6 tech events likely to dominate headlines this week

One of the largest conferences on African ecommerce kicks off tomorrow (Tuesday) at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. The eCommerce Africa Confex runs for two days and will have executives from companies as diverse as Yuppiechef and PayPal talk about the latest developments and trends in what is fast becoming a crowded space. Memeburn will be in attendance and bring you all the latest news from the event so check back for regular updates.

Also on Tuesday entertainment giant Disney will post earnings for its 2015 1^st quarter when gamers get to find out whether the Disney Infinity video game is still a blockbuster and whether new games should be expected. Last year Infinity was responsible for turning around Disney’s interactive division to make it the company’s best performing unit. Will the new rougher-looking Disney toys affect Infinity’s success?

On Wednesday Sony plans to hold a press conference about the financial impact of recent cyber attacks on the company. The company planned to release earnings on Wednesday but said due to the attacks (that gave unprecedented publicity to The Interview among other things) they would not be ready.

Microsoft will celebrate Satya Nadella’s first twelve months as CEO on Wednesday after being named to the position a year ago. If Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer could receive a scrapbook from employees to celebrate her first year, we wonder what Nadella might get.

Twitter reports earnings on Thursday when co-founder Jack Dorsey’s tweetstorm from last week might make more sense outside the constraints of 140 characters. Ever since going public, CEO Dick Costolo has been criticised for not doing more to monetize Twitter’s userbase. The financials will be crucial to investors who are still in two minds about Costolo’s success as CEO.

Finally on Friday expect to hear some interesting arguments for and against a national minimum wage in South Africa. Public hearings will be held in Parliament to determine how viable it will be for companies and government to pay workers more. The decision could have some positive consequences for everyone from forklift to Uber drivers, although companies like Uber are not obliged to pay a minimum wage to drivers.