Wessie van der Westhuizen has re-emerged in Altech after the Econet Wireless debacle. He oversees, among others, exciting Durban-based outfit UEC IT`S BEEN an eventful few months for Wessie van der Westhuizen at the centre of a row between Nigeria`s Econet Wireless and Altech. The ill-fated JV between the companies is now history, as are the headlines that came in its wake.

The happy outcome of all that, he says, is that Altech made R155 million profit on an investment of R410 million in seven months. As for any possible ongoing acrimony, EW withdrew all allegations it made in this soap opera, and the companies settled after "three or four times" of to-ing and fro-ing.

SA EXPERTISE

But none of this is what is interesting about Van der Westhuizen and UEC - which built DStv`s PVR and forms part of Van der Westhuizen`s brief at Altech (group exec of IT and Multimedia, and chief strategic officer, since last month).

Himself a pretty interesting guy, Van der Westhuizen handled the defence portfolio at Reunert until 1998. Subsequently, but before Altech sold its share in Alcatel Altech Telecoms (as the local Alcatel operation was then called) back to Alcatel, he was acting MD. After that, he was the group exec, business development, at Altech, and then came Econet. Quite a CV.

UEC, however, is the real star of the MultiChoice show in past weeks. When the company sprang a personal video recorder on the market recently, it sold 30 000 units to MultiChoice.

While billed world-leading technology by Van der Westhuizen, this is true only for the satellite world (as opposed to cable). In the satellite market, UEC is all over Africa, and has made "significant inroads" into Australia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, but is finding the US market a cable stronghold.

PVR OR VOD?

PVRs are often thought of as video-on-demand set top boxes, but the differences, reports In-Stat, are clear. VOD streams video from a central server, whereas the PVR variety does most of its work locally, on a hard drive.

The PVR on the local scene is intriguing, to say the least. It stands at the centre of the convergence of lifestyle technologies, broadband communications and computing, and the possibilities are exciting.

To begin with, a 250 GB hard drive allows an estimated 60 hours of recorded video, depending on the format. It is multi-active, meaning viewers can download and watch at the same time.

But more will follow in future. It has USB ports, front and back, promising more add-on functionality. The activation card will allow for programming preferences, to be slotted into other decoders.

"It`s basically up to the network service provider," says Van der Westhuizen. "They can take it to the next level, whether it means activating greater interactivity, cutting out ads, whatever."

LOCAL SECRETS

Original equipment manufacturing, South African style, means buying almost all the parts and stitching them together. Whereas UEC buys all its components, it takes this one step further, populating the entire PC board (which it buys). Most of the firm`s intellectual property lies in its encryption technologies and the layout of receivers, hence the focus on controlling its trade secrets locally.

As regards reliability, Van der Westhuizen cites the usual ISO certifications, but makes the additional point that failure rates must be comparable with the best, or UEC wouldn`t be able to compete globally.

Point taken.