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Norbain converges, HSS gets more social

By the time you read this Norbain SA will have announced it has a new MD, Jan de Lange. We will be trying to get some time with him and the Norbain Group CEO this month to bring you some insights into the plans and challenges he faces in taking on his new job. Interestingly enough, Jan comes from the IT world where he was the CEO of Westcon’s security division – talk about convergence. (I spoke to the CEO of the Westcon Group recently about its purchase of Sentronics, look out for the report in the next issue.)

And that is not all the news from Norbain SA. Sadly this issue will be out before an official announcement is made so we cannot say anything, but be sure to keep an eye on our website during the month and on the Hi-Tech Security Solutions LinkedIn group for more insight – and why not join the group and take our poll, it is related to the Trends section in this issue. And if you are a tweeter, follow us on @HiTechSecurity_.

And on the topic of convergence, IPVM.com recently posted an article, ‘Convergence bandwagon collapsing’, citing a survey which indicates (according to IPVM), that convergence is not really working. The survey shows that, in the US anyway, IT and security functions and departments are not working together in a warm and fuzzy relationship. One wonders what the state of affairs is in South Africa – do any readers think we need to do a survey on this topic?

If you have a comment, send it to me on andrew@technews.co.za and let us see if it is worth doing some more research into the whole idea. Given the response from the round-table debate held at IP Expo last year, hosted by Hi-Tech Security Solutions and yours truly, it may be worth getting some IT managers to face off against some security or operations managers in a debate. Again, let me know if you think this is a good idea.

We have a report back from last year’s IP Expo in this issue, but what we did not say is that this year’s event will be bigger and better, and earlier. It looks like 29 and 30 August are the days to mark off in your calendar. Among other changes, this year will see a dedicated stream for the security industry.

If you’re on our e-zine list, you will also notice we have revamped the e-zine and from the middle of February we will be sending out two per week. The good news is that we will be sending out only 12 stories in each e-zine in an attempt to lighten your security reading load. Some of those stories will be from the physical magazine, but we will also be including more new stuff that was not able to make it into the print issue.

Of course there will also be regular Twitter updates as well as at updates to our Facebook page (just search for Hi-Tech Security Solutions on Facebook).

We put together a busy first issue to start the year. If you have any comments to make, please feel free to contact me. Also, if you have any ideas you want to send our way, the address is andrew@technews.co.za.

Happy 2012.

Andrew Seldon, Editor

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