CIO East Africa Magazine February 2012 by CIO East Africa

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ITIL V3 Training - 2012 The ITIL Impact ITIL means changing the way the business does IT, so that IT services are developed and delivered in a way that is business focused and value driven. ITIL may require investment in people and tools, but more importantly it requires a service culture that should be introduced carefully and thoughtfully with support from senior management.

• improved IT services • reduced costs • improved customer satisfaction through a more professional approach to service delivery • improved productivity • improved use of skills and experience • improved delivery of third party service.

ITIL Foundation: Feb 15-17, 2012 Kenya, Nairobi ITIL Foundation: March14-16, 2012 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania ITIL Intermediate - Service Operation: April 10 – 13, 2012, Kenya, Nairobi

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Cover Story

Trend Analysis By Dennis mbuvi E A S T

A F R I C A

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR COPY EDITOR TECHNICAL STAFF WRITERS EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS COLUMNISTS

HEAD OF SALES & MARKETING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER ACCOUNT MANAGER CREATIVE LAYOUT & DESIGN

Harry Hare Gareth Dennis Mbuvi Peter Nalika Rebecca Wanjiku Michael Malakata Bobby Yawe Sam Mwangi James Wire Lunghabo Ruth Kang’ong’oi Bitange Ndemo Andrew Karanja Nicholle Myles Ruth Kang’ong’oi Oscar Amuyunzu Marisa Kraft

ome IT trends move fast—very fast. BYOD, the “bring your own device“ phenomenon that raised its head in late 2009, is one of them. Like the Internet and email, it caught on with users faster

than IT and corporate risk management expected. In 2010, businesses were asking the question “Who should own your smartphones?” Today, that question is moot; more than half of companies let employees use their own smartphones at work, along with tablets. It is amazing how quickly BYOD became mainstream, taking only about 18 months.

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Disclaimer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The content of CIO East Africa is protected by copyright law, full details of which are available from the publisher. While great care has been taken in the receipt and handling of material, production and accuracy of content in this magazine, the publisher will not accept any responsility for any errors, loss or ommisions which may occur. ©CIO East Africa 2011

FROM US

4 From the Publisher 2

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48 Last Word BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

CONTENTS CONTENTS February 2012

From The Publisher 4 Government Online Underbelly Exposed

In Brief 7 AccessKenya completes data centre upgrade

Top Stories

New Products

Kenya ICT Board kicks oﬀ business plan training at Strathmore iPhone 4s sells today at Orange Kenya retail shops

Trendlines 8 Google Admits to Kenyan Data Scraping Allegations

OLPC’s XO-3 Tablet to Debut at CES, Coming to Tanzania Gartner Lowers 2012 IT Spending Forecast to 3.7 Per Cent Growth Huawei Brand Breaking into African Markets Aiming at a Cashless Mobile Economy

Trend Analysis 22 Analytics for Accurate Decision Making Al Jazeera Goes Crowdsourcing for News Collection

Cover Story 26 BYOD: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet Pros and Cons of BYOD

Calendars 31 Editorial and Events Calendar

Product Review 33 Cyberoam’s NetGenie

DStv Walka, Mobile TV

Opinion

Embrace the Change and Be Flexible Is There a Gap Between Industry and Academia? MBWA is Critical if IT is to Add Value Time to Change Gears towards technology diﬀusion and Innovation

Business Tips 42

23 e Se

g Pa

Five LinkedIn Tips for Career Success in 2012

Last Word

The Cloudy Cloud

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

From The Publisher By Harry Hare

Ignore Cyber Crime at your own Peril In the course of duty, we have seen hacking incidents take place; not one or two, but many. Hardly a day passes before we hear of another website being down as a result of a cyber attack incident. But we have not seen a cyber attack of the magnitude that we witnessed on 16 January 2012. This was massive. A total of 103 Government websites were hacked and defaced overnight; this was yet another record Kenya set, and its size was unprecedented. The details of the hack were all over the news; CIO East Africa was the fi rst to break the news on this and it spread like wildfi re. Many theories have been put forward and information security experts are angry with the Government for allowing some script kiddie to open up almost the whole of Government the way Direxer, the Indonesian hacker did. By his own admission, Direxer is a script kiddie. He said that he used tutorials from an Indonesian security forum, Code Security, to take down the 103 Government sites. This doesn’t sound like he belongs to the elite of hackdom. He tested his newly acquired knowledge and managed to embarrass, among others, the ministries of Finance, Education, Public Health, Youth Affairs, National Heritage and Roads, as well as sensitive departments such as Administration Police, Immigration and Prisons. So, what can we learn from this incident? This was a wake-up call: cyber crime is real and as much as the recent hacking may not have had a massive negative impact, it underpins the fact that our systems are vulnerable and need to be fi xed. It appears to me that our advancement in cyber security has failed to keep pace with the rapid adoption and use of technology, leaving us exposed to cyber crime.

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It is my considered view that the Government needs to move swiftly to develop a cyber security strategy that will tackle the great danger of cyber attacks to promote economic growth and protect the country’s security and way of life. The Ministry of Information and Communication has an audacious goal of IT and IT Enabled Services contributing 5 per cent of the country’s GDP in the next 5 years; the catalogue of e-services from government is growing and so is private sector’s move to business online. All these initiatives will be enabled by the Internet. To support this, online crime including intellectual property theft must be combated with all means available. There must be clear steps to achieve the envisaged growth, by tackling cyber crime and bolstering our defenses, to ensure that confidence in the Internet as a way of communicating and transacting remains. I think its time “Operation Linda Inchi” moves online. And for the private sector, ignore cyber crime at your own peril. In this edition, get up to speed with what every CIO is spending sleepless nights trying to fi gure out: Bring Your Own Device ( BYOD), a smaller subset of IT consumerization. We have given you tips on how to approach this new computing trend and also shared some of the things you need to look out for. This is on page 28. LinkedIn is emerging to be the de facto professional social network; with more than 100 million users worldwide, chances are you are part of this network. But do you know how to use it? Apparently, 80 per cent of people reportedly don’t know how to use LinkedIn properly, so get some tips to boost your career on page 46. Plus of course we have all our regular columns. Enjoy your magazine. Harry Hare EDITORIAL DIRECTOR harry.hare@cio.co.ke

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

New Products

r By Melissa J. Perenson

Top Five Tablets of CES We boil down the tablet flood at CES to just the best.

t the recently concluded Consumer Electronic Show (CES) we spotted hordes of tablets this year, but only a few knocked our socks off with impressive specs, great value, and innovations that rival Apple’s leading iPad 2. Instead of giving you the tablet laundry list of every single slate shown at CES (and there were many) we are going to get right to the point. Asus, Acer, Samsung, and Toshiba impressed us the most with their tablets. The common themes that set them apart were higher-resolution displays, support for the mobile Android OS Ice Cream Sandwich, chassis stressing thinner and lighter designs, and reasonable prices to boot. Here is our roundup of the best tablets of CES.

Acer Iconia Tab A700 The A700 boasted a clear 1920-by-1200 10.1-inch display. It’s powered by a quad-core 1.3-GHz Nvidia Tegra 3, on 1GB of memory. It also has minimal air gap between the display and the glass, which helps mitigate the glare tremendously. The display also has an anti-glare coating, and it uses technology similar to that of an IPS display.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 on Verizon In the second of Samsung’s big mobile announcements at the CES, the company said it would soon ship the Galaxy Tab 7.7. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 is being billed as the thinnest and lightest of Samsung’s tablet line, which of course includes the popular Galaxy Tab 10.1. This tweener-sized device is the fi rst tablet with a 7.7 inch Super AMOLED Plus display at a 1280-by-800-pixel resolution. Super AMOLED Plus’ benefits include high brightness, which may help reading in bright environments, and vibrant colors.

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

28-30 November 2011

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New Products

Asus Eee Pad MeMo Me370T Inexpensive, lightweight tablets that don’t require big sacrifices to be useful remain the holy grail. That’s why Asus’ second CES launch, the Eee Pad MeMo ME370T, is so noteworthy. Asus says it will cost just US$250 when it ships in the second quarter -- with nothing less than Nvidia’s Tegra 3, an 1280-by-800 resolution and 16GB and 32GB storage options.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Asus tops the Transformer Prime TF201 -- its current stylish ace -- with the Transformer Prime TF700T by upping the display to 1920-by-1200 pixels. Images looked outstanding on a demo unit. Due out in the second quarter of 2012, the device boasts NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chip. Pricing starts at US$599 for the 32GB version, and $699 for the 64GB version.

Toshiba Excite X10 This 10.1-inch tablet distinguishes itself as the only model that can be called both the thinnest and lightest: It measures just 0.3-inches thick and weighs 1.18 pounds. It has a Texas Instruments 1.2-GHz OMAP 4430 multicore processor, 1GB of memory, and a 1280-by-800 resolution IPS display. The display looked good, with a minimal air-gap and a wide viewing angle; but text and graphics weren’t as sharp as on the higher-resolution displays. Toshiba hopes to be able to ship the tablet in the middle of the fi rst quarter with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Toshiba says it will cost US $530 for the 16GB model and $600 for the 32GB version.

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

IN BRIEF The full articles are available on the CIO East Africa Web site (www.cio. o.co.ke)

AROUND AFRICA

AccessKenya completes data centre upgrade

AccessKenya Group announced the completion of a system upgrade of their data centre that had been underway since late 2009. The upgrade, which cost over KSh 30 million, has seen the installation of an advanced under-floor cooling system aimed at enhancing temperature control in within the data centre. Announcing the completion, AccessKenya Group CEO Jonathan Somen said the upgrade is part of a progressive plan to optimize functions and expand capacity of the data centre even as the company continues to develop innovative IT services and unified communication solutions for its clientele. ‘We have invested heavily in building the right infrastructure so that we can incessantly support the critical services on our network and give our customers a better experience,” said Somen.

Kenya ICT Board kicks off business plan training at Strathmore Business strategy training for the Tandaa Digital Content Grant shortlisted applicants is underway at Strathmore University. The training, which runs in batches from January 23 - February 3, 2012, seeks to impart business knowledge to shortlisted candidates from last year’s Tandaa Digital Content Grant Call for Proposals. Understanding how to write a business plan, price products and develop a market penetration plan are some of the important business strategies that all entrepreneurs must understand. But for many founders of start-up companies in Kenya, opportunities to take courses to learn business strategy are few and far between. Time constraints for busy business owners and the high cost of quality business courses hinder many new entrepreneurs from taking such classes. But the value is undeniable, as participants at the Business Plan training sponsored by the Kenya ICT Board discovered.

iPhone 4s now is officially in East Africa Integrated telecommunications services provider Orange has launched the iPhone 4S into the Kenyan market. Speaking during the launch of the high end device at the company’s flagship shop – Orange Mega in Nairobi, Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Angela Ng’ang’a-Mumo said that the launch was consistent with the company’s brand promise of providing innovative product and services, that are relevant to its market segments and add to the value proposition of its customers. “Orange is focused on delivering value for the discerning smart phone user enabling easy access to their social and office lives wherever they are. The Apple iPhone range, continues to offer excellent variety and versatility that enables customers to embrace the advantages and opportunities offered by an increasingly evolving digital world.” said Ms. Mumo.

AROUND THE WORLD Apple shines in first full quarter under CEO Tim Cook Apple more than doubled its profits last quarter thanks to brisk sales of its iPad and iPhones over the holiday season. Apple made a profit of US$13.06 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, the first in its fiscal year. That compared to $6 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, Apple announced Tuesday. Its earnings per share were $13.87, blowing past the analyst estimate of $10.10 per share, according to Thomson Reuters. Revenue was $46 billion, compared to the analyst estimate of $39 billion. “We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. Apple was reporting results for its first full quarter under Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in late August.

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SAP confident of crossing $26 billion in revenue by 2015 SAP said that it had exceeded its guidance for revenue and profit in 2011, its best year in its 40-year history, and was positioned to exceed its revenue target of €20 billion (US$26 billion) in 2015. The company said it expects full-year 2012 non-IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) software and software-related service revenue to grow in the range of 10 to 12 percent at constant currencies, with its proposed acquisition of SuccessFactors contributing up to two percentage points. SAP said it had significant momentum going into 2012. The $3.4 billion acquisition of SuccessFactors, announced in December, will bring to SAP a range of cloud-based human resources software as well as expertise in the cloud market. The company expects to close the transaction in the first quarter.

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trendlines By Sophie Curtis

Google Admits to Kenyan Data Scraping Allegations

Nelson Mattos Mattos,, Google’s Vice President for Product and Engineering, Europe and Emerging Markets

Stefan Magdalinski, Chief Executive Oﬃcer, Mocality

Google has been trying to poach customers from Kenyan business listings startup Mocality

oogle has admitted that some of its employees fraudulently gained access to the servers of a Kenyan business directory and tried to poach its customers.

relationship with Mocality, claiming that the two companies are working in concert, and on one occasion falsely claiming that Mocality charges to list businesses.

The US search giant said it was “mortified” to discover that staff working on its Getting Kenyan Businesses Online (GKBO) project—an initiative to give small businesses free websites for 1 year—have been routinely accessing the database of rival Kenyan business directory startup Mocality to obtain sales leads since October.

“We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites”, said Nelson Mattos, Google’s Vice President for product and engineering in Europe and emerging markets, in a statement on Google Plus.

The matter fi rst came to light in a blog post published on Friday by Stefan Magdalinski, chief executive of Mocality, who accused Google of “systematically accessing Mocality’s database and attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners”. Furthermore, the operatives have allegedly been “telling untruths” about Google’s

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“We’ve already unreservedly apologized to Mocality. We’re still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we’ll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved”, he added. It is not yet known whether the people involved are Google employees or contractors working on the company’s

behalf. Mocality made the discovery after receiving a number of calls from businesses listed on its site asking for help with their websites: a service Mocality does not provide. Through analysis of its server logs, Mocality found that a single IP/user-agent combination had accessed all the businesses in question shortly before the calls were made. Mocality set up a “sting” operation to try and fi nd out who was collecting the data. It replaced some of the telephone numbers on its business directory with fake contact details, redirecting the visitor to its own call center where the incoming calls were recorded. “When we listened to the calls, we were beyond astonished”, said Magdalinski. “You can clearly hear Douglas (the operative) identify himself as a Google Kenya employee, state, and then reaffi rm, that

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trendlines

Trendlines By Dennis mbuvi

APC: Buy from original channel

GKBO is working in collaboration with Mocality, and that we are helping them with GKBO, before trying to offer the business owner a website (and upsell them a domain name)”. Having collected all the evidence, Mocality was ready to go public with its discovery, when accesses from the Google IP address abruptly stopped on 23 December. Magdalinski reasoned that someone had realized Mocality was onto them. However, further analysis found that a different IP address coming directly from Google’s network had started accessing the business listings. Mocality ran the same “sting” trick again, and received a call from Google India, once again offering to set up a website. This led Mocality to the conclusion that the GKBO operation had been outsourced to India. “When we started this investigation, I thought that we’d catch a rogue call center employee, point out to Google that they were violating our terms and conditions, someone would get a slap on the wrist, and life would continue”, said Magdalinski. “I did not expect to fi nd a human-powered, systematic, months-long, fraudulent attempt to undermine our business being perpetrated from call centers on two continents”.

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

Trendlines By Dennis mbuvi

Intel Unveils latest Intel Classmate PC

ntel Corporation has unveiled the latest Intel classmate PCs That will be powered by the new Intel® Atom™ processors. They have been updated with new designs that boast new, enhanced applications. The classmate PCs offer an enhanced user experience, increased ruggedness, improved battery life and are more affordable. The increased battery life means students may be able to work up to 10 hours on a single charge. The improved ruggedness stems from such features as strengthened corners for shock and vibration absorption, and a keyboard that can withstand prying fi ngers and improved water resistance. “To succeed in today’s global economy, students need to develop 21st century skills like problem solving, critical thinking and

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collaboration”, said Danie Steyn, General Manager, Intel East Africa. “Technology solutions that are purpose-built for education, plays a key role in supporting the development of these skills and we look forward to further enriching the education experience with the roll out of our new platforms”, said Mr Steyn. The new multitouch and premium writing experiences, in conjunction with palm rejection technology, enable students to write directly on screen. The textured touchscreen, special stylus and handwriting recognition software create a “write on paper” experience. The built-in camera, photo view, media player, and drawing appl icat ions resourcefully allow students to create and experience multimedia learning content.

The comprehensive classroom-ready features and capabilities include LabCam, a touch-optimized application consisting of six easy-to-use scientific inquiry tools leveraging the camera in different ways, allowing students to analyze the visual data present in their photos and videos. McAfee AntiVirus has been added for proactive protection to keep users’ digital lives more secure, and platform management has been updated for increased scalability, flexibility and manageability. Enhancements include classroom management, theft deterrence and webcam companion for media capture and management, noise fi ltering, anti-shake features, digital archiving and annotation. An enhanced access management feature has also been added for teachers to see and monitor students’ access in school and at home.

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trendlines By Dennis mbuvi

Maersk Line and Ericsson Bring Mobile Connectivity to the Oceans

he oceans are the last “white spot” for the mobile communication industry to connect. The world’s largest shipping company, Maersk Line, has appointed Ericsson to address this by introducing end-to-end systems integration and deployment of mobile and satellite communication to its entire fleet. The Maersk Line fleet comprises more than 500 container vessels. Over the next 2 years, Maersk Line will outfit 400 of these vessels with Ericsson antennas and GSM base stations, with upgrades to be made to the remaining vessels soon after. As part of the agreement, Ericsson will provide 7 years of global managed service support, including 24/7 network monitoring and onboard maintenance services in a large number of ports across all major regions. “We’re proud to be able to connect Maersk Line’s fleet with our technology. We believe

12 www.cio.co.ke

in a networked society, where connectivity will only be the starting point for new ways of innovating, collaborating and socializing. The result will be automated and simplified processes, higher productivity and real-time information sharing, allowing quicker, more informed decision making and problem solving”, said Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson. For the shipping industry, mobile communication provides the opportunity to employ new and efficient ways of addressing fleet management, managing delivery times, improving interaction with vessels, enabling proactive issue resolution and prompt information sharing with customers, and even improving energy efficiency. Until now, Maersk Line’s high-tech modern container ships have been equipped with satellite connectivity primarily intended to

support communication for vital shipboard functions. Ericsson’s integrated maritime mobile and very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) satellite solution will bring extended connectivity to the entire fleet, allowing for new ways of communicating and contributing to efficiency, reliability and cost reduction. It also paves the way for immediate access to remote expertise, resulting in extended access to information and, in turn, improved efficiency in the vessels’ daily operations. “We’re quite pleased to be the fi rst fleet to be connected with mobile communication technology. We believe it will provide us good opportunities to run our fleet more efficiently”, said Søren Toft, Vice President Maersk Line Operations.

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

Trendlines By Dennis mbuvi

Airtel Customers to Enjoy Cheaper on-net Calls

Mr Shivan Bhargava, Chief Operating Oﬃcer, Airtel Kenya

irtel Kenya has launched an innovative service under the name Sikika na 1 bob. Airtel customers will enjoy Airtel to Airtel calls at Ksh1 per minute from 10.00 pm to 6.00 am daily using this service.

this time of the year when families are faced with high costs including school fees following the festive season. We shall continue unveiling more value adding propositions for our customers to enable them achieve more for every shilling they spend with us”.

Airtel Kenya Chief Operating Officer Mr Shivan Bhargava said, “As we had promised, Airtel will ensure that our customers have access to affordable superior quality communication and service on our network.

The new tariff, dubbed Sikika na 1 bob, is available to all prepaid customers and is easy to access since it does not require any form of subscription.

We understand the current challenging economic situation in Kenya, especially at

The company is also currently offering its customers a chance to win KShs500,000

14 BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

weekly prizes and fully paid trips to watch Manchester United in the Barclays English Premier League in its Changamsha Maisha na Airtel promotion. Other daily prizes in the promotion include instant SMS on all top-ups of Ksh50 and above, 32 handsets, and Samsung tablets. So far more than 1,000 winners have been announced in the promotion, which applies automatically to all Airtel prepaid and postpaid customers. Mr Shivan Bhargava added that Airtel will continue to offer more innovative products and services including the increased depth of Airtel Money and the introduction of a world class 3G HSPA network this quarter.

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trendlines By Agam Shah

OLPC’s XO-3 Tablet Debuts at CES, Coming to Tanzania

ne Laptop Per Child’s XO-3 tablet is ready to ship after years in the making, and working units shown in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, OLPC founder and Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said. The tablet has an 8-inch screen and will be priced at less than US$100 (Ksh8,700) as originally planned, Negroponte said via email. Like OLPC’s XO-1 laptop, the XO-3 will be offered as an educational tool for children in developing countries. Negroponte declined to say if it will also be sold at retail. The XO-3 was fi rst announced in late 2009 with availability targeted for early 2012. At the time, skeptics questioned OLPC’s mission, accusing it of losing its educational focus in favor of designing hardware at unachievable price points. The XO-3’s on-schedule release will help erase unpleasant memories of the XO-1

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project, where the laptop shipped late and at double the promised $100 price tag. The XO-3 uses a Marvell chip with an ARMbased CPU running at 1 GHz and will run Linux-based software such as Google’s Android or Chrome operating systems. It will be offered with optional technologies, such as a power-saving Pixel Qi screen and a solar charger for the battery. “[The XO-3] price will be $100 or lower. But this time there are options, so we cannot guarantee the fi nal price”, Negroponte said The tablet provides about 8 to 10 hours of battery life, though some audiences may choose a smaller battery capacity to reduce the purchase price, said Ed McNierney, chief technology officer at OLPC. The internal batteries can be charged by “just about anything that produces DC power”, he said. The charging options include solar panels or hand cranks, and a study is under way to see if the battery can be detached and the tablet powered directly

through a solar cell. “Our ability to accept erratic, variable, noisy power inputs is extremely important to us, and something no other tablet has even attempted”, McNierney said. The tablet is also available with a traditional LCD screen. But the optional Pixel Qi display absorbs ambient light to brighten the screen, reducing power consumption and extending battery life. An 8-inch display is the right size, McNierney stated, because a 9.7-inch display is too big for children to handle, and 7 inches “seems too small to be usable”. Microsoft’s Windows will not run on the device, only Linux-based OSes, Negroponte said. The non-profit has abandoned its pursuit of Windows for tablets, even though Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 will work on ARM processors. Negroponte has said the tablet on display at CES will run Google’s Android OS.

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

Trendlines

OLPC didn’t share further specifics, but the tablet may include a camera and USB ports, according to some design details shared with the IDG News Service in July. The XO-3 ultimately will replace the XO1.75 laptops that are currently shipping, Negroponte said. OLPC is not dependent on a specific manufacturer for the tablet and will work with “whomsoever wants to roll out the tablet, for whatsoever purpose, at a very large scale”, Negroponte said, adding the objective is to see prices plummet. As part of a 2-year project to study educational development among young children in developing countries, researchers will collect data from XO-3 tablets used by 3–8-year-olds in India, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. Software on the tablets will record audio and video and adapt a reading platform to the needs of the children without human intervention.

KShs 10,800*

KShs 7,100*

KShs 9,999

The project will study how children interact with the tablet and will aid in the study of tools for self-learning and critical thinking among children. One goal is to provide basic comprehension and reading, which is important in countries where teacher training is inadequate. “In the reading experiment, where we ask can a child learn to read on his or her own, we imagine many hours of use per day, as many as 6 or 8. Frankly, the reading experiment may be the most important thing I have ever done…if it works”, Negroponte said. The study will be run out of the MIT Media Lab and be conducted in partnership with Tufts University, Newcastle University, and OLPC.

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trendlines By Chris Kanaracus

Gartner Lowers 2012 IT Spending Forecast to 3.7 Per Cent Growth

esearch fi rm Gartner in January announced that it has lowered its 2012 IT spending forecast, with spending expected to rise only 3.7 per cent, rather than the previous forecast of 4.6 per cent growth.

growth rates, it added.

cent, respectively, in 2011.

The destruction caused by the floods in Thailand, where many hard drives are made, will have a serious impact on supply over the next 6 to 9 months, Gordon said.

Telecom equipment will see the strongest growth, rising 6.9 per cent to $475 billion. That’s only a slight drop from 2011’s 7.7 per cent growth rate.

“Faltering global economic growth, the Eurozone crisis and the impact of Thailand’s floods on hard disk drive (HDD) production have all taken their toll on the outlook for IT spending”, Gartner Vice President Richard Gordon said in a statement.

Economic turmoil in the Eurozone was another factor in Gartner’s decision to downgrade. The fi rm anticipates that IT spending in Western Europe will drop 0.7 per cent in 2012.

But Gartner’s revised forecast expects much weaker growth in telecom services, with a 2.3 per cent rise to $1.74 trillion, down from the 6.1 per cent jump in 2011.

Global IT spending in 2012 will now total US$3.8 trillion, Gartner said. Enterprise software, hardware, IT services and telecoms services and equipment will all see lower

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Gartner now predicts that hardware spending in 2012 will grow 5.1 per cent to $424 billion, while enterprise software revenues will rise 6.4 per cent to $285 billion. The categories grew 7.6 per cent and 9.6 per

IT services revenue in 2012 will also significantly lag 2011, rising 3.1 per cent to $874 billion, according to Gartner. In 2011, IT services growth was 6.9 per cent.

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

Trendlines

Aiming at a Cashless Mobile Economy

he mobile phone has demystified technology, as people start to use their mobile phones for more than calls and SMS. Before, many people did not interact with technology beyond radios and television. More than 60 per cent of the Kenyan population has access to a mobile phone. George Wainana, Managing Director at Kenswitch says that the above fact has seen many banks looking at integrating fi nancial solutions with mobile phones. Kenswitch provides real time connectivity to banking core systems, which traditionally were accessible over the counter and later via automated teller machines (ATMs). ATMs used a card as a token of acceptance and transactions were done at the customer’s convenience. ATM cards later evolved to be used at the point of sale (POS). Mobile phones are now taking the role of the ATM card, with Kenswitch enabling people to register their mobile phones and tie them to their bank accounts. From their phones, users can make payments and access facilities such as inter-bank transfers. M-Pesa showed the capability of providing services to many customers through a large low-cost network. It is from here that the Central Bank has come up with its banking agency guidelines. On the fact that ATMs offer cheaper transaction costs than banking agents, Wainana says “It’s not about the cost of the transaction, but the cost of accessing it. In towns, we are spoilt for choice, but if you are living in places where towns are tens of kilometers away, it becomes expensive in terms of cost and transport. Do not also forget you are leaving money where you are coming from. At the end of the day you want people to have easy access to credit”. There is a huge cost in having cash in the system, hence the regulator efforts towards electronic transactions. Agency banking relies on the use of a POS

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device and a card, though deposits can also be done with account details only. Receipts are always issued as proof of transactions.

costs about 600 Euros. The advantage though is that POS terminals are cheaper than ATMs.

Kenswitch provides a shared banking agent platform to various banks and is available through the Post Office Bank and other outlets. A launch is proposed for the current quarter.

Wainana says that Kenswitch is looking at introducing “tap and go” systems where it will issue prepaid cards loaded with value. This will then be usable in areas with lots of movement, such as mass transit systems including the country’s 94,000 matatus (taxis) and stadiums. For the matatus, the system can work well with the recently established matatu SACCOS where it can improve efficiency. “If you look at mobile money, its not fast at performing transactions”, he says. Such systems can then be topped up through agents.

Agents get a fee per transaction, hence a single POS for multiple banks makes a better proposition than one for each bank. “With 12 million customers for the banking system versus 18 million from mobile operators, it would be good if the banking sector came together so that the agent felt they are getting value as opposed to having many POS, which would be wasteful”, says Wainana. Furthermore, agents in sparsely populated areas must have enough volume to be viable. Agents also usually have interacted with the clients and are in a better position to determine their credit rating. With big balance sheets, banks like Equity, Cooperative and KCB have already rolled out their own platforms. Small and medium banks have opted for a wait-and-see approach to see who will open up their networks. The Postal Corporation of Kenya has already tendered for a shared agency banking platform, which it will provide as a service to other banks. A POS terminal

The Kenswitch MD says the success of M-Pesa is that it is not a bank account but an electronic wallet. Kenswitch has also developed an online payment platform, with an application programming interface (API), which will be introduced to the market this year. Developers face a challenge in that they cannot go to a bank and ask to plug in to their systems, and therefore Kenswitch will be acting as an aggregator. The platform will also be targeted at merchants, with about 60 merchants at launch. Kenswitch already supports bank to mobile cash transfer.

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trendlines By Peter Nalika

Huawei Brand Breaking into African Markets

Herman He He,, CEO, Huawei Technologies, Kenya.

esigning phones in China is performed in a manner much like being served chicken, and fish when eating a single meal in the country: it is all over the place. For a while, Huawei Technologies, based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, have designed and supplied unbranded handsets and telecommunication equipment to different carriers across the world. Huawei’s specialty, and the core of its business, has remained in the developing world, spanning from China to Africa where they have had much success in seeking deals with top tier vendors, rather than the more lucrative US and Western European markets.

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This year (2012), the company is looking beyond its business of building unbranded phones to touting its devices under its own company name in African markets. It has being a latecomer in providing 3G “ Despite network equipment, Huawei’s chance to break into developing markets could come as operators there start buying more 4G equipment and the company will have level footing with its rivals as it competes for 4G contracts.

“

big ambitions for its brand in the Kenyan market by opening up retail shops and introducing new smartphones as demand for them rises.

“Building a consumer brand in Kenya might not be a walk in the park, considering their business to business (B2B) background”, says Herman He, CEO, Huawei Technologies in Kenya. However Kenya is favorable as it is the main distribution point for other markets in East Africa that the company is also targeting. The company has made inroads in Africa through ties with operators like Airtel Rwanda and Congo, and MTN Uganda. In Kenya, the most notable deal is perhaps the binding major contract they have with Safaricom to supply, install, maintain and upgrade network equipment .

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

Trendlines

When asked why the company only hires Kenyans on short-term contracts, Herman says their short-term contracts are only for the promotion purposes. Huawei intends to build a retail team on long-term contracts, however currently it faces the challenge of establishing product retail channels, as Huawei devices are sold through operator shops since the company doesn’t have open market dealers. “However in future, with an improvement in sales and open market development, we will be recruiting more Kenyans for longterm contracts”, says He. By the end of last year, Huawei had grown to become the world’s fourth-biggest provider of infrastructure to network operators, with 11.5% of the market, according to Gartner. The market was led by Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson. The company has increasingly developed its own technologies as well. An example is

a product that lets an operator unify its 2G and 3G switching tools.

concept behind this model marries the idea of luxury and technology.

The Huawei “softswitch”, which leads similar offerings from rivals in market share, allows unified IP (Internet protocol) switching of calls by an operator that controls both a 2G and a 3G network. IP switching is usually only done for 3G networks, so the Huawei product targeted developed countries where operators were likely to be introducing 3G alongside 2G services.

Herman points out that the cost of smartphones globally is decreasing gradually over time, and competition will be tougher for suppliers even in local markets.

Huawei wants African markets to have more choice. It is incrementally changing the way it builds its phones as well, rather than unveiling full-blown updates. A few of the newest Huawei devices have started to carry a new design philosophy: for example its “Vision” smartphone. The handset is built with a curved aluminum alloy body, with the phone weighing 121 grams. It has a 3.7 inch (9.39 centimeter) touchscreen, runs on a 1 GHz Qualcomm processor, and uses Android 2.3 OS. The

Despite this, the company believes it has a shot in Kenya, especially at the moment when only 7% of the Kenyan handset market is made up of smartphones, meaning more than 90% of handset users are using simpler feature phones. Ultimately, Huawei will face a crowded market in Africa, but it will grow and overtake some rivals because of its low prices, which attract operators. Currently the company ranks ninth in market share for mobile phone sales according to research fi rm Gartner. However, the main obstacle for Huawei, as for many Chinese companies seeking to expand abroad, may be “plain and simple marketing”; it suffers from a veil of secrecy around its operations.

Huawei Technologies at a Glance

Presence in Kenya

Signed agreements

Cloud service

14 years, distribution point for East Africa

200 world class partners with over 2000 global applications

Huawei 160 gigabyte net hard disk, cloud back up service for smartphones

Network infrastructure

Latest device

4th biggest provider of network infrastructure, 11.5% of the world market

Vision smartphone based on Android 2.3,crafted with swiss watches technology

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trendlines By Dennis mbuvi

Analytics for Accurate Decision Making around M-Pesa and taking banking to the masses via the cellphone is groundbreaking. Instead of the normal best practice approach of copying what has been done in Europe, they decided to do “next practice”. “We can do it better than they have done and leap frog. Analytics can give the same ability to Africa”, Gydien says. Africa has a paradox where there is shortage of skills and high unemployment. Taking India as an example, Gydien says that the country does not have much shortage in the high-tech industry despite unemployment, and thus offers a good example of what is possible rather than Europe and North America . Gydien defi nes analytics as the ability to look through large volumes of data and gain business insights, and make decisions around what will happen based on facts and the likelihood for a particular trend to continue. Analytics started simply as the ability to just look into data and create reports, evolving into slicing and dicing data into reporting tools. This later went on to being able to forecast the data. “Predictive analytics is predicting with almost certainty what is likely to happen next and what action you should take from a business point of view”, says Gydien. There is also the ability to apply analytics to unstructured data—data that is stored as just text, video—and pick up information in a structured way. Riad Gydien, Gydien, Vice President at SAS Analytics for Africa and the Middle East

or SAS Analytics, banking, telcos and government make up the bulk of its clients, in addition to retail and oil and gas industries.

Riad Gydien, Vice President at SAS Analytics for Africa and the Middle East says that analytics have also become important in utilities, for example for managing blackouts where predictive asset maintenance can predict when an asset will fail and thus enable its timely replacement. Gydien points out that analytics can even predict when a customer is about to leave, such as in a bank, and kick off an automated campaign to retain the customer. “Analytics is extremely powerful”, he stated. Africa presents an opportunity that has been very well demonstrated by companies like Safaricom, for example. Safaricom’s innovation

The accuracy of analytics requires tuning over time. “You can’t develop predictive models once and then just leave them. They have to be tuned over time to achieve a high-level of accuracy. Marketing campaigns can achieve a high-level of accuracy; analytics can help a call center decide who best to sell to and who is likely to accept the offer. In places where we have done this before we have achieved a 70 per cent success rate”, says Gydien. Such campaigns are usually tailored to what a customer needs, since they analyze the customer over time and the customer’s behavior over time, thus achieving a high likelihood of the customer responding. For government, citizen intelligence comes into play where the government needs to understand what the citizens needs are in a proactive way. In Kenya, freely available data such as the Open Government Initiative makes analytics much more possible. The Government has a better understanding of where service delivery is lacking and has tangible, measurable indicators as to whether they are delivering on their mandate. The Government can conduct analytics from census data, data from

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trendlines Quarterly GDP

the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Kenya Revenue Authority, port authorities, social security and healthcare. The real value with the data is bringing it together. For example, predictive analytics in healthcare can determine disease trends and help fi nd the root cause of outbreaks. One of the biggest challenges of analytics is having clean data on time. “In almost every site we go to, half the project is spent mainly accessing clean data”, says Gydien. The accuracy of analytics goes down when the data is poor. Social media analytics can look at what is trending online, providing perception to a brand or government at that time. This can then be used to judge how effective a marketing campaign is while government can track perception of their performance and service delivery. Political parties can even gauge their popularity at a certain point.

Budget Recurrent Plus Development

In Kenya, Gydien is “very excited with the hunger within Kenya to develop its ICT market”. SAS Analytics is working to develop a center of excellence in the country to close the gaps between unemployment and lack of skills. Kenya is one of the fi rm’s core focus markets. SAS Analytics already has offices in South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and a small office in Morocco. Clients in the country include Safaricom. Kenya County Factsheet

Gydien sees future trends of analytics in the fields of customer intelligence in telcos, fraud and money laundering in banks, and in the intelligence space in government. Governments will also go more into revenue assurance and preventing tax leakages as well as risk and compliance in banks, especially after seeing what has happened to banks in Europe. Other than a market, Gydien sees Kenya as an important source of skills and says that his fi rm is keen on expanding Kenya’s SAS ecosystem to a point where they can export skills out of the country. This he attributes to the work ethic, attitudes and the push by from the Government to develop ICT.

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trend Analysis

Africa: a Player in the “Convergence Economy”? CIO East Africa sat down with Accenture Development Partnerships to talk about the beneﬁts of cross-sector convergence and the important role of technology in addressing social and economic challenges in emerging markets

convergence of challenges across t he publ ic, pr ivate a nd development sectors—think access to health, unemployment, climate change, the effects of globalization, and spiking commodity prices—is seeing the emergence of what Accenture Development Partnerships terms the “Convergence Economy”. It is characterized by the appearance of a new breed of cross-sector partnerships that do away with traditional sector roles to fi nd new approaches and solutions to common challenges, with tremendous success and impact. Africa is fertile ground for the formation of such partnerships, and information and communication technology (ICT) is proving a key component of these solutions. Accenture Development Partnerships is a not-for-profit group within Accenture that channels the organization’s business, technology and project management expertise to organizations operating in the development sector—including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), private foundations, donor organizations and governments of emerging countries— helping them achieve their social and economic development goals. In Africa, Accenture Development Partnerships participates in, and leads a number of projects. Says Jessica Long, Accenture Development Partnerships’ global lead for donors and emerging governments: “Collaboration across sectors is not new, but these partnerships were often defi ned by a single issue or geography, and they struggled to scale, replicate or deliver more than piecemeal change.

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Cross-sector convergence takes collaboration a step further, forming complex coalitions to effect systemic change using new hybrid business, funding and delivery models that, among others, seek to combine profit with broader societal impact”. “This is a profoundly important step forward for organizations across sectors, transcending many of the

Jessica Long, Lead, Accenture Development Partnerships

Africa: Fertile Ground for Cross-Sector Partnerships The broad trends in Africa—rapid population growth, a rising middle class, an increasingly urbanized population, the continent’s huge reserve of untapped natural resources, increasing democratization, and investment in economic growth—all make Africa an attractive investment opportunity for private sector organizations hoping to reach new markets and leverage new skills and physical resources. “To reap the rewards of cross-sector convergence, businesses are looking at emerging markets more holistically”, says Long, “not only as new customers or sources of raw materials, but as societies to strengthen—and thus serve—as future sustainable markets for goods, services and talent in the long term”. The benefits for public and development sector organizations participating in crosssector partnerships are considerable. Explains Long: “The NGO’s primary goal is to help people in need and facilitate growth with equity.

segments and a deep understanding of markets and needs, which is of high value to businesses hoping to penetrate these sectors with suitable products. By partnering more strategically with business, NGOs can seek more scalable and sustainable long-term solutions. “Similarly, governments, who must build infrastructure (transport, utilities, agriculture, ICT), grow the economy and improve the wellbeing and livelihoods of citizens, can better achieve the scale and reach they desire by partnering with businesses and NGOs”. Many of the goals of each sector are common to all, she notes: “Across sectors, for example, there is a need for access to data (statistics, census data, etc.) and information (e.g., market information, news and events, health). Broadening access to education, fi nance, banking services and government services are also vital to each sector, enhancing consumers’ ability to purchase goods, driving ICT literacy, improving the employability of citizens as well as the

NGOs have trusted relationships in key

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trend Analysis

creation of employment, and ultimately obtaining greater participation in the global economy”. ICT is a key enabler of cross-sector partnerships and the converged solutions they propose. Says Long: “In Africa, technology has opened the door to immense opport un it y—for consumers and opportun businesses—with the development of products and services that leapfrog traditional product and service models. The expansion of networks and ability of consumers to more easily access technologies and communicate is also driving significant advances in terms of addressing development sector goals and better delivery of government services”.

service was made possible through collaboration between Vodafone and numerous smaller private organizations, and with the assistance of the county’s regulatory authorities. “What else can these mobile devices do?”, Long asks. “How can they benefit your business, help you reach and better service customers, and add value to communities? We have only seen the tip of the iceberg with regard to the capabilities of these and other electronic devices; it’s these exciting possibilities that Accenture Development Partnerships wants to explore”. The Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow project offers a great example of ICT’s role in crosssector convergence.

Technology: Putting Wheels on Growth

Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow

Kenya’s PASHA Centers and Vodafone’s M-Pesa are prime examples of how technology can, with collaboration between sectors, change lives by driving systemic change, she says.

Accenture Development Partnerships designed and piloted the Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow project, a multi-year initiative that brings together technologies and partners (including Intel, Microsoft and Cisco) to combat the severe shortage of teachers in this country, making quality education a reality across 4,000 schools for 1.5 million secondary school pupils.

“Mobile money, or m-banking, is giving millions of poor and rural people access to fi nancial services they could never access, or afford, in the traditional banking model. Digital villages like the PASHA Centers that are being established in rural Kenya— initiated by the Kenya ICT Board but run by private entrepreneurs—also help break cycles of poverty, assisting to bridge the digital divide and drive economic participation”. M-Pesa allows subscribers to load money into an account via an agent (e.g., retailers and garage forecourts), transfer it to other M-Pesa account holders and withdraw funds. It provides mobile banking facilities to more than 70 per cent of the country’s adult population according to the International Monetary Fund, and a Central Bank of Kenya report shows that over 305 million transactions were carried out using M-Pesa in 2010. As of November 2011, M-Pesa has over 14 million subscribers and more than 28,000 agents across the country. This

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across borders. Everyone wins. Governments want an educated populace and a skilled workforce, as do private organizations. And access to education is a primary goal of many NGOs. Collaboration to create content, facilitate affordable access and build solutions that meet infrastructure limitations makes huge sense”. This transparency and sharing of knowledge and experience, capability and solutions is what cross-sector convergence is all about, says Long: “When more benefit, all benefit”. Innovation, Insight: it’s Time to Share It is awareness of initiatives like these that will inspire the constant innovation Africa needs to cross the digital divide, Long emphasizes. “Accenture Development Partnerships, positioned at the intersection of the public, private and development sectors, is ideally positioned to facilitate and enable these new cross-sector partnerships. We welcome your insight and ideas”.

The solution, which is designed to cater for schools and other environments with power and without, will be extended to Internet cafes and private PCs for self-paced adult and at-home learning. It is being built for scalability and repeatability across Africa. “Education is a key area where technology advances, along with a drop in cost and power usage of devices, are starting to make an impact. The Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow project is proof of what is possible when technology is tailored to meet a specific need and environmental limitations”, says Long. “Newer technologies like tablet PCs and e-readers are becoming viable replacements for costly printed textbooks. The added advantage is that updated content is easily accessed and purpose-made content and modules can be shared and re-used, even

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Trend Analysis By Dennis mbuvi

Al Jazeera Goes Crowdsourcing for News Collection

n recent years, Al Jazeera has emerged from being seeing as an alternate voice of news and issues in the world and to some, an Arabic targeted channel, to being regarded as an international news network alongside other channels such as Cable News Net work (CNN) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). From its fi rst broadcast on 1st November 1996, Al Jazeera has quickly grown and is one of the most accessible news channels in the world, with a live stream on YouTube. Many found the live stream particularly useful during the “Arab Spring” uprisings of 2011, where Al Jazeera was usually among the fi rst to break news items. Al Jazeera has continued to explore the use of technology in collection and dissemination of news. Recently, in an effort to get more news from Somalia—a region which is usually underreported due to a lengthy war in the country since 1991—Al Jazeera began collecting content by getting as many of Somalia’s citizens as possible to give their views,

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experiences and opinions, a technique known as crowdsourcing. The initiative has been dubbed “Somalia Speaks”. Somalia Speaks is run on Ushahidi, a Kenyan-built platform that is used in report and information gathering, especially during disasters and in times of crisis. Ushahidi was built to track information from the ground during the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya. Ushahidi later grew and has been developed into a tool for tracking information in other disasters notably the 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami, in addition to other applications such as tracking drug stock outs in rural Kenya. Al Jazeera partnered with Souktel for the SMS platform that would power the initiative. Souktel specializes in providing SMS-based solutions in the developing world and especially Arabic speaking countries. Souktel (from Souk, Arabic for market) provides other services such as one that connects employers to jobseekers.

organizations providing aid to use mobile phone surveys to determine how they will distribute aid on ground. Souktel mostly works with NGO’s including some United Nations organizations. Somali residents receive an SMS from Souktel, which already has a database of Somali residents, asking them to give their views via SMS. Using Ushahidi, the source and nature of messages sent in are mapped by location. Volunteers then translate the messages from Somali, and Al Jazeera sorts through them and turns them into news items. Barely a year later, Somalia Speaks has proved quite successful, revealing details that had seen little coverage before, such as a large fi re and the killing of a religious scholar in Bosaso that was previously unreported. Through the messages it also became clear that the Bosaso market plays a significant role in the economics and dynamics of North East Somalia.

Souktel also runs a solution that enables

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Trend Analysis

Messages read “The disastrous incidents which occurred in the town of Bosaso have left me with sadness and fear. The most frightening was the merciless killing of the elite teacher Dr Axmed X Raxman Mohamed” and “The events have impacted me greatly, most recently the fi re in Bosaso where I lost my livelihood”. CIO East Africa talked to Soud Hyder, Al Jazeera’s Project Manager and Analyst (New Media) on the technology behind “Somalia Speaks” and Al Jazeera’s plan for the platform. How was “Somalia Speaks” conceptualized (how did the idea come to be)? Was it as a solution to problem or an experiment into new fields? The project is more of an exploration into innovative news and information gathering workflows. Al Jazeera sent a high-level delegation to Somalia in August 2011, and we realized that there was more to the country than what has been covered by mainstream media. We were also in talks with partners such as Souktel and Ushahidi that either had existing projects in Somalia or had Somalia in the scope of projects. We then combined efforts under the Al Jazeera umbrella to spearhead this initiative and highlight the issues and concerns of the Somali people. How does the service work? How is the information gathered? How are Somalis aware of the service’s existence? How does Al Jazeera process the information? A text was sent in Somali with the question “How has the Somalia confl ict affected your life?” to about 5,000 recipients across Somalia. Using a toll-free service managed by Souktel, we received close to 4,000 responses, with Somali bloggers, websites and some radio stations relaying the information to people on the ground.

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Soud Hyder, Al Jazeera’s Project Manager and Analyst (New Media)

The Somali diaspora also got involved through Al Jazeera’s website and an international gateway was established to receive responses from across the world. The messages are then aggregated and translated by a team of volunteers on a translation platform deployed on Al Jazeera’s servers. Translated messages are then validated and pushed on to the Ushahidi instance.

out on this scale. Furthermore, the real value and innovation stems from the use of simple technology to get information from a very challenging and risky operational environment. We’ve also opened our operation models to engage with community to solve problems and achieve our goals.

What have been the achievements of Somalia Speaks, both for Al Jazeera and for the community?

To date, this project has entirely been run on a voluntary basis; we have engaged with Somalis across the world to translate the responses and also worked closely with volunteers from Kenya and Egypt to optimize the translation workflow.

Our biggest achievement has been to expose the average Somali person’s viewpoint to the world.

Within 7 days, we were able to design and deploy a parallel translation platform to suit the project requirements.

Never before has such a project been carried

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February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Cover Story By Galen Gruman, InfoWorld

bring your own device You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet Although 2011 was the year that user-driven mobile device usage became the norm, the fallout from this, and the opportunities on offer, are just beginning.

ome IT trends move fast—very fast. BYOD, the “bring your own device“ phenomenon that raised its head in late 2009, is one of them. Like the Internet and email, it caught on with users faster than IT and corporate risk management expected. In 2010, businesses were asking the question “Who should own your smartphones?” Today, that question is moot; more than half of companies let employees use their own smartphones at work, along with tablets. It is amazing how quickly BYOD became mainstream, taking only about 18 months. Many companies that have accepted the BYOD phenomenon are taking the next step, shifting from a passive acceptance spurred on by employees and executives who would use iPhones, iPads, and Androids anyhow, to active exploitation of BYOD to increase productivity and reduce mobile telecom costs. In other words, businesses

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are learning that not only are mobileequipped information workers a great way to increase productivity and ROI, but also that employees will foot much or all of the bill for the privilege. Thank You, Apple, for the Freedom to Choose Most of the BYOD phenomenon was driven by the iPhone, which is fast becoming the new corporate standard smartphone as BlackBerry corporate sales have now fallen behind iPhone corporate sales. But Android devices are entering the fray, posing a much more complex management and security challenge than did the iPhone. The iPad introduced its own wrinkle to the BYOD equation. Where businesses resisted the iPhone or simply weren’t sure of its value, they see huge value in the iPad. This is one “consumer” device that both employees and

employers oyers love and see strong benefit from, which h is why 96 per cent of businesses have at least ast one in use, says Aberdeen Group, and 96 per cent of all tablet activations among its customers are for iPads, says Good Technology. SAP, for example, has 12,500 iPads in use across a wide range of business groups, and iPads are popular in all sorts of customerfacing businesses, from insurance sales to energy inspection, from healthcare to kiosks. Ironically, IT is often in the lead when it comes to deploying tablets. Because the iPad uses the same operating system as the iPhone, proactive adoption of the iPad also opened doors previously closed to the iPhone. As far as management tools are concerned, they are the same thing, and supporting one de facto means supporting the other. (The same is not true for Android devices, which vary widely in security and

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February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

management capabilities.) The BYOD Carpetbaggers Are Coming Despite this BYOD acceptance and even encouragement in 2011, as well as the residual fears about non-BlackBerry mobile devices still muttered in some IT quarters, corporate management of mobile devices has a long way to go. Most companies don’t yet use mobile device management (MDM) tools, notes Larry Dunn, Vice President of global IT outsourcing at Unisys. Consultancies like Unisys and the dozens of MDM vendors are near giddy at the prospect of the increase in consulting and tools business as more and more businesses go the MDM route, which is expected to accelerate in 2012. In fact, the number of consultancies—from the big names to “who are these people?”

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fi rms—and tech vendors that have recently discovered BYOD is huge. Given that this phenomenon has had a good 18 months of CIO andd media di attention, i I’d stay ffar away from any vendor that has just tuned in to the opportunity. They may claim they were monitoring the market until IT was ready for proactive BYOD, but I bet most are carpetbaggers who have no real experience or insight, and will simply sell you the same tired security and management products and services they always have. (I’m talking to you, Symantec and McAfee.) Those who truly did bide their time had better have something superior than those who’ve been in the market for a while. Here are ways to avoid wasting your time and money on those selling you faux BYOD:

Make sure sur they practice what they preach. Are they uusing iPhones, iPads, and Androids broadly? A Are they using them in the same ways you want to? Or do they have a few pilot deployments or implement BYOD in effectiveness-killing ways such as disabling copy and paste from email or restricting users from installing their own apps? (Yes, in some cases, these are good things to do, such as if you’re managing spies, but they should never be the norm.)

Make sure they are adding value. For example, dozens of MDM companies offer a management tool for the basic Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) policies built into Microsoft Exchange. You already have that management capability baked into Exchange (on-premises or

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Febuary 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Cover Story

hosted, including in Office 365), and can get it in the corporate and government versions of Gmail. IBM and Novell offer EAS capabilities for their email servers. Don’t buy it again.

iOS devices are becoming the new coporate standard mobile devices.

Make sure they are enabling users, not promoting “no”. Consultancies and tech providers should be able to show how they can make your users more productive while keeping your risk levels acceptable. Unfortunately, many play on your fears, saying mobile devices are less secure because employees are likely to lose them. This is false: analysts tell me that employees are less likely to lose mobile devices they own, as well as the laptops they own. The fact is, the more you wrap mobile devices in security straitjackets, the less secure you are and the higher your costs go. And the less productive your employees are. MDM by Itself is Not Enough for Effective BYOD The good news is that mobile device management tools are well proven in all sorts of industries, including highly regulated fields such as healthcare and fi nancial services. There are simple ways to handle tech support for the new generation of mobile devices; plus, it turns out that iOS devices at least are cheaper to support than the traditional BlackBerry. One lesson SAP learned is instructive, and I’ve heard the same result from vendors offering mobile support tools: issues around 3G and 4G cellular networks—slow speed and inconsistent availability—form the bulk of employee support questions, even though IT can’t do a thing about the carriers’ networks. What IT can do is educate users that cellular networks aren’t as reliable as corporate networks and design apps to better handle latency and intermittent connections. The bad news is that the MDM tools don’t handle the whole picture. MDM tools work mainly with mobile devices that access corporate email, whose servers validate devices and apply management policies to

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them. But MDM tools don’t address devices on the corporate network that aren’t accessing email (nor those accessing email only through Webmail), so effective BYOD management also needs to involve the network in a way that goes beyond the traditional “unguarded inside the building” approach practiced by most organizations. Also to be figured out is the role of mobile application management (MAM). Right now, this label refers to many things: designing HTML5 apps so that their contents can be managed and secured, managing and distributing native corporate apps on users’ mobile devices, and managing

commercial apps and their access to content and corporate resources. Then there’s the question of whether you should have a corporate app store and how to deal with commercial app stores. There are tools for some aspects of these needs, but there are certainly nothing like best practices yet for what, how, and when to manage mobile apps. Those will begin to develop in 2012, I suspect. BYOD Will Evolve Beyond Mobile Devices For many organizations, the consumerization of the IT phenomenon and the BYOD

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Cover Story

Nokia’s Lumia 710 runs Windows Phone 7 was launched in January this year.

manage PCs not at all or to much lower standards than they do mobile devices. For example, despite years of recommendations from security experts, few companies encrypt the hard drives of their PCs, whereas on-device encryption is expected for mobile devices by many businesses. There’s real hypocrisy at play here: IT and vendors propose much higher controls over mobile devices than over PCs that have so much more data. Notably, 10 per cent of laptops get lost over a 3-year period. As with mobile, there’s an uneven mix of security tools, application distribution and management tools, and remote lock and wipe capabilities for PCs. Windows PCs have long had tools to manage the provisioning of apps and to lock them down. Nonetheless, the concept of managing the content on those PCs, such as to prevent unauthorized use of data and to lock or wipe compromised PCs, is new to IT (and vendors) in the context of computers.

reality. phenomenon are one and the same. In reality they are not, though BYOD is the most visible aspect of that larger shift. As companies realize the scare stories about BYOD have not materialized and start to look at how to gain more benefit from the iOS and Android devices that BYOD has let users force into the business, you can expect the “let me choose the technology” trend to grow beyond mobile devices. Already, most companies support BYOPC, even if they don’t think they do. After all, a home PC or Mac is definitely a BYO device, so any employee working from home on their equipment is part of your BYOPC

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Expect that reality to grow more formalized in the workplace, partly due to the increasing sales of Macs: 11 per cent of new PCs in the US in 2011 were from Apple, and more than 7 per cent in the UK and Western Europe. However, keep in mind that people who use computers for the most value tend to be those who work from home and on the road, and they want the same mix of personal and work capabilities on their laptops as they get on their smartphones. This should result in the same equipment savings that companies have seen in BYOD, but the management approaches to BYOPC are trickier, mainly because most companies

It would make sense for mobile management tools and computer management tools to merge, but the MDM vendors tell me they have almost no demand for such a unified product, partly because the people who manage mobile devices have nothing to do with the people who manage PCs; in turn, the latter group has little to do with the people who manage back-end systems, networks, and databases. Perhaps Windows 8 will force the issue, as it brings in a truly mobile version of Windows that runs an entirely new look operating system featuring Microsoft’s Metro UI (as seen on Windows Phone 7 devices and now the Xbox) and makes data movement across devices a fundamental capability for applications, moreso than Apple’s iCloud does. I suspect this morass of management will take several years to work out, but the direction is to flexibility, heterogeneity, and policy-based management regardless of endpoint. First BYOD, then BYOPC, and ultimately BYOT (bring your own technology, such as applications, cloud services, and more); the technology fabric in our business is undergoing radical transformation at the user end. That’s ultimately a good thing, but it will cause a real shake-up in the interim.

www.cio.co.ke

February2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Cover Story By Tony Bradley, PC

Pros and Cons of BYOD The BYOD trend has a number of benefits for organizations, but there are also some caveats and pitfalls to consider before embracing it.

he concept of BYOD is a growing trend for business IT. There are a variety of benefits to allowing users to supply their own PC and mobile devices, but there are also some concerns. Make sure you understand both in order to embrace BYOD with confidence. It used to be that IT departments drove technology, but that has changed dramatically in recent years. The consumerization of the IT revolution, sparked by the iPhone, has shifted the IT culture so that the users are the ones getting the latest, cutting edge technologies fi rst, and they want to bring those devices to work. Benefits Businesses that embrace BYOD have some advantages over competitors. For starters, BYOD programs generally shift costs to the user. With the worker paying for most, or all, of the costs for the hardware, voice and/or data services, and other associated expenses, companies save a lot of money: as much as $80 per month per user. You might expect users to revolt against paying for the devices and technology they use at work. Not so.

Of course they’d rather use the devices they love rather than being stuck with laptops and mobile devices that are selected and issued by the IT department. There are two corollary advantages that come with BYOD as well. BYOD devices tend to be more cutting edge, so the organization gets the benefit of the latest features and capabilities. Users also upgrade to the latest hardware more frequently than the painfully slow refresh cycles at most organizations. Concerns

The Good Technology State of BYOD Report states, “50 per cent of companies with BYOD models are requiring employees to cover all costs, and they are happy to do so”.

BYOD isn’t all wine and roses, though. There are some issues to consider as well. By embracing BYOD, organizations lose much of the control over IT hardware and how it is used.

That brings us to the second significant benefit: worker satisfaction. Users have the laptops and smartphones they have for a reason: those are the devices they prefer, and they like them so much they invested their hard-earned money in them.

Company-issued IT typically comes with an acceptable use policy, and it is protected by company-issued security that is managed and updated by the IT department. It is a little bit trickier telling an employee what is, or is not, an “acceptable use” of their own laptop or smartphone.

for BYOD that outlines the rules of engagement and states up front what the expectations are. You should also lay out minimum security requirements, or even mandate company-sanctioned security tools, as a condition for allowing personal devices to connect to company data and network resources. There is also an issue of compliance and ownership when it comes to data. Businesses that fall under compliance mandates such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, or GLBA have certain requirements related to information security and safeguarding specific data. Those rules still must be followed even if the data is on a laptop owned by an employee. In the event that a worker is let go, or leaves the company of their own accord, segregating and retrieving company data can be a problem. Obviously, the company will want its data, and there should be a policy in place that governs how that data will be retrieved from the personal laptop and/or smartphone. If you’re not already taking advantage of the BYOD trend, you should definitely consider it. Just make sure you’re aware of both the pros and the cons, and address any potential issues up front.

Make sure you have a clearly defi ned policy

30 www.cio.co.ke

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

2012 Editorial Calendar Month

Cover Story

Feature

CIO Proﬁle

March

State of the CIO

Mobile Apps in the Enterprise

Nakumatt Holding

April

Enterprise Information Security

Business getting social

Vision Group

May

Cloud / Software Service

Business Collaboration Tools

Kenya Revenue Authority

June

Desktop Virtualisation

Enterprise Applications

British American Insurance

July

Uniﬁed Communication

EAC National Budget

CFAO Motors Tanzania Limited

August

IT Service Management

Enterprise Architecture

Postal Corpoation

September

Business Mobility

Business Process Management

Kenya Airways

October

Business Continuity Disaster Recovery

Desktop Virtualisation

Equity Bank Limited

November

Big Data

Business Outsorcing

Royal Media

Dec/Jan

CIO100

2012 EventsCalander

The Year Ahead

the year ahead

CIO Executive Events CIO Executive Conferences attract the best and brightest IT executives because the CIO brand is synonymous with the highest quality and integrity. Whether it’s the celebrated CIO 100 Awards and Symposium, The CIO Year Ahead Event or our regional CIO Executive Breakfast Forums, CIO executive conferences are the trusted educational forums and networking resources for the region’s CIOs and senior IT executives because CIO knows and understands the executive IT community better than any other IT resource.

The CIO Year Ahead presents attendees with insights on how to prepare for, handle and potentially beneﬁt from upcoming disruptive technological inﬂuences and trends and their impacts across their organizations, markets and the world around us. The CIO Year Ahead is also the place to meet and honour the latest inductees into the CIO Hall of Fame.

Topic: Live Cloud, Big Data, IT Service Management, IT Consumerisation

Date

Venue

City

Country

January 31st, 2012

Crowne Plaza Hotel

Nairobi

Kenya

February 23rd, 2012

Sheraton Hotel

Kampala

Uganda

March 16th, 2012

Moven Peak

Da es Salaam

Tanzania

March 30th, 2012

Manor Hotel

Kigali

Rwanda

CIO Golf Every year, CIO Golf marks CIO East Africa’s anniversary. The common wisdom holds that the golf course is where business deals get made and that playing golf is a must for a successful corporate career. We bring CIOs to the course to celebrate our anniversary with us and at the same time facilitate relationship building, networking and career-advancement through the power of the game of golf.

CIO 3rd Year Anniversary Golf Tournament

Date

Venue

City

Country

April 28th, 2012

Limuru

Nairobi

Kenya

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www.cio.co.ke

February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1 The CIO Executive Breakfast Forum The CIO Executive Breakfast forums are regionally focused morning executive events for senior IT leaders at mid- to large-sized organizations in the private and public sectors. Produced by CIO East Africa magazine in partnership with sister organizations, these Forums provide compelling, content-rich networking events where CIOs and senior executives can collaborate on business and technology issues ranging from the impact of local economic conditions to the most pressing national trends affecting IT in the enterprise. Live Cloud & Storage in the Cloud Software is out of date as business applications move to the Internet with the promise of more affordability, more security, more features and more accessibility in a sea of devices. Is it the right time for your business to take off with cloud applications? of data volume generated today was generated in the last two years, a clear testimony to growing business needs for storage. Data is being generatated at a fast pace, both inhouse and as user generated content. How does a business store the growing mountain of ever valuable data?

Venue

City

Country

April 19th, 2012

Crowne Plaza Hotel

Nairobi

Kenya

May 4th, 2012

Sheraton Hotel

Kampala

Uganda

May 24th, 2012

Moven Peak

Da es Salaam

Tanzania

June 15th, 2012

Manor Hotel

Kigali

Rwanda

IT Service Management In today’s competitive environment, IT is no longer about technology and the organisation. Focus has to be placed on the organisation’s relationship with the customer and the quality of business oﬀered to the customer.

Audience Demographics 10% 10%

Venue

City

Country

July 5th, 2012

Crowne Plaza Hotel

Nairobi

Kenya

July 27th, 2012

Sheraton Hotel

Kampala

Uganda

August 9th, 2012

Moven Peak

Da es Salaam

Tanzania

August 30th, 2012

Manor Hotel

Kigali

Rwanda

22% 22% 22% Ceo/cto/gm/cm/ed/od Cio

By Title

Bdm/sales Other

58%

Topic: Big Data Big Data are datasets that grow so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools. Difficulties include capture, storage, search, sharing, analytics, and visualizing. This trend continues because of the benefits of working with larger and larger datasets allowing analysts to “ spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime Big data requires exeptional technologies to efficiently process large quantities of data within tolerable elapsed times.

Venue

City

Country

October 4th ,2012

Crowne Plaza Hotel

Nairobi

Kenya

October18th, 2012

Sheraton Hotel

Kampala

Uganda

October 31st, 2012

Moven Peak

Da es Salaam

Tanzania

November 2nd, 2012

Manor Hotel

Kigali

Rwanda

2% 10%

Media

14%

Education Manufacturing

10%

By Sector

10%

Finance Service Medical Government

40%

Retail

November 28th-30th, 2012 CIO 100 3rd Annual Symposium & Awards CIO100 is an acknowledged mark of enterprise IT excellence. It’s a celebration of 100 organizations (and the people within them) that are using information technology in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationships with customers. Hosted in other countries such as the US, Canada, Sweden, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and Hungary, the CIO100 Awards is a truly global recognition. It is an acknowledged mark of excellence in enterprise IT. According to a survey by PR Week magazine, CEOs named CIO 100 among the top 10 most inﬂuential corporate scorecards anywhere, compiled by any publication or organization.

32 www.cio.co.ke

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

Product Review By Peter Nalika

DStv Walka: Access 16 DSTV channels while on the move screen), and has a hard anti-glare coat to reduce reflections. Indeed the screen size is just 3.5” with a 320 by 240 resolution, which is far from the requirements of high defi nition. LCD displays are usually used on small portable devices 5” or less. The device is only viewable in landscape orientation; it cannot be pivoted to a portrait mode. Connections are surprisingly solid, with a USB port for charging the device or upgrading its fi rmware. Even though it has a small built-in 0.7 W speaker on the side of the screen, a portable mobile TV without an earphone socket is almost useless; accordingly the DStv Walka comes with a standard 3.5 mm jack pin port to connect an earphone, though it doesn’t have audio controls for balance, bass or treble. The average audio quality depends on which channel has been selected. The DStv Walka has both digital and analog tuners built in, though the odds of running across an analog signal are very slim.

E 36

ven though it’s the quietest time of the tech year, we still have a great gadget to review in this issue. We’ve got the DStv Walka handheld device, released by DStv Mobile. It is a portable television that allows subscribers to access mobile TV on the go anywhere, at any time.

would secretly catch up on the stock market news while on a date, at required family functions or in the case of children, after bedtime.

Previously, portable TVs had their place on the kitchen counter; now parents can go for long vacation trips without listening to the usual arguments over toys. Business-minded CIOs have kept the portable TV alive; many

Features

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The DStv Walka is designed for convenience and ease of use.

A couple of things are modern about the DStv Walka. It uses LCD display technology as compared to the traditional CRT screen (however this does not mean it is a flat

The digital tuner, however, can pick up any of the standard broadcast stations that are in range. It has an integrated antenna that works well if signals are strong but also has an additional retractable external antenna that receives DVB-H signals. Extending and positioning it vertically improves the signal reception. Still on the subject of signal reception, it is wise to mention that compared to the old analog TVs, where with a weak signal broadcasts were snowy but watchable, with digital one either gets a clear signal or none at all. There are times when the picture on the Walka looks better than expected: be situated in a good reception point (perhaps Nairobi city center and its neighboring areas)

www.cio.co.ke

February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Product Review

and you’ll likely feel happy indeed with how pictures look. Despite the low frame rate on this fi rst version, the sharpness and detail on show with such footage shames some modern TVs in the market. However the pictures become blocky and pixilated when one is outside the pink area of the coverage map. The unit has a rechargeable battery, so it doesn’t have to be on direct AC when in use. The manufacturer claims the battery lasts for 3.5 hours though we found that 4 hours was more realistic. The battery is not user replaceable. We Liked Some good points about the DStv Walka performance were its sound being passable, and the pictures are fun and surprisingly look good with HD content from DStv Mobile. The device is light and compact, small enough that you can watch it while holding it in your hand if you choose to, though it also comes with a sucker stand. We Disliked There is no USB interface for PC as with some other devices, the screen size is a little bit small, and one cannot watch for long hours. The volume and channel controls are fiddly and you need to use a paper clip to reset the device to its factory settings. Verdict It’s a little difficult to know what to say about the DStv Walka. Even after fi nding a few problems with it, its value is undeniable at USD 111, even quite incredible with access to 16 DStv channels across the genres of sport, music, news, cartoons and general entertainment in Kenya and South Africa. If you are really desperate for a mobile TV and you can’t afford more than USD 111, then the DStv Walka is for you.

34 www.cio.co.ke

Handheld TV,” a “ Walka device with a 3.5-inch display capable of receivingthe broadcaster’s DVB-H ...

“

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP 39

February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

Product Review By Harry Hare

Cyberoam’s NetGenie, a rather smart router I use a cable modem that is split between Internet and cable TV, so I used the cable modem scenario for my setup. All I had to do was to connect the router’s WAN port to a broadband modem and connect my computer to one of the LAN ports. Once the router is powered on and connected to the modem, you open the browser and direct your browser to the default NetGenie IP address. This takes you to the NetGenie administration console. This is where you configure the router to your specifications. For instance you can make changes to the system settings, configure age-appropriate Internet access for each member of your family, enable antivirus protection, update or change network settings and get statistics and reports.

n many modern cultures, a genie is portrayed as a magical being that grants wishes, and for sure Cyberoam’s NetGenie will grant your safe surfi ng wishes. Marketed as a wireless router for families, the NetGenie makes a good effort in providing security settings that will prevent children from visiting unauthorized sites.

Look and Feel

The router also features antivirus, intrusion detection, fi rewall, and web protection that truly go a long way in ensuring a safe online environment at home.

The NetGenie has a simple design and a blue–grey plastic housing. It comes as standard with four 10/100 ports, a wide area network (WAN) port, a USB port for connecting a USB modem or dongle and a dual external antenna. The USB port is especially exciting since a lot of people use USB modems from mobile phone operators. The simple design makes it easy to locate and use the different ports and it can easily form part of a gadget collection in the living room or in a home office.

Inside the Box

Setting Up the NetGenie

The NetGenie box comes with the NetGenie base unit, two detachable Wi-Fi antennas, one RJ-45 Ethernet cable, one power adaptor and a quick starter guide. These components are packed neatly and are easily identifiable. Mounting the Wi-Fi antennas on the base unit is also quite easy and there is no need for any prior networking knowledge.

Setting up the NetGenie was one of the easiest set ups I have ever done: it actually took me longer to open the package than to set up the router. The quick start guide that comes with the router details all the possible scenarios of how you can set it up. There are four possible scenarios: through an ADSL/cable modem, through a direct cable, a USB modem or over Wi-Fi. Setting up any of these scenarios is easy and quick.

After setting up your security, network and privacy options you are already online. To connect via a wireless connection, one needs to enter the preconfigured SSID and security key that come with the router. This is found on the base of the router, away from prying eyes. The Software Now, this is where the NetGenie becomes truly interesting. It has one of the easiest interfaces around and you can set different people up with different accounts and associate the account with a selection of cartoon avatars. Here you can add users, remove users, and set up each user with different restriction levels of access. One of the features I liked most was the slider on the main administration screen that you can move to correspond to a user’s age. For instance, when you move the slider to “8 years old”, that account is set to the highest security restriction zone. This means that account cannot access anything unless it is added to the “allowed” list of sites. If you set the slider to “12 years old” the settings move to a more moderate restriction zone, allowing kids in this age group access to websites that are considered safe for their

Continue to page 47 38

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www.cio.co.ke

February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Policy Dialogue By Bitange Ndemo.(Dr)

Time to Change Gears towards technology diﬀusion and Innovation

n the past few years the Government of Kenya has responded to public cries on building a better ICT infrastructure and an enabling policy and legal environment within the country. Today our country is among the well connected countries in the world. Mobile penetration jumped from less than 20% in 2005 to about 70% of the population in 2011. Internet penetration moved from 5% in 2005 to 36% of the population in 2011, among the highest in Africa. By any standards this is an impressive growth in our sector but we have not attained our desired goal of improving the livelihood of our people. Changing our focus on infrastructure to technology diffusion and innovation is therefore key to achieving our long-term objectives. I can confidently state that more than 70% of supply-side issues have been addressed whilst some challenges exists on the demand-side issues more specifically, mind set change. Since the arrival of the undersea cables, we have seen concerted efforts to enhance diffusion of technology and innovation but with mixed outcomes. For starters, Kenya has been very successful in the diffusion of mobile technologies but we still have room for more innovation. Mpesa is a classic example of technology diffusion that has greatly impacted on the livelihood of the people yet there are equally good products lying in our laboratories lacking adoption. In 1962 an American Sociology Professor, Everett Rogers devised a theory for the adoption of innovations among individuals and organizations. Rogers came up with four key elements in diffusion research, that is, innovation where “an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual”; communication channel “the means by which messages get

36 www.cio.co.ke

from one individual to another”; time or rate of adoption defi ned as “the relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by members of a social system”; and a social system which he described as “as a set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint problem solving to accomplish a common goal”. If you take for example Mpesa, Safaricom first came up with the innovation, developed a communication strategy, allowed the length of time required to pass through the innovation-decision process, and above all sought to solve a problem within Kenyan social system. The decision process is more complex as it involves thinking through risk as well as the return on investment. In some cases ROI may not always be the criteria and if I am not wrong, original thinking behind Mpesa

may not have been as profit center but rather a tool to retain customers within the network. At the individual level, diffusion of an innovation occurs through a five–step process. This process is a type of decisionmaking. It occurs through a series of communication channels over a period of time among the members of a similar social system. Rogers categorizes the five stages (steps) as: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. In later editions of the Diffusion of Innovations Rogers changes the terminology of the five stages to: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confi rmation. I fi nd Rogers’ theory relevant in Kenya today. The many innovations either lying

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

An M-Pesa agent attending to a customer. MPesa is a classic example of technology deﬀusion

in laboratories or being tried in different social systems other than where the concept originated can be turned into viable products if there was awareness to sustain technology diffusion. Adoption of Western technologies in Africa is often simpler than the other way round due to largely imitation of western social systems. Thus decisions to support some of local innovations are mostly based on scalability without much consideration of the social systems in target markets. It is not difficult to reverse technology export as we know it today if we need greater market for our innovations, we simply must begin to think differently. In view of the current innovation dynamics, there is a need for building collaborative synergies between Universities and Industry in research and development (R&D) as well as multi-country synergies. This is best illustrated by Bill Jarrard’s writing on Australian Public Sector innovation where he says “although often innovation seems to come from an individual, it’s important to emphasize that innovation doesn’t have to happen in a vacuum. Setting up collaborative relationships, or networking with other individuals or businesses to share or diffuse ideas are some of the ways in which we can apply a creative thinking and meet our innovation potential”.

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

This is the reason why the Government created ICT Board, to create such synergies and market Kenya abroad as a viable destination for ICT enabled solutions through partnerships. Even with limited budget the Board has constantly created awareness more specifically with Silicon Valley and top United States of America Universities as well as enabled linkages with local Universities. What remains is how to nature (incubate) some of the promising solutions. Develop greater local human resource capacity through collaborations and embrace standards. I-Hub, a local resource center too has created opportunities to share ideas and sharpen innovation thoughts and as a result there is greater optimism for innovation here in Africa. In a country where 70% of the population is below age 35 and more than 40% unemployment, we need to do more. In many fora I have argued that Africa must encourage science, technology and innovation to foster productivity, competitiveness and growth. Innovation does not just come. We must constantly encourage reforms to our educational system. If we need more scientists, we must teach sciences at our primary and secondary schools. Perhaps the greatest opportunities we have are

problems whose solutions are nothing but innovation. The capacity to see through the problems as opportunities lies with collaborations. In one of my social media posts I have called for a collaborative effort to remove inefficiencies in our agricultural sector by developing a Commodities Exchange platform. The platform will leverage on the spread of mobile coverage and broadband penetration to post commodities from remote rural villages and link them to market centers in urban areas. If effectively implemented, the solution will not only deal with endemic inefficiencies but deal with food distribution in the country and bring greater benefits to all. Even though the idea is as old as Chicago Board of exchange, there is no better innovation than this in any part of the world today. In conclusion, it is imperative that we foster collaborative synergies to maximize our potential for greater productivity, competitiveness and growth of our motherland. Innovation emanates from a specific social system and its scalability lies in collaboration between many players and even a multi-country effort. If we need to succeed, then we must change our mind set from inward looking and complaining on improving problems of yesteryears to a more optimistic and outward looking. Challenges are always in the future and not the past.

www.cio.co.ke

February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

From Rwanda By Ruth Kang’ong’oi

Embrace the Change and Be Flexible

hile it is believed that there is little or no opportunity for mobile technology in markets where the majority of people live at or below subsistence-level income, it is clear now that emerging markets are the main growth prospect for the mobile industry and, with the right business models, mobile phones are accessible to some of the world’s poorest, for lack of a better term. Mobile phones have become the most important communication tool in the world. There are actually more mobile phones than computers in the world right now. As the number of mobile phones continues to increase in the developing world, many countries are expected to surpass the 100 per cent penetration rate. Recent figures from Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA), the regulator, mobile penetration rate increased from 40.2 per cent in the month of September last year to 40.8 per cent in October, then to 41.3 per cent in November. According to the report, RURA targets a 60 per cent penetration by the end of this year as a result of the new Bharti Airtel entry into the market. The Government of Rwanda is committed to achieving broad development goals through strategic investment and reform. They have now bound mobile solutions into basic human needs, hence helping in the development of the community.

can do a lot more tasks, employees just copy fi les they need onto their personal phones or pocket-sized USB devices so they can do work at home or vice versa; consumer devices have made their way into offices because they are better than the devices in the workplace. Mark Gibbs of Network World once said that the consumerization of IT cannot be avoided, but should be embraced because it is here and here to stay. On a lighter note, Gibbs said that it is even Biblical: “Once upon a time, IT said unto select employees (in biblical tones): Thou lucky employee, thou shalt have this very expensive cellphone (sign here) and thou shalt want no other. Go forth and communicate”, Adding, “And, lo, thou shalt also have this very expensive laptop (sign here as well) and thou better not break it, buster. Now, go forth and lug it around the country and give presentations and whatever else it is you do. Begone”. As much as it could be a nightmare, with a strong political will in support of ICT and the existence of the national ICT policy, embracing the consumerization of IT will not be so difficult in Rwanda. The benefits will certainly be worth the trouble that comes along with IT consumerization.

In fact, handset manufacturers and mobile operators could accelerate penetration by introducing and facilitating optional payment programs and fi nancing options to help low-income buyers overcome the obstacle of the initial capital needed. Now that these once very expensive tools have become cheaper, been improved and

www.cio.co.ke 36

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

February 2012 | Vol 4 | Issue 1

Hard Talk By Bobby Yawe

MBWA is Critical if IT is to Add Value

hen I was much, much, much younger I was as sensitive as a cobra and would strike as a result of any little or perceived provocation. So when one morning our management lecturer, who happened to be of Asian decent, wrote “mbwa” on the white board I instantly recoiled ready to strike and defend myself and the rest of the race. Soon after I had to reconsider; fortunately it was before I had done anything radical or injurious to the lecturer. MBWA, for those uninitiated in the field of management, is an acronym for Management By Walking Around. In the IT field this is a foreign doctrine, as we adore sitting in our restricted access locations and doing things remotely like wizards. When we are forced to actually meet with the mere mortals it is a sanitized interaction. This culture and its mannerisms unfortunately stay with many of us even after we have moved away from the technical task-based activities to management, and in a few cases to the executive committee where we get to see the organization holistically. The MBWA approach is critical if ICT is to add value to the operations of an organization and also have an impact on the bottom line. It is essential to see how your internal and external customers interact with the systems you have provided them to maximize productivity. I have experienced many times the increased productivity of a user when you show them the keyboard shortcuts or the right mouse button features for the various functions of an application. For you and I, this might seem like a petty issue as you wonder why any computer user does not know them, forgetting that most training in the use of the applications is

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

based on the L&L approach. When you take a “fly on the wall” (I am showing off my management prowess) approach you become better acquainted with the complexity and nuisances of using computer applications or even formerly basic mobile devices aka smart devices. Before I proceed with that trail of thought, for those who still have not got it, L&L refers to the “Look and Learn” method, which many of us applied as children when learning to play games like marbles, soccer and house. Taking you back to my past, a long, long time ago, when I was arrogant and full of myself as a member of the new elite of young PC experts, my signature task was creating macros in WordPerfect and Lotus 123. A number of months after one of the training sessions I was doing my MBWA when I stood behind the office manager as he worked on his computer and realized that he had developed an entire payroll application using the macro skills I had imparted to him previously. The application worked brilliantly, but I realized that I would be failing both him and the organization that had taken a chance by hiring me while also giving me free reign over its very expensive systems if I did not remedy this issue.

processing department frustrating any new young tech-savvy employees. A recent experience with a client is what brought back the memory of the spreadsheet payroll. I was making a courtesy call on the client, and while walking around exchanging niceties with the staff I noticed someone keying in data from forms. Many of us would not look beyond this, but not me; so in my usual fashion I poked my nose right in to fi nd out about the source of the data and the intended use. The forms are fi lled by inspectors visiting grantees around East Africa, after which they are then snail-mailed to Nairobi for input into an Access database for analysis and reporting. As I write this article we have developed a prototype for an Android-based data collection application that uses GPRS to send the data to a web portal from where it is written to a database at head office. Based on the acceptance of the prototype, we shall be rolling out about 60 phones across the region. MBWA is the only way I can remain relevant to my clients, many of who have no internal ICT personnel but have outsourced the entire activity to us; the same approach is needed for those of you working in industry.

There is a limit to how far a spreadsheet can go when handling transactional types of records, and I strongly felt that the user had reached that plateau. I therefore proceeded to have him trained on the famous Dbase III+ and as is said, for a while, the rest was history. If it was not for my MBWA approach to dealing with my customers, whether internal or external, the office manager would still be using his spreadsheet for processing the payroll and I would be ageing in the data

www.cio.co.ke

February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Second Opinion By Sam Mwangi

Is There a Gap Between Industry and Academia?

uring the CIO 100 on 29 to 30 November 2011 at Safari Park, there was a heated debate on whether there is a gap between industry and academia in Kenya. The answer to this question is a defi nite “yes”; not a “maybe”, but a “yes”. This fact is demonstrated by the sheer requirement for experience during most companies’ recruitment processes. If industry were confident with the products of academia, the years of experience requested would not be required for entry jobs. Another illustration of this gap is based on the fact that we rarely fi nd products in the market as a result of ideas conceived in academia. Mostly, we source for products and services from abroad. One example is the construction of Nairobi– Thika super highway; we have locally sourced raw materials and manual labor, while hiring engineering, design and construction services from India and China. Don’t we have skilled engineers to handle such a task? Now that we have identified this gap, how do we bridge it? First, academia needs to be aware of what exists in the industry. For instance, professors can visit the various manufacturing plants and telcos to catch a glimpse of the technology in use. Academia needs to understand what industry considers as deliverables. A manufacturing plant, for example, would like an engineer who can confi gure or troubleshoot a programmable logic circuit (PLC) for a conveyor belt using a graphical user interface (GUI) in the shortest time possible. No manufacturer would be interested in a graduate who studied the intricate details of a transistor, but rather the application of it in modern technology. Once this awareness

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has been created, academia can then develop a focused curriculum that instills the skills required in industry. Secondly, industry needs to reach out to academia. Safaricom Ltd in collaboration with Strathmore University has set a good example introducing a Master of Science (MSc.TID) program is designed to support innovation and entrepreneurship in the Telecommunication sector as in important pillar of sustainable economic development. Using such an approach, we can tackle the problem of lacking job readiness in the telecommunications sector via partnerships between industry and academia. The Cisco Networking Academy (NetAcad) also aims at responding to these challenges. The curriculum incorporates hands-on experience when teaching students about computer networks. The NetAcad Program offers various curricula, viz, CCNA, CCNP, Network Security, Fundamentals of Wireless LAN, which cover the principles and practice of designing, building, and maintaining networks capable of supporting national and global organizations. Another applicable aspect of encouraging the collaboration between academia and industry is exhibitions and competitions.

The Government, through National Council for Science and Technology (NCST), can play a facilitating role to create an innovation system that takes full benefit of Kenya’s comparative advantages. In India, major IT fi rms have launched partnering initiatives with various institutions of higher learning. For instance, Infosys has launched a program called “Campus Connect” to align the education being given at various engineering colleges, with the requirements of the industry. Elsewhere, Tech Mahindra, a joint venture of Mahindra group and British Telecom, have set up an engineering college, Mahindra College of Engineering, that will equip engineers with the skills required in the industry. Wipro, an innovative company in the IT services, BPO and Research and Development space, has also started a program called the Wipro Academy of Software Excellence, in association with The Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) to prepare fresh graduates for careers in software programming and provide them with the necessary skills. If Kenya follows these examples, the gap between academia and industry will soon be a thing of the past.

These activities enable those students to solve real-world engineering problems. Competition veterans become employees who can be productive on the job from day 1. One such activity is the IEEE Centurion Engineering Students Exhibition. The exhibition proves there is a need and opportunity for Kenya to organize an innovation system in which academia, private sector and public sector collaborate.

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Business Tips By Kristin Burnham, CIO

Five LinkedIn Tips for Career Success in 2012

hen 80 per cent of people reportedly don’t know how to use LinkedIn properly, a New Year’s resolution is born. The professional social network, which has more than 100 million users worldwide, added a number of new features to its portfolio in 2011. Your challenge: keeping up with LinkedIn to best position yourself professionally this year.

One common mistake LinkedIn users make is not having a clear focus in their profi le, says Lewis Howes, author of LinkedWorking: Generating Success on LinkedIn. To ensure your profi le has the maximum impact on others, you need to explicitly detail who you are as a professional within the “Summary” section.

“LinkedIn is not just a place to fi nd a job. It is a tool to help build your professional network, as well as a way to fi nd business opportunities for whatever job you are currently doing”, says Eve Mayer Orsburn, author of The Social Media Business Equation and CEO of Social Media Delivered.

To do this, Howes recommends reviewing your profi le and making sure the following items are included in your summary: who you are as a professional, who you can help, and how you can help them.

“[It] provides a way to fi nd the people you want to do business with and connect to them virtually when you may not have had the chance to meet them in person”.

“This sends a bad message to anyone investigating you for a potential partnership or job”, Orsburn says. “If you don’t follow through on completing your own profi le, what other things will you fail to fi nish? Take the time to fi ll in as many of the fields as you can, and always include a picture”.

Here are five tips from two LinkedIn experts to set you on the path to success iin n 2012.

1. Focus on Your Profi lew

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Another common profi le mistake: not fully completing it.

2. Make “LinkedIn Today” Part of Your Routine Last year, LinkedIn launched a new product called “LinkedIn Today”, a social news service that aggregates the top headlines and stories related to your industry and based on what your connections share. LinkedIn Today, Howes says, is a feature you should pay more attention to in 2012. You can fi nd LinkedIn Today under the News tab at the top of your LinkedIn homepage or by visiting www.linkedin.com/ today. The industries you see listed are what LinkedIn guesses you’re interested in based on information in your profi le, but they can be easily customized. Howes notes, too, that while LinkedIn Today is a good resource for keeping up on news— especially news that your contacts deem important—it can be a valuable tool for promoting your content if you have a blog. Howes recommends adding LinkedIn’s “Share” button to your blog posts to increase the chances of being featured on LinkedIn Today.

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Business Tips

3. Brand Yourself an Expert With “Answers” One of the most valuable and underused features on LinkedIn is “Answers”, Howes says. This part of the site is a forum where users can propose questions, seek advice and ask for opinions. “So many users are asking questions about their most painful points in their career or businesses”, he says. “If you’re an expert in a topic, then you should be answering more questions in order to pick up more clients and grow your business”, he says. “Answers” is also a good way to contact others who are interested in the same topics as you, says Orsburn. If you’re looking for a job in the IT industry, for example, search through questions tagged with that category to fi nd one that would showcase your abilities and knowledge in that area.

Not Job Hunting

5. Make New Connections in 2012

Just because you’re not currently looking for a job doesn’t mean your LinkedIn profi le should lie dormant.

The more quality people you are connected to, the more opportunities that could come your way. This year, focus on growing your network and connecting with new people, Howes says.

Keeping your profi le updated, Howes says, is essential for maintaining an accurate personal brand, as well as maintaining the potential for new business opportunities. “If someone wants to do business with you, they are most likely going to do some research about you on the Web”, Howes says. “It’s important you have everything up to date and portray your profi le the way you want it to look. This means keeping it updated, adding new recommendations and advanced applications to enhance your profi le”. Howes also recommends paying particular attention to the keywords you use in your profi le, so you rank higher in searches for your areas of expertise.

4. Refresh Your Profi le, Even if You’re

“Businesses grow based on your relationships, so you want to keep expanding and growing connections in your immediate and expanded network”, he says. But be careful when requesting new connections, though. Do your homework on who they are, their past positions and their interests; fi nd common ground; and be sure to craft a personal note requesting to add them to your network, using the information above. Orsburn recommends spending 10 minutes a day on LinkedIn to see where your efforts take you. “Start participating in groups and discussions, and start finding new connections to make”, she says. “The payoff will be better business connections in 2012”.

Continued from page 41

Cyberoam’s NetGenie own set of sites for each age group. The NetGenie also comes packed with security for port scanning, anomalies and other threats. It checks and reports web activity, application activity, connected users and attempted intrusion. This is in my view where the NetGenie scores against its closest competition. Other standard router management capabilities include an Internet usage meter, diagnostics, port forwarding, VPN passthrough, and very detailed reporting and logging. Performance and Price The NetGenie allows 8 user accounts and a total of 10 simultaneous login’s, A user can login from 10 different devices, say a laptop, tablet and a phone. When all security services are on (secure traffic), the router gives you a throughput of 10 Mbps and 20Mbps when just

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behind a fi rewall. This does not compare well with similar routers, which have a higher throughput. For instance the Cisco Linksys E1550 has a throughput of 60Mbps when 5 feet from the device. The NetGenie is also pricy as it costs US$ 180 (KSh 16,200), this price includes a 3-year security subscription that includes inbuilt anti-virus, intrusion prevention system, parental control which the company says would cost more if one bought all these services separately. All in all, the parental control feature in NetGenie makes the router attractive to its target market: families. The bundled antivirus, intrusion detection, port scanning and other security features gives the user confidence and peace of mind when their families are online. For these reasons, we give the NetGenie a thumbs up.

February 2012 | Vol4 | Issue 1

Last Word By Dennis mbuvi

The Cloudy Cloud

do not have a problem with cloud experts per se, but 2011 saw all sorts of individuals coming forward and declaring themselves cloud experts. I also came across various statements that would make it into the scripts for a comedy series titled “Cloud experts say the darndest things”. This include a statement explaining that “in the cloud”, it would be likely that data from, say a bank, would fi nd itself situated next to data from another bank, and this closeness can be “risky”. Another statement cautions against choosing new entrants to the cloud because they might lack “experience”. On YouTube, you will fi nd a video of Vishwa Gupta, a former Income Tax Commissioner in India, explaining how a rainstorm will result in issues accessing information stored in the cloud. Maybe its time we took a break from all this “cloud business”, before we all lose our sanity, or have our intelligence stored in the cloud, according to a comment on the Gupta video. In 1957, IBM and American Airlines launched Semi-Automated Business Research Environment (SABRE) to centralize ticketing of fl ights from a central computer, and provide the information in real time to other systems from a central data center. The system was based on a similar implementation by IBM for the US Airforce that saw the flow of information between radar stations and bombers coordinated through a few central computers. Now, 50 years later, a system based on a central computer and or data center should be easier to explain, and understand. Cloud computing is basically any system that can be accessed from anywhere provided one has an Internet connection, and this leaves a very thin line between the Internet and cloud computing. The main reason you would choose a cloud solution is probably convenience, since you can, for example, access your webmail from

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anywhere you have an Internet connection. Another major reason to opt for the cloud is that it may be a more cost effective option than purchasing your own solution, which would more often consist of both hardware and software. In addition, it takes a while to purchase such solutions and install them. A cloud-based solution takes a shorter period to set up. As an example, rather than purchasing a fi rewall for all your branches and hiring expensive professionals to manage the same, it may be easier to have a provider centrally manage the service and provide connectivity to your branches via a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS). With a cloud-based office suite, in addition to accessing my documents from any device including my phone, I can get new features sooner rather than waiting for the next refresh of packaged office software. When it comes to security, cloud computing firms (credible ones) are known to take their security more seriously than even your bank; it is easier to track stolen data than stolen money. This means that your security expertise is unlikely to match that offered by cloud vendors, and if you do, it will cost you an arm and leg for each pair of hands hired. In addition, for highly sensitive data stored in the cloud, it would be sensible to encrypt your data both in transit, and storage, though this might be complex in some instances and may prompt opting for a so-called “internal cloud”. The true potential of the cloud is quite huge, though this requires custom solutions that are meant to go beyond the traditional package software. “The cloud” is a term that gives a loose defi nition to services that have existed for the last 50 years, and is not helped by the opinions of numerous cloudy experts.

Dennis Mbuvi

dennis.mbuvi@cio.co.ke BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP