Vodacom South Africa To Launch An SVOD Platform Called Vodacom On Demand

Trace TV is fixing to launch arguably the most anticipated SVOD offering of the year, Trace Play. Their ambitious roll-out will involve making Trace Play available in English and French in 100 countries around the world. Trace’s Co-founder and CEO Olivier Laouchez is clearly serious about making sure that Trace TV remains the #1 urban network outside of the US.

This past week, Vodacom South Africa announced the planned launch of an SVOD of their own called Vodacom On Demand. They plan to go live in 2017 with DSTV’s ShowMax onboard in a very cosy arrangement that’s left us wondering if their partnership could grow into something more substantial, like a deal to rival AT&T’s recent acquisition of Time Warner, for instance. Vodacom has said that they’re happy to partner with as many serious content players as might want to play with them, revealing that a future partnership with Netflix will happen in due course.

We’re fairly certain that a deal of AT&T-Time Warner proportions between a telco and big content player is inevitable as the continent’s VOD market matures. Some commentators have suggested that the AT&T-Time Warner deal was driven by the notion that distribution rather than sheer size, or even access to quality content is vital for success in executing big media plays in the digital age.

There’s no doubt that on some level the deal represents a lifeboat for Time Warner, given how all of its cable channels are losing subscribers at an alarming rate. AT&T’s extensive wireless footprint and a significant share of America’s direct video businesses, DirecTV and U-verse could help turn that around. Traditional media players on the continent could very well see similar saviour potential in a mobile network like Vodacom, and be hoping that the mobile telco comes knocking to propose acquisition.

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com

 

Safaricom Becomes The Latest Mobile Service Provider To Be Sued

I’m still buzzing from the great time we had at The Annual Round-up 2015, that Tefo Mohapi and I hosted at The Wanderers Club in Johannesburg last week.

Many thanks to those of you who made it out on Thursday morning, and a big thank you to our incredibly generous and insightful guest panelists and speakers. Also, big up to our event partners, Opera Africa, Stuff magazine, and iAfrikan.com.

It was a chilled morning of intelligent, retrospective conversations – which took stock of the state of Africa’s tech scene. The programme featured three keynote talks and three lively interactive panel discussions covering Enterprise, Startups and, Gadgets & Apps.

Seriously, though, the good news is that we’ll be sharing the conversations we had at the Annual Round-up in place of the African Tech Round-up podcast starting on Monday, December 14th, 2015 — to hold you down till the show returns in mid-January 2016. There’ll also be plenty of cool extras we’ll be sharing exclusively on our Soundcloud account and via Facebook, Twitterand Instagram, so do follow us, do.

In the meantime, enjoy Episode 33 of the African Tech Round-up. Listen in to find out why two Kenyan mobile money service providers are suing Safaricom. This is definitely on trend. The last quarter of 2015 is proving to be quite trying time for Africa’s mobile operators.

How To Build Products For Africa And Avoid Failing Like The Altech Node

It’s official. Citing “increased competition” and “unfavourable market conditions” Altron is puling the plug on the Altech Node console and will discontinue its video-on-demand offering come the end of October 2015.

The news comes in the wake of Naspers’ recent launch of the Netflix-clone, ShowMax, which the tech giant is clearly not sparing any expense in promoting. (By the way, you may as well take advantage of ShowMax’s free seven-day trial offer to check out what all the fuss is about.)

What is the best way to build new tech products for Africa?

The Node’s spectacular failure to appeal to consumers has led Tefo Mohapi and I to ponder the question, “What is the best way to build new tech products for Africa?” Perhaps there are lessons that big tech and startups on the continent would  do well to learn from Altron’s costly misfire regarding how to effectively build and roll-out relevant and commercially successful products and services.

Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up, all the week’s most important digital, tech and innovation news:

• Visa has choses to test ground-breaking biometrics technology— for use at ATM’s, in South Africa,
• Apple is preparing to shut down the transit app, Hopstop— which it bought from its Nigerian founder, Chinedu Echeruo for $1 billion in 2013,
• WeChat and Nigerian online tech publication, Tech Cabal are set to host conferences in Nigeria, aimed at empowering developers to make use of WeChat’s API, and
• Mobile phone manufacturer, Mi-Fone, accuses its Chinese rival, Xiaomi, of intentionally using similar sounding names for mobile devices they have recently launched in Africa.