TCS Legends

TCS Legends | Mark Todes: technologist and monopoly slayer

Mark Todes has a fascinating story to tell. The South African technologist and entrepreneur is TechCentral’s guest in the final episode of season 1 of the popular TCS Legends podcast. Todes, who is perhaps best known for helping fight Telkom’s attempts in the 1990s to extend its telecommunications monopoly to the internet, has a storied career that began in the mid-1970s in the pre-PC era of mainframes and minicomputers. In this episode of TCS Legends, Todes tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the founding of Compustat with his long-time business partner Mendel Karpul and how they went on to develop a word processor called GhostWriter (the name of which Microsoft later tried to wrestle away from them). In the show, Todes chats about: • How he and Karpul got their start selling a bureau-based accounting solution for pharmacies – and how they got their first big break. The solution was developed in Fortran using punch cards and ran on a minicomputer from Digital Equipment Corporation; • Their development of Survey 2000, a cadastral land surveying system – their first product for personal computers (developed by Hewlett-Packard, prior to the launch of the original IBM PC); • The development of GhostWriter, which became an early DOS-based competitor to the likes of MultiMate, WordStar and WordPerfect. • The launch of Internet Africa, a pioneering South African internet service provider that was later sold to Datatec (and later to Naspers); • The early days of the internet industry in South Africa, the formation of the Internet Service Providers’ Association and the existential fight with Telkom over whether the telecommunications operator’s government-sanctioned monopoly included the provision of internet services; • Working with Naspers, Mweb and the late Antonie Roux; • The launch of Korbitec (and its later sale to Naspers); and • How he and Karpul became early pioneers in the CD-ROM business. There’s much more than this to Todes’s story, making him one of the true legends of South Africa’s technology industry. Don’t miss this concluding episode of season 1 of TCS Legends. The series will return for season 2 in 2025.

Joan Joffe on building Joffe Associates - and Vodacom

Joan Joffe, the founder of Joffe Associates who would later play a pivotal role in the launch of South Africa’s mobile industry, began her IT career writing machine code on an ICL (then ICT) mainframe. Joffe, who introduced the IBM PC to South Africa in the early 1980s (much to IBM South Africa’s chagrin), has a storied career going all the way back to the late 1950s. Indeed, one of the first projects in which she was involved was developing the very first computerised payroll system for the SA Railways (now Transnet). In this latest episode of the popular TCS Legends interview series, Joffe tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about her early career, what led to her striking out on her own with Joffe Associates, and how she eventually became marketing director for Vodacom during its start-up years. What many people might not know about Joffe is that she even had a stint as a technology journalist at one point in her career, writing a column for FinanceWeek, a now-defunct business magazine. In this episode of TCS Legends, Joffe chats about: • Her studies at Wits University; • Her early programming career; • Her time in the US, where she worked for Wells Fargo Bank and Standard Oil; • Her time as a saleswoman for HP selling pocket calculators and how that led to her securing an HP dealership and the formation of Joffe Associates; • The launch by Joffe Associates of the IBM PC in South Africa and Joffe’s clashes with local IBM management at the time; • The sale of Joffe Associates to Datakor, and why it was a disaster; • The Vodacom opportunity and what was involved in lauching South Africa’s first mobile operator; • The battle over Vodacom’s advertising agencies; • Working with Vodacom’s founding CEO, Alan Knott-Craig; • Meeting Nelson Mandela; • The early skirmishes with MTN; and • The launch of the Vodacom Foundation. Joffe, who succeeded in a male-dominated industry, went on to become a founding member of Nozala Investments. She has also served on the boards of various organisations, including the CSIR, Datacentrix and a number of non-profit organisations. Among other accolades and awards, she is a recipient of the Wits University Lifetime Award for Entrepreneurship. Don’t miss this fascinating interview with a pioneering woman in South Africa’s IT industry – and a true legend of the sector. *** TCS Legends is powered by Mitel. For all your Unified Communications and Customer Experience needs, visit Mitel.com. ***

Ivan Epstein on building and selling Softline

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.

An interview with David Frankel

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.

South African internet pioneer Mike Lawrie

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.