Only one in 15 South Africans had access to the Internet at the end of 2001, according to a new study by World Wide Worx.

After the dot-com crash, the venture capital industry has become more cautious about where it puts its money, but industry insiders say the right entrepreneur with the right technology and marketing skills can still access start-up funding.

Black economic empowerment in the IT industry has made some progress since the dawn of the new SA. However, major players say there is still a long way to go.

The knowledge management world has become strangely quiet since the last time ITWeb covered it in a major feature a year ago. Though this is not surprising, it doesn`t mean that knowledge management is dead.

IT security in today`s world is a balancing game in which players must balance the benefits of the online world against the risk the company is capable of absorbing.

Over the years, external IT consultants have been on hand at almost every sizable IT installation at SA corporates, advising them on how to re-engineer their business processes, and which systems and solutions to implement.

The allure of dollars and pounds keeps growing stronger. Since the latest slide in the value of the rand, many small companies are starting to make money overseas, which is good news for local growth. However, some serious obstacles remain.

Business intelligence, described as the art of taking information and making business decisions with it, is maturing. It`s no longer an IT department pet project, but an essential part of organisations` ability to cope in the new economy.

Symantec has announced an online training resource for its channel partners and customers.

While economists argue about whether the dramatic productivity growth figures of the late 1990s were real or not, questions are being asked about the contribution of technology to corporate productivity.

Robocop is a long way off, but meanwhile, IT is taking major strides in combating the South African crime epidemic. Monitoring via CBD video, the Internet and biometrics are some technologies making the business of crime-fighting more effective than ever.

Corporates are re-looking their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems with a view to implementing e-business initiatives. But can today`s ERP vendors ensure these initiatives deliver more value than the original installations did?