TechCentral TechCentral (main feed)

TCS Legends | Ivan Epstein on building and selling Softline

Loading player...
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.
6 May 2024 English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

TCS+ | How AI is turning hardware into a subscription service

For most of business history, buying technology meant owning it. Capital was set aside, servers and laptops were hauled into the building alongside the software licences, and the business then sweated those assets for as long as it practically could. In the age of AI, that logic is starting to…
6 Aug 19 min

TCS+ | iStore Business on why Apple makes sense for SMEs

For small and medium enterprises, technology must do one thing above all else: get out of the way. Unlike large corporations with dedicated IT departments, SMEs run lean – and every hour spent wrestling with systems is an hour not spent on the business itself. In this episode of TechCentral’s…
30 Jul 37 min

TCS | Icasa's rules skip the real bottleneck: ACT

Communications regulator Icasa’s draft rapid deployment regulations – a critical intervention for the sector – risk failing unless the regulator brings municipalities into the process, according to Nomvuyiso Batyi, CEO of the Association of Comms & Technology (ACT). Speaking on the TechCentral Show with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Batyi said…
30 Jul 29 min

TCS+ | A smarter approach to cloud for South African businesses

South African businesses are spending millions on cloud – and many have very little to show for it. That is the uncomfortable starting point for this episode of TCS+, in which Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to Joel Chacko, executive head of department for cloud services at Vodacom Business, and Jonathan Oaker,…
28 Jul 21 min

TCS | How Optasia lends billions to people banks can’t see

Optasia is on target to distribute more than US$6-billion in credit across its markets in 2026 – and it carries every cent of the default risk itself. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, CEO Salvador Anglada unpacks how the JSE’s biggest recent fintech listing actually works. Formerly known as…
23 Jul 25 min
All episodes