Is Telkom bleeding to death?

So what's up at Telkom? It seems not even a tourniquet can stop the haemorrhaging of skills at the fixed-line monopoly. At this rate, the company will be in need of a serious blood transfusion.

It emerged on Friday morning that yet another senior executive has jumped ship. Steven Hayward, managing executive of retail, left the company at the beginning of this month. Curiously, this latest resignation has been kept very hush-hush. No official announcement was made, and no one seems to know, or say, where and why Hayward has gone.

If Telkom is in need of a transfusion, the State IT Agency is beginning to look a little anaemic itself.

Martin Czernowalow, News editor

Starting with CEO Papi Molotsane, who unexpectedly quit in April, this is the sixth heavy-weight resignation in just three months. The others were chief sales and marketing officer Wally Beelders, CTO Thami Msimango, non-executive director Lazarus Zim, and chief of corporate affairs Mandla Ncqobo.

In addition, a handful of other executives left for subsidiaries and newly-acquired operations.

Telkom must surely be concerned. And this has to be the reason why the latest resignation is being kept so quiet. Rumour has it the whole thing is being handled at senior management level and not even the whole of Telkom has been informed.

We could soon see the telecoms giant scrambling to replace skills, but this may be easier said than done.

On that note, if Telkom is in need of a transfusion, the State IT Agency (SITA) is beginning to look a little anaemic itself.

The agency suffered another blow this week, with the announcement that its chief of strategic service, Jonas Bogoshi, is leaving to head up GijimaAST. This, of course, follows closely the resignation of CEO Mavuso Msimang, who took up the position of director-general of Home Affairs last month.

These high-level resignations must certainly sting, as Bogoshi and Msimang were arguably two of the best minds at SITA. This no doubt widens the skills dearth already experienced by the organisation. Earlier this year, it emerged that more than 10% of SITA's positions are vacant, and the agency announced plans to bolster its recruitment strategy.

Judging by the speed and efficiency with which SITA appointed an acting CEO to replace Msimang - who incidentally made his intentions clear about eight months before leaving - I would guess that its strategy needs a bit more fine-tuning.

Earlier this week, ITWeb reported that the Development Bank of Southern Africa has "tentatively" set aside $40 million for projects participants in the East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy).

The long-awaited project is finally expected to see some movement, as construction is set to begin within the next few weeks.

In contrast to its parent company, Telkom Media is pushing hard to increase its human resources. On Tuesday, Telkom Media's recently-appointed CEO, Mandla Ncgobo (he who left Telkom), announced that Johnnic Communications executive Connie Molusi has been appointed chairman.

Telkom Media's recent skills-rape-and-plunder campaign also netted Setumo Mohapi, who took up the position of CTO last month, and Jimi Matthews as head of Telkom Media's newsroom. Matthews was previously head of e.tv and SABC TV news.

Spokesman Chris van Zyl says IPTV is a new field and the people who join Telkom Media do so because it is at the cutting-edge of media developments. I suppose the pay is not too shabby either.

Second national operator Neotel said this week that it will be rolling out a fixed-line WiMax network by year-end. Executive head of strategy Angus Hay said the company will not be looking at the mobile 802.16e WiMax standard, which some market players have mooted as the next de facto technology for WiMax.

Motorola previously said it would be a "no-brainer" that any greenfield project in SA would adopt the new-generation WiMax standard, which offers full mobility. Clearly, Hay disagrees, saying: "Neotel will adopt the latest appropriate standard at the time."

This is unfortunate, I suppose, in light of Motorola's bid for the Neotel WiMax project and its belief that its ability to bring the mobile standard to SA would be an advantage.

Maybe we can finally get some clarity on 2010 and where things stand - at least from a technology perspective. On Thursday, ITWeb revealed that SA could soon finalise its technology budget for the World Cup, as FIFA has handed over an annexure to the initial technology guarantees it requires for the event.

The annexure was handed over last month, so we now have to wait and see what government announces. To date, the state has been rather tight-lipped about figures, or anything else regarding 2010, for that matter.

A figure of R5 billion has been bandied about as the total for the 2010 technology requirements, but this is mainly speculation.