The South African Government’s intransigence in dealing with the energy crisis has a spectacular precedent: it’s failure of leadership in telecommunications. Ten years from now, however, no one should have to say “we told you so”. But there are 10 essential demands that have to be met, writes ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK

You don’t have to spend a decade analysing internet connectivity in South Africa to understand that the Government is the one organisation that does not have the strategic ability to connect South Africans.

Yet, the policy of the Government has been to have a stake in all entities that supply connectivity. The Minister of Communications has insisted that Government also have a share of any new undersea cables designed to deliver additional telecommunications capacity to South Africa. And, despite all the evidence that points to it being a bad move, other Government departments, too, are joining the rush for control of such capacity.

The result? Instead of having three or four global suppliers at the beginning of 2008, as had been the prospect as recently as a year ago, we will still have only the SAT3/SAFE cable, which is still controlled by Telkom.

However, the undersea cables represent only one aspect of the great disconnect in South Africa.

The following is a priority list of 10 essential demands for the health of telecommunications and internet connectivity in South Africa. In collaboration with colleagues and associates, helped along by participants in public debates at numerous conferences, the list has evolved over time, and will keep evolving. Keep reading →

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Posted in the category: Insight, Strategy, Technology

In real estate, you will have heard, there are only three rules: location, location and location.

In the emerging industry of mobile commerce, we hear the same argument. Much is made of the potential of location-based services (or LBS, in its inevitable acronymisation). The most profitable models for the delivery of mobile commerce services, say the experts, will be based on where users find themselves. Ergo, the most successful services should be the likes of:
Traveller services - business travellers wanting information on the destination where they’ve just arrived;

Entertainment information - users going out to movies or a meal wanting information on what is in the area where they find themselves;

Route information - directions on getting where you want to go from where you are;

Emergency services - alerting rescue, medical or police services on the location of someone in distress (for more examples, See IBM’s vision of LBS).

Aside from the last - which is more usually the province of public authorities rather than of commercial services - the problem with this vision is that much of it doesn’t make sense. Oh yes, it makes perfect sense from a technological perspective. This is what the technology can do, so why shouldn’t it be part of the promise?

Even academics are arguing that mobile commerce is dependent on Location on the one hand, and on Time on the other. In short, where users are, and when they are there.

But it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Keep reading →

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Posted in the category: Strategy, Technology, Trends

Technology brings jobs and financial stability, Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, told a session of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Discussing emerging technology and its impact on his country and the African continent, President Kagame spoke of his desire for Rwanda to prosper through technology.

He was speaking on the inaugural CES Industry Insider program on Technology and Emerging Countries at the Consumer Electronics Show. The program also featured Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child project (OLPC) and the MIT Media Lab.

In his opening keynote address for the program, Negroponte explained OLPC’s goal of eliminating poverty in third-world countries through education. He declared that, since most of the nearly two-billion children in developing countries are poorly educated, “We must restore, introduce and create the passion for learning in children.” Keep reading →

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Posted in the category: Insight, News, Technology, Trends

Commercial WiFi hotspots face a dim future in South Africa – at least among corporate workers on the move, a new research study reveals.

Mobility 2007, the latest edition of World Wide Worx’s annual study of mobile technology, released this week, shows that the corporate use of WiFi – small networks that allow wireless access to the Internet - has fallen back after a steady rise in the previous three years. By contrast, the use of 3G – wireless broadband provided by the mobile networks – has rocketed.

World Wide Worx had been warning for several years that commercial WiFi hotspots, especially in hotels and conference centres, were in danger of pricing themselves out of the market. And, now that a monthly subscription to a basic 3G service is cheaper than a few hours on most commercial hotspots, the chickens have come home to roost.



Keep reading →

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Posted in the category: News, Technology

The Art of War, written more than 2000 years ago, has become a standard textbook for any executive wanting to learn the basics of strategy.

The principles of waging war laid out by the military philosopher Sun Tzu seem fairly relevant, especially when he deals with issues like understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your own troops and those of the enemy. This can even be intoxicating for the strategy junkie, who thrills at the parallels to be found between the ancient Chinese battlefield and the corporate boardroom.

The problem is that most people don’t get the connection.

Not because they are too dense to deduce what AOL and Time-Warner or Microsoft and Facebook could have learned from the alliance between the soldiers of Wu and Yueh, but because they find that there are far more relevant lessons to be learned from modern thinkers and strategists. Not to mention from the business successes and failures of the 21st century. Keep reading →

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Posted in the category: Insight, Strategy