TCS Legends

Softline co-founder and former CEO Ivan Epstein is TechCentral’s guest in the latest episode of TCS Legends. Epstein, who co-founded Softline in 1988 with Alan Osrin, chats to host Duarte da Silva – who also happens to have been the first guest on TCS Legends – about the early days of Softline, its listing on the JSE and its eventual sale to Sage. It was a heady time in South Africa’s nascent IT sector, and Epstein relates interesting titbits from that time, including what was involved in the JSE listing and the eventual sale to Sage. It’s a fascinating story, not only about a successful South African business, but also the people behind it. TCS Legends is powered by Mitel. For all your Unified Communications and Customer Experience needs, visit Mitel.com.

David Frankel played a pioneering role in the commercial development of the internet in South Africa as co-founder and CEO of Internet Solutions. Since then, he’s gone on to a successful investing career in the US, where he is co-founder and managing partner at Boston- and New York-based Founder Collective, a seed-stage venture capital fund whose successful investments have included Uber Technologies, Brontes (sold to 3M) and PillPack (sold to Amazon). Frankel, widely regarded as one of the most successful entrepreneurs to come out of South Africa’s technology industry, joins TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod on TCS Legends to chat about: • His career, and how the Internet Solutions opportunity came about; • What it was like in the early days of the internet in South Africa; • The fight he led, with Mark Todes, against Telkom’s attempts in the 1990s to monopolise the internet industry – and how the industry won the battle; • The cast of characters at Internet Solutions, including brothers Ronnie and Alon Apteker, that made it a special place to be at the time; • Whether he was really offered the job of CEO of Dimension Data; • His studies at Harvard Business School; • The creation of Founders Collective, and why Boston is a great place for a tech-focused venture capitalist to be; and • His views on South Africa in 2024 and his continued connection to the country. Don’t miss this insightful interview with one of South Africa’s leading entrepreneurs, exploring the role he played in the heady days of the internet in South Africa and what it took to build a successful investment career in the US. We apologise for the audio quality issues in this episode.

TechCentral is thrilled to bring you an interview with Mike Lawrie, a pioneering figure at Rhodes University who helped bring e-mail and later the internet to South Africa. In this episode of TCS Legends – the podcast series that features interviews with (and about) some of the leading figures who helped shape South Africa’s technology sector into what it is today – TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod sat down with Lawrie to chat about the ground-breaking work that happened at Rhodes University in the early days of the internet. In this episode, Lawrie shares wonderful anecdotes about that time at Rhodes, and why the Eastern Cape university was able to achieve things its bigger rivals in the cities couldn’t – or wouldn’t – during the height of apartheid. Lawrie remembers many of his colleagues at Rhodes at the time, and the role they played in connecting South African universities to e-mail, and later to the internet. Episodes 1 and 2 of TCS Legends featured well-known investor and businessman Duarte da Silva, who reminisced about some of the business leaders that helped build South Africa’s tech industry. Episode 3, featuring Hein Engelbrecht and Carlos Vizcarra, turned the focus to the late Mustek founder David Kan. TCS Legends is a by-invitation-only, editorially driven tech show that builds on TechCentral’s credible, market-leading podcast productions. TCS Legends is powered by Mitel. For all your unified communications and customer experience needs, visit Mitel.com.

David Kan, the late founder and former CEO of Mustek, is the focus of episode 3 of TechCentral’s new podcast series, TCS Legends – powered by Mitel. In this episode, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod is joined by Mustek CEO Hein Engelbrecht and Carlos Vizcarra, CEO of CPS Technologies, who was close friends with Kan for decades, for a wide-ranging discussion on the man’s life and achievements. Kan founded Mustek in 1987 as a technology importer and distributor, and the company quickly became known for its locally manufactured line of Mecer PCs. Today it’s one of the country’s biggest technology distributors, and is listed on the JSE. Kan, who passed away in 2022 at just 62, was born in Taipei. He worked various menial jobs in his native Taiwan, including as a dishwasher, truck driver and removal company worker. After matriculating, he left to study mechanical engineering in the US at Pittsburg State University. In 1986, he moved to South Africa where his father was working a Taiwanese diplomat. He worked for a time at a cutlery manufacturing company before attending his first PC expo in Johannesburg. It was there that he met the MD of a Taiwanese company called Mustek Corporation. The MD of that company, Owen Chen, wanted to set up a warehouse in South Africa – Mustek in South Africa was born. He went on to establish one of the first PC assembly lines in South Africa. In this episode of TCS Legends, Engelbrecht – who joined Mustek in 1997 as group fin0ancial manager – and Vizcarra, with whom Kan formed a business relationship in the early days of Mustek, pay tribute to Kan, and share personal anecdotes about the man and his life. Vizcarra discusses the origins of Mustek, the early days of the PC industry and touches on the development of the Springbok, a South African-built clone PC brand that predated Mustek’s Mecer line. In the interview, you’ll hear about: • Mustek’s early days building PCs in Garankuwa and why local assembly made sense in the era of sanctions; • How Kan and Vizcarra became close friends, despite competing with each other in business; • How Engelbrecht met Kan, and his first impressions of the man; • Vizcarra and Engelbrecht’s favourite memories of Kan; • What drove Kan, a foreigner to South Africa, to business success – and how he became to embrace his adopted country; and • What he was like to work for; This episode of TCS Legends includes special bonus content: a full audio interview that TechCentral had with Kan in June 2017. Don’t miss the episode! TCS Legends is powered by Mitel. For all your Unified Communications and Customer Experience needs, visit Mitel.com.

TCS Legends | Roux Marnitz, Bill Venter, Jens Montanana and Alan Knott-Craig Persetel’s Roux Marnitz, Altron’s Bill Venter, Vodacom’s Alan Knott-Craig and Datatec’s Jens Montanana are all undisputed business legends in South Africa’s ICT industry. The four – all now retired except for Datatec CEO Montanana – are the subject of episode 2 of TechCentral’s new fortnightly technology show, TCS Legends. This episode, the second part of an opening double header, features insights from investing legend Duarte da Silva about the four businessmen who had an outsized impact of the technology sector in South Africa. The show, the latest from TechCentral — the home of real technology journalism in South Africa –showcases people who achieved great things in (and for) the local tech sector. In episode 1 of TCS Legends, Da Silva – a well-known industry figure who was once the country’s top IT analyst (at Merrill Lynch) and who founded Macquarie First South – unpacked the Dimension Data story, with a focus on former CEO Jeremy Ord. Find that episode at techcentral.co.za.

Well-known investor and businessman Duarte da Silva joins TCS Legends to discuss Jeremy Ord, Roux Marnitz, Alan Knott-Craig, Jens Montanana and Bill Venter. -- Well-known investor and businessman Duarte da Silva is the guest in the inaugural episode of TechCentral’s TCS Legends, a new video podcast series focused on legendary figures who helped shape South Africa’s technology industry. A two-part scene setter for the rest of the limited series, Da Silva – who knows many of the individuals who built businesses in the country’s tech space after 1994 – shares his insights into the (often colourful) characters who helped define the country’s ICT sector into what it is today. TCS Legends, which is powered by Mitel, has a great line-up of guests secured over the coming months. But in episode 1 – the first of a double header with Da Silva – we delve into the people, the deals and sometimes the scandal that helped define an industry. Da Silva, an avid investor who serves on a number of company boards, is a former director of Merrill Lynch – where his hefty analyst reports on JSE-listed tech companies in the 1990s had company CEOs lapping up his insights, and more than a little fearful about what he might write about them. He also founded Macquarie First South, among other enterprising ventures, and possesses encyclopaedic knowledge of business in South Africa. A legend in his own right, Da Silva shares often-amusing tales of deals (some of which went horribly wrong), corporate shenanigans and plenty more besides with TCS Legends. In the show, he chats about many people and companies, but the primary focus is on five individuals: • Jeremy Ord at Dimension Data (now NTT Data) • Roux Marnitz at Persetel (now BCX) • Bill Venter at Altron • Jens Montanana at Datatec • Alan Knott-Craig at Vodacom The show is hosted by TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, who said of the interview with Da Silva: “If you are, or have ever been, involved in South Africa’s IT industry, this is one show you simply do not want to miss!” Part 2 of the interview with Da Silva will be published on Monday, 4 March 2024.