Microsoft enjoyed pride of place at GovTech 2025. (Photo: Lindsey Schutters) 
The thing about enterprise computing in South Africa right now: the technology is moving faster than most of us can keep up with. AI PCs, zero-trust security models, and chip-level protections are reshaping the market just as businesses face the unavoidable end-of-life of Windows 10 in October.
The world is changing
South Africa’s Information and Communication Technology market is projected to hit nearly R700-billion in 2025, with personal computers growing at close to 9% annually. The drivers are familiar: digital transformation at a breakneck 31% annual adoption rate, more cloud utilisation thanks to hyperscaler investments in local data centres, and 5G connectivity that should cover nearly half the population this year.
But there are constraints unique to this market. Load shedding makes all-day battery life a survival feature, not a luxury. The shortage of more than 28,000 high-end developer and cybersecurity roles means user-friendly ecosystems with strong vendor support are prized over bleeding-edge tinkering.
And then there’s the Windows 10 cliff: the end of security updates compels a massive refresh cycle, forcing CIOs and CFOs to decide whether to spend big on AI-ready laptops or eke out another year on creaky hardware.
Turning AI from hype into utility
Ravi Bhat, chief solutions and AI transformation officer for Microsoft Africa, doesn’t want to talk about AI as a buzzword.
“The main thing which we are talking about today is how does hype become utility?” he says. Too often, AI pilots are siloed to individual productivity rather than organisational impact. Microsoft’s answer is the AI Transformation Accelerator, a framework that helps enterprises identify high-value use cases, build governance foundations, and scale AI into what he calls a “Gen AI factory”.
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And crucially, he advises against reinventing the wheel.
“When you use commercially available assets you don’t waste money because we’ve already spent that money doing all the testing. All you need to do is use it.” That means Copilot and Azure-native tools first, bespoke solutions later.
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The great American big tech was the main sponsor of GovTech 2025 and, judging by the volume of Windows laptops in the conference halls, the AI PC dream has already been sold to the government.
Microsoft South Africa’s public sector director, Lerato Mathabatha, positioned Microsoft as a key collaborator with the South African government in its digital transformation journey, expressing Redmond’s satisfaction by saying that “we are happy to be collaborating once again with the government with Sita (State Information Technology Agency) in this way” during her GovTech keynote speech.
The trenches of IT support
Microsoft is in partnership with the National School of Government to train thousands of public servants on Microsoft’s AI curriculum and working with entities like the SA Revenue Service to use AI and data to improve efficiency. There’s also the investment in local data centres that further supports the government in “building sovereign AI capabilities while meeting local compliance standards”.
On the ground, though, digital transformation looks less like an AI factory and more like a messy human-machine relationship.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1000116255.jpg "Microsoft South Africa’s public sector director, Lerato Mathabatha, delivered a longer keynote than the ministers at GovTech 2025. (Photo: Lindsey Schutters)")
Manqoba Masina, operations manager at Nkgwete IT Solutions, says IT support has evolved from reactive “break-fix” work to something much more people focused.
“It’s extremely important for us to be mindful of the fact that this instrument called a computer is being used by a human being,” he said.
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Windows remains dominant not just because of licensing deals, but because people know it.
“We lean more towards the Microsoft products… because of how reliable they are… and the cost factor makes it something that can be consumed by a lot of people.” He added that: “Windows 11 is incredibly stable,” with a noticeable drop in tickets logged after upgrades.
But stability is not immunity.
“We need to be mindful of the fact that there are people whose job it is to hack computers,” Masina warned. His prescription: a lightweight but effective endpoint detection and response (EDR) system, so security doesn’t grind productivity to a halt.
The BYOD headache
Masina calls bring your own device (BYOD) policies a “nightmare” for IT because older personal devices are often out of warranty, unmanaged, or simply too dated to run enterprise apps securely. When a 2015 motherboard gives up the ghost, it’s a painful conversation with an employee who just wants to keep working. To keep productivity going, his team keeps loaner units handy.
The new KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025 highlights that up to 80% of employees in Africa use personal devices for work, with broader studies finding 70% of these devices are unmanaged — a critical blind spot for many organisations.
In addition, many employees may have a false sense of security about their phone or laptop, especially since almost half of Gen Z respondents (48%) take cybersecurity protection on their personal devices more seriously than on their work devices, according to an Ernst & Young survey in the US.
“Just because it’s my device doesn’t mean it’s secure for sensitive work data,” stresses Anna Collard from KnowBe4 Africa. “A weak BYOD policy opens the door to data leaks, shadow IT and insider risk.”
For IT managers already balancing security compliance, bandwidth, and support tickets, BYOD adds unpredictable costs. It’s a reminder that the enterprise computing market is not just about devices; it’s about policies, people, and expectations.
Five things to know about device security
- Security is shifting into hardware. Both Microsoft and Apple are embedding security directly into their silicon (Pluton in Windows devices, Secure Enclave on Macs). This makes physical tampering much harder and strengthens the foundation for enterprise security.
- Zero trust is now the baseline. Whether it’s Microsoft’s “assume nothing, verify everything” or Apple’s hardware-rooted identity checks, zero trust models are increasingly built into the operating system and device management tools by default.
- Firmware matters more than ever. Attackers are targeting the low-level code that runs beneath your OS. Vendors are rewriting firmware in safer languages (like RUST) and pushing rapid updates — that’s why Windows 10 doesn’t cut it anymore.
- Cloud-powered management is standard. Remote provisioning and control are no longer “nice-to-haves”. Windows Autopilot, Intune, Apple Business Manager and Mobile Device Management platforms all allow zero-touch deployment and remote lockdown of compromised hardware.
- User experience is part of security. Apple’s Macs are gaining traction in enterprise because they require less support and employees rate them highly, while Windows PCs remain dominant due to cost and ecosystem compatibility. It’s a balancing act: familiarity, support overheads and employee choice are as much a security decision as a budget one.
Cost versus culture
Globally, Apple has been gaining share. In 2024, MacBooks accounted for around 9% of the global laptop market, growing faster than Dell, thanks in part to “employee choice” programmes. The argument for macOS is usually total cost of ownership (TCO): lower IT support costs, longer device life, extended uptime (long battery life) and higher user satisfaction.
In South Africa, however, Windows still dominates. The ecosystem effect of lower entry price and familiarity (you probably did computer literacy on a PC) makes it hard to justify a wholesale switch. Support costs for Linux desktops are even higher, with talent scarce and salaries 20% above Windows equivalents.
But where companies do offer MacBooks, it’s usually to attract and retain younger, tech-savvy employees who are more comfortable in a mixed-fleet environment. That creates its own complexity for IT support but speaks to the cultural cachet of Apple in enterprise.
Why chip-to-cloud matters
This is where Bhat’s enthusiasm for chip-to-cloud protection comes in. Microsoft’s approach with Surface devices is a direct competitor to the MacBook with long battery life now finally available thanks to Qualcomm processors and the latest chips from AMD and even Intel’s Lunar Lake.
Then there’s also all-metal design and zero trust security: assume nothing is safe, verify everything and build protections into every layer.
It starts with silicon. The Pluton security processor, built directly into the CPU, provides a hardware root of trust that’s far harder to tamper with than traditional TPM chips — which are the base level requirement to power Windows 11. From there, Microsoft controls the firmware (now being rewritten in RUST for memory safety), the operating system and the cloud stack.
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That control lets IT managers remotely disable cameras or USB ports at the firmware level, or ship laptops straight to employees that configure themselves securely on first boot.
The results speak for themselves: organisations using Surface devices with chip-to-cloud security report 34% fewer incidents and 23% lower third-party security costs, and those are numbers that matter.
The global context
South Africa’s refresh cycle doesn’t happen in a vacuum. According to the Global Laptop Trade Report 2025, worldwide laptop imports hit R2-trillion in 2024, with exports at around the same highs in a record year driven largely by Windows 10’s impending end-of-support and a surge of AI-capable devices.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1000116274.jpg "Microsoft Surface gained battery endurance parity with M-series MacBooks when they opted for Qualcomm silicon. Compatibility issues still creep up, though. (Photo: Supplied)")
China still produces nearly 80% of laptops, but supply chains are shifting to Vietnam, Thailand and India. Vietnam alone exported more than R300-billion worth of laptops in 2024, cementing its role as a rising tech hub.
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Global brands like Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Apple dominate, but Microsoft’s Surface line has carved out a niche, exporting about R80-billion worth of devices annually.
For South Africa, which imports nearly all its laptops, these global trade dynamics translate into pricing volatility, especially when tariffs and currency swings collide. It’s why IT managers here often plan procurement cycles cautiously, timing big refreshes around both exchange rates and global stock surges.
What IT managers want
Simplicity. Stability. Support. That’s the recurring theme. As one IT manager put it: “IT knows how to manage Microsoft stuff.” In a world of skills gaps and constant cyber threats, familiar ecosystems, strong vendor agreements and built-in security aren’t just nice-to-haves, they’re survival tools.
Which is why chip-to-cloud and Zero Trust aren’t just buzzwords. They’re shields in an increasingly hostile digital landscape, and they’re becoming table stakes for enterprise IT in South Africa. DM