’s next generation enterprise mobility solution – to make it easier for our business and government customers to manage the diversity of devices in their operations today,” said Alan Panezic, Vice President, Enterprise Product Management and Marketing at Research In Motion. “BlackBerry Mobile Fusion brings together our industry-leading BlackBerry Enterprise Server technology for BlackBerry devices with mobile device management capabilities for iOS and Android devices, all managed from one web-based console. It provides the necessary management capabilities to allow IT departments to confidently oversee the use of both company-owned and employee-owned mobile devices within their organizations.”

RIM is the leading provider of enterprise mobility solutions with over 90 percent of the Fortune 500 provisioning BlackBerry devices today. The enterprise market for smartphones and tablets continues to grow in both the company-provisioned and employee-owned (Bring Your Own Device or BYOD) categories. BYOD in particular has led to an increase in the diversity of mobile devices in use in the enterprise and new challenges for CIOs and IT departments as they struggle to manage and control wireless access to confidential company information on the corporate network. This has resulted in increased demand for mobile device management solutions. (more…)

Red Bull MOBILE is an innovative mobile offering that was launched in February 2011.  Powered by Cell C’s new HSPA+ network Red Bull MOBILE gives uses access to premium Red Bull content.

Whereas before the apps came pre-loaded on the mobile device received, Red Bull MOBILE now gives users free and exclusive access via the Red Bull MOBILE mobisite portal via an icon the the home screen or on m.redbullmobile.co.za:

Hot Spot Viewer:

Find the coolest restaurants, latest events and bars that stock Red Bull, Cell C stores that sell Red Bull MOBILE packages and more. All Hot Spot views come with Wiki or Qype info, detailed pics and even videos.

Red Bull Community:

One app, all networks: Use Red Bull MOBILE Community Client to upload pics, text and videos to your Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

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