Conquering Africa One Device at a Time
Last week I wrote about Lenovo Group’s (Hong Kong: 0992; OTC: LNVGY) successful entry into the Chinese smartphone market. I posited that the company would have a relatively easy time breaking into Africa, given the prevalence of Chinese technology on the continent.
Maybe someone at Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) read my piece and decided they wanted a piece of the action (probably not, but it’s a nice thought), because the company announced on Monday that it was launching a “4Afrika” initiative that would entail a USD75 million investment on the continent over the next three years.
The goal of the program is to boost Internet accessibility on the continent by offering low-cost smart devices, promote the development of technology geared specifically towards Africa’s unique needs and help bring African web developers and ventures to maturity.
Microsoft is also partnering with the government of Kenya to bring low-cost or even free wireless broadband access to the country’s Rift Valley in a test project for white space technology that utilizes unused wireless spectrum to provide WiFi access. If successful, the project could be easily replicated across the continent.
Microsoft’s new approach to Africa is interesting in that it’s working on building a market for its products from the ground up. While there are clearly some philanthropic intentions there, given the sheer size and scope of the business opportunity in Africa, it’s also good corporate strategy. It’s also noteworthy that in helping to train web developers, it’s basically building itself a future indigenous workforce.
There’s also a certain competitive edge to the effort as Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has been making similar efforts on the continent for several years. Google began its efforts in Kenya in 2007 to help develop local content and educational initiatives through partnerships with local telecoms and technology businesses.
Google also partnered with Chinese handset maker Huawei and local telecom Safaricom to develop and offer an Android-based smartphone called the Ideos for USD100 a unit. It’s estimated that about 300,000 Ideos are being used today.
While that’s not a lot of units in absolute terms, it’s a solid start on a massively underserved continent. Those efforts are being helped along by the fact that a number of international consortiums have been laying new undersea data cables around the world, connecting the emerging markets to the developed ones through data links.
A number of undersea cable connections are already in place in the emerging markets, but the bulk of these intercontinental connections must be routed through more developed ones, leading to concerns that data can be mined for intelligence purposes.
As a result, a new consortium is working on laying a cable that will run from the Siberian region of Russia to China, from there to India and South Africa and then connect to Brazil before reaching the end of its line in Miami.
Given all the work of establishing these data pipelines and the efforts of Western (and Eastern) technology companies to build new markets from the ground up in Africa, the continent will eventually find itself in the happy position of having a 21st century technological economy handed to it.
In the intermediate term, that’s great for Africa and Western investors. Don’t be surprised if 25 years down the road we begin to hear growing cries of corporate colonialism, but hopefully all the efforts to develop local talent will help to mute that criticism.
Maybe someone at Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) read my piece and decided they wanted a piece of the action (probably not, but it’s a nice thought), because the company announced on Monday that it was launching a “4Afrika” initiative that would entail a USD75 million investment on the continent over the next three years.
The goal of the program is to boost Internet accessibility on the continent by offering low-cost smart devices, promote the development of technology geared specifically towards Africa’s unique needs and help bring African web developers and ventures to maturity.
Microsoft is also partnering with the government of Kenya to bring low-cost or even free wireless broadband access to the country’s Rift Valley in a test project for white space technology that utilizes unused wireless spectrum to provide WiFi access. If successful, the project could be easily replicated across the continent.
Microsoft’s new approach to Africa is interesting in that it’s working on building a market for its products from the ground up. While there are clearly some philanthropic intentions there, given the sheer size and scope of the business opportunity in Africa, it’s also good corporate strategy. It’s also noteworthy that in helping to train web developers, it’s basically building itself a future indigenous workforce.
There’s also a certain competitive edge to the effort as Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has been making similar efforts on the continent for several years. Google began its efforts in Kenya in 2007 to help develop local content and educational initiatives through partnerships with local telecoms and technology businesses.
Google also partnered with Chinese handset maker Huawei and local telecom Safaricom to develop and offer an Android-based smartphone called the Ideos for USD100 a unit. It’s estimated that about 300,000 Ideos are being used today.
While that’s not a lot of units in absolute terms, it’s a solid start on a massively underserved continent. Those efforts are being helped along by the fact that a number of international consortiums have been laying new undersea data cables around the world, connecting the emerging markets to the developed ones through data links.
A number of undersea cable connections are already in place in the emerging markets, but the bulk of these intercontinental connections must be routed through more developed ones, leading to concerns that data can be mined for intelligence purposes.
As a result, a new consortium is working on laying a cable that will run from the Siberian region of Russia to China, from there to India and South Africa and then connect to Brazil before reaching the end of its line in Miami.
Given all the work of establishing these data pipelines and the efforts of Western (and Eastern) technology companies to build new markets from the ground up in Africa, the continent will eventually find itself in the happy position of having a 21st century technological economy handed to it.
In the intermediate term, that’s great for Africa and Western investors. Don’t be surprised if 25 years down the road we begin to hear growing cries of corporate colonialism, but hopefully all the efforts to develop local talent will help to mute that criticism.