Our evolution

Developing and investing in new technologies, attracting and retaining the best people, leading markets and competing freely: innovation drives everything we do and has since we started in 1986. This page is a timeline of our history since our formation in 1986.

30 years of innovation...

30 years of innovation...

Datatec history

  • 1986 Datatec established
  • 1994 Listed on the JSE.
  • 1995 PIPEX SA established.

    Established UUNET Internet Africa (Pty) Ltd as joint venture with UUNET Technologies.
  • 1997 Acquired Logical Networks plc – foundation of Integration division.
  • 1998 Acquired US distributor Westcon Inc. – foundation of Technology division.
  • 1999 Acquired Mason Communications – foundation of Consulting division.
  • 2000 Datatec’s 76% stake in UUNET SA (Pty) Ltd sold to WorldCom.
  • 2002 WestconGroup acquired Landis Business Partner expanding its presence in Europe.
  • 2004 Analysys Mason Group formed from the merger of the Mason Group and Analysys Consulting and Research, expanding Datatec’s global footprint in TMT consulting.
  • 2005 Logicalis’ acquisitions enhanced its position as a strategic IBM partner in the US and UK.
  • 2006 Listed on AIM in London.
  • 2007 WestconGroup acquired NOXS and Crane Telecommunications Group Limited, opening up new opportunities in security, convergence and mobility in Europe.
  • 2008 Logicalis merged its existing South American operations with PromonTecnologia, Brazil, making Logicalis the largest network integrator in South America.
  • 2009 WestconGroup signed a global distribution agreement with Cisco.

Industry history

Did you know?
  • 1965: First email sent at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • 1971: Erna Schneider Hoover invent a computerized switching system for telephone traffic and the 8-inch floppy disk removable storage medium for computers is introduced
  • 1975: First list servers are introduced
  • 1976: The personal computer (PC) market is born.
  • 1981: Hayes Smartmodem introduced. Nordic Mobile Telephone, the world´s first automatic mobile phone is put into operation
  • 1983:Microsoft Word software is launched.
  • 1989: Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau build the prototype system which became the World Wide Web at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research
  • 1991: Anders Olsson transmits solitary waves through an optical fibre with a data rate of 32 billion bits per second. GSM is put into operation
  • 1993: Mosaic graphical web browser is launched.
  • 1994: Internet radio broadcasting is born.
  • 1996: Motorola StarTAC mobile phone is introduced. It is significantly smaller than any other cell phones on the market

The world is more connected than ever, but the nature of its connections has changed in a fundamental way. The amount of cross-border bandwidth that is used has grown 45 times larger since 2005. It is projected to increase by an additional nine times over the next five years as flows of information, searches, communication, video, transactions, and intracompany traffic continue to surge. • McKinsey Global Institute 2016

...evolving technology over time

...evolving technology over time
  • 2010 Logicalis acquired NetStar Group, re-entering the Asia-Pacific region. BEE partner, the Mineworkers Investment Company (“MIC”), acquired a stake in Westcon SA.
  • 2011 Datatec celebrated its 25th anniversary.

  • 2012 Datatec Group annual revenue exceeded US$5 billion.

    WestconGroup acquired Afina Group, significantly expanding its presence in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and North Africa.

  • 2013 Logicalis acquired the European operations of 2e2.

    Datatec acquired Comztek Holdings (Pty) Ltd in South Africa and commences merger with Westcon SA in partnership with BEE partner MIC.

  • 2014 Datatec marked 20 years as a listed company on the JSE.

  • 2016 Datatec celebrates 30 years in the ICT industry

    Logicalis makes two acquisitions that not only add scale, but also expand and strengthen the Group’s solutions offering. These include: Advanced Technology Integration Group (“ATIG”) in the US; and Australian ICT services and solutions provider Thomas Duryea.

Industry history

Did you know?
  • 1998:Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin
  • 1999: Salesforce.com pioneers the concept of delivering enterprise applications via a website. The services firm paved the way for both specialist and mainstream software firms to deliver applications over the internet. The term Wi-Fi becomes part of the computing language and becomes accessible to the general public
  • 2002: Amazon Web Services launches a suite of cloud-based services including storage, computation and human intelligence through the Amazon Mechanical Turk.
  • 2004: Facebook is launched and set to become the largest social networking site in the world.
  • 2006: Amazon Web Services launches its Elastic Compute cloud (EC2) as a commercial web service that allows small companies and individuals to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications.
  • 2008: The Internet of Things is born at simply the point in time when more ‘things or objects’ were connected to the internet than people.
  • 2010: The Apple iPad is introduced.
  • 2016: Virtual reality headwear becomes widely available as mainstream consumer electronics.