ROYAL PRIESTHUD

MTN Group has been extremely active over the past few years… especially when in comes to acquisitions in Africa. This time around, the MTN Group has now set its sight’s on Jim Ovia’s Nigerian mobile phone company, Visafone Communications. Ovia’s mobile phone company was essentially set up in 2007, and is currently delivering voice and broadband services through mobile and fixed telecom platforms. While the deal has not been made public as yet, sources closest to the deal who wish to remain anonymous – according to Bloomberg – stated that they were unable to give the value of the transaction. According to the report, MTN has been exploring acquisitions as it seeks to boost revenue from data outside South Africa, where Vodacom Group has more subscribers. MTN had 59.9 million subscribers in Nigeria at the end of 2014, more than a quarter of its 223 million total across 22 countries. Visafone had about 2.2 million customers as of December, according to data compiled by the Nigerian Commu...

More people than ever before are leaving the corporate office behind to work remotely. To address this, the technology industry has had to move fast and in just the past year, we have seen acquisitions, apps and services developed – all with a single goal: to help make people productive, securely, from anywhere. As the need to work remotely increases, technology will have to continue to improve. Here are some of the changes we can expect to see in the coming months and years: 1. Employee requests for mobility are now a requirement. For progressive companies, remote working is nothing new. But over the past 4 years, the expectations around mobility have grown. According to Forrester Research, 61% of information workers work outside the office, with Forbes reporting that the number of workers who telecommute will increase 63% in the next 5 years. In a recent study into the work-life balance of South African office workers, conducted by FreedThinkers on behalf of Citrix, 54 percent of ...

According to a report by ngrguardiannews.com , Lagos as well as 60 other cities, in the North Central zone of Nigeria, are set to receive improved broadband services. The report revealed that MainOne Cable will be in charge of the Lagos area while IHS will be focusing on the North Central states of the country and Abuja. MainOne, which landed a submarine cable in the country, about four years ago and recently unveiled a Tier III data centre in Lagos, will provide InfraCos services to an expected 20 million people in the state. According to the report, analysts believe that Lagos offers huge investment returns because it is the commercial capital of Nigeria, where expansive and affordable broadband access would impact significantly on more than 12 per cent of the population and nearly 60 per cent value of corporate Nigeria. IHS, which operates about 22,000 towers across Africa in sharing deal, has been licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to focus o...

Apple's busy today -- on top of finally releasing Photos, it's rolling out the long-expected iOS 8.3 update. It's not as huge as 8.2 was, but you'll likely appreciate it if you're a tech-savvy driver. The upgrade brings wireless CarPlay in supporting vehicles, so you don't have to plug in your iPhone just to get directions or music on your car's center display. You'll also find more diverse emoji (as in OS X), the option to download free apps without a password and a much easier way of signing into Google accounts when you use two-factor authentication. There's a whole bunch of app performance and interface fixes on top of this, so you'll definitely want to grab the 8.3 patch when you get the chance.

NEW YORK (AP) -- It's a chilling moment: A message appears on a computer screen, saying the files are encrypted and the only way to access them is by paying a ransom. It happened at Jeff Salter's home health care business last December. The network of nearly 30 computers at Caring Senior Service was infected with ransomware, malicious software that hackers use to try to extort money from people and businesses by preventing them from opening or using documents, pictures, spreadsheets and other files. If computer users don't pay, there's no way they can access their files. Ransomware is one of the fastest-growing forms of hacking, cybersecurity experts say. Anyone from a home computer user to a Fortune 500 company can be infected. It can also attack smartphones. The smaller the users, the more vulnerable they are to losing their files — unless they have a secure backup for their system or go through the complicated process of paying cybercriminals. Sa...