Ahead of the Joburg Art Fair running from 14 to 16 March in Sandton, independent curator CAROL BROWN looks at the changing face of corporate art collections, what it means for African and South African artists, and the why and how of supporting art.

Until about ten years ago, corporate art collections were hidden behind doors and only shared with employees of the leading banks, law firms and financial institutions. They were mainly purchased for financial investment and to decorate the walls of the offices. Now, walls are disappearing from offices and the art is changing and having to fulfil new roles.

Artworks have become widely publicised assets which are used to brand a company and build internal corporate identity and as part of a wide ranging package of community and social responsibility activities.

There are many reasons for this but one which has recently surfaced is that national art museums are now longer adequately funded. It’s pretty much an international trend and not only applicable to South Africa.

This means that our heritage cannot be preserved by museums and our cultural capital becomes lost as artists seek other occupations or, in South Africa’s case, leave the country to go to places where there is more interest in purchasing contemporary art. So the big corporate collectors now have a great opportunity to fill the role previously played by museums and to become keepers of heritage and patrons of living artists.



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Posted in the category: Insight, Trends

With the concept of ubiquitous services being at the heart of this month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a keynote session focused on the topic of ubiquitous networks rang a loud bell.

The CEOs of Bharti Airtel, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Telstra examined the way in which networks are developing to support mobile as the access method of choice and deliver anywhere, anytime connectivity to anyone or anything.

Carl-Henric Svanberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, said that for him the idea of a ubiquitous network was ‘broadband everywhere,’ and that this was being achieved through the rapid growth of the HSPA ecosystem. He pointed to some 250 vendors producing around 400 devices as proof, stating that the ever-shrinking size of HSPA data cards means they will soon be installed in multiple devices and ‘everything will communicate’. Within a year, he claimed, HSPA will be delivering 40Mb/s in the downlink.

Of course, that is a rich claim, bearing in mind the big deal South Africa’s networks have made of moving to 3.6Mb/s download speeds on HSDPA cards.



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Posted in the category: Insight, Technology, Trends

McAfee Inc used the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to announce findings from new research in developed countries that reveals that almost three out of four mobile consumers are concerned about the security of today’s and tomorrow’s mobile services.

No less than 72% of mobile consumers in the USA, United Kingdom and Japan are concerned about the security of today’s and tomorrow’s mobile services, such as mobile multimedia downloads, mobile payments and mobile ticketing.

This was the central finding of the McAfee Mobile Security Report 2008, released at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The report discusses in detail users’ experiences of traditional and emerging mobile services and their awareness and perceptions of mobile security issues.

The following statistics must be viewed in the context of highly developed markets – 2000 respondents were interviewed across three of the world’s leading industrial nations. The relevance therefore declines when applied to developing markets.


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Posted in the category: Insight, Technology, Trends

PKF, the chartered accounting and business advisory firm that specialises in servicing growing and entrepreneurial companies, is positive about this year’s budget speech. Tax specialist DR ROBIN BEALE explains why.

The new simplified, turnover-based tax system for small businesses, announced by Trevor Manual in his budget speech today, is to be welcomed, even though some caution is in order.

The simpler tax matters are for the small business, the better. The new turnover-based tax proposed for these businesses will be a combination of VAT and income tax, with business owners paying tax on their total turnover without making any deductions for expenses. However, there is a danger that small, unsophisticated businesses could unwittingly miscalculate their taxes. Therefore a simpler turnover system is preferable.



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Posted in the category: Economy, Insight, Trends

With an increasing focus on regulation, companies must be able to both shape and respond to the regulatory agenda in traditional as well as emerging markets. But this is not easy to put into practice, particularly in the communications sector, as KPMG reports.

The 2007 KPMG Bringing Regulation into the Boardroom survey, based on interviews with over 60 senior managers in telecommunication operators around the globe, reveals that senior management and the regulatory function, whilenot poles apart, may have different priorities.

Convergence of telecommunications and media, along with deregulation, is blurring traditional regulatory boundaries and putting increasing pressure to improve communications, learn from other industries and build a strong regulatory team.

“This situation is even more complex and pressing for those companies operating in multiple regulatory environments,” says Yunus Suleman, chairman of KPMG SA. “Subsequently, companies will increasingly need to develop proactive regulatory functions that recognise commercial issues and can communicate with the board.” Keep reading →

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Posted in the category: Economy, Insight, Strategy