Inside Telkom’s broadband, TV plans | TechCentral

Telkom is involved in a multibillion-rand project to increase the throughput of fixed-line broadband to speeds of up to 40Mbit/s. The plans also include dramatically upping the speed of entry-level broadband services and introducing video-on-demand (VOD) products, possibly from international providers such as Hulu, Netflix and Nangu.

In addition, the company is planning a trial using superfast fibre-optic cables from selected telephone exchanges, with the pilot project expected to kick off as early as 15 January 2012. Details about the fibre project remain sketchy, however.

TechCentral is privy to documents that show Telkom plans to install devices called multi-service access nodes, or MSANs, in its telephone exchanges and street-level distribution cabinets and to introduce very high-speed digital subscriber line version 2 (VDSL2) technology, which will dramatically increase the speeds it can provide over its legacy copper access network.

VDSL2 is theoretically capable of offering download speeds of up to 250Mbit/s over short lengths of copper (up to 500m) and up 50Mbit/s for distances of up to 1km.

Telkom has invested millions of rand in recent years bringing fibre closer to its customers — in many areas, it has built fibre to its street-level distribution cabinets — to offer faster access speeds to consumers over its copper network.

In terms of the plan, which is known as the NGNEC project, Telkom is proposing that by 2013/2014, the slowest access speed offered on its access network will be 1Mbit/s (from 384kbit/s now). By 2015/2016, this will have been increased to between 2Mbit/s and 4Mbit/s with speeds at the high end of 20Mbit/s and 40Mbit/s in selected areas.

Steven White

Under the NGNEC pilot, Telkom will offer three access speeds to consumers: 10Mbit/s, 20Mbit/s and 40Mbit/s from selected exchanges (affecting about 2% of its subscriber base), providing both capped and uncapped products. It also plans to trial voice-over-broadband products in both the consumer and business markets.

The documents show that Telkom is debating internally about whether or not to offer access to the NGNEC pilot project to rivals. It is weighing the regulatory impact of not doing so, including what bearing this might have on plans by the Independent Communications Authority of SA to force it to provide competitors with access to its copper-cable infrastructure through a regulatory intervention known as local-loop unbundling and also how the Competition Commission would view such a move.

Telkom appears to be concerned that “wholesaling” access to the new network would delay the launch of the pilot project. It says not offering wholesale access to rivals during the pilot would “place pressure on competitors”. Also, not doing so would prevent delays as the company would have to wait for “wholesale partners’ fair operational readiness”. However, allowing wholesale access would “discourage” competitors from building competing networks and would be the “least risky option with regards to the regulatory and competition authorities”.

The documents show that by 2013, Telkom wants to offer both subscription and transactional VOD services, which could pit the company against pay-TV operator MultiChoice, owned by Naspers, which has similar plans. MultiChoice already offers a satellite-based transactional VOD service called BoxOffice and has said it plans to offer VOD over the Internet, too.

In an interview with TechCentral in September, Steven White, Telkom’s executive for converged business services, revealed that the company was at an “advanced stage” of discussions with a number of local and foreign content providers with a view to providing VOD over its copper-cable network. He said at the time that Telkom was not in discussions with Netflix. “We’d love to have Netflix, but SA is not on their radar screen right now,” he said.

It’s not clear whether Telkom has signed any content agreements yet, but the documents show it is investigating the possibility of seeking exclusive SA distribution agreements with one or more “over the top” content providers. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral

Image: Peter Baker

Nokia still number one, but feeling heat from Samsung, Apple | memeburn

Despite a drop in market share, Nokia continued to be the worldwide leader in mobile device sales, accounting for about 24% of all global sales. The second quarter of 2011 was a low point for Nokia, although the third quarter brought signs of improvement. This is according to research from Gartner.

Dual-SIM phones in particular, and feature phones generally, maintained Nokia’s momentum in emerging markets. Gartner reckons that “heavy marketing from both Nokia and Microsoft” to push the new Lumia devices should bring more improvement in the fourth quarter of 2011. A true turnaround won’t take place, however, until the second half of 2012.

Samsung now the biggest smartphone manufacturer

The second biggest phone manufacturer by sales is Samsung. The company has also now become the number one smartphone manufacturer worldwide as its sales tripled to reach 24-million. Samsung took poll-position as a smartphone manufacturer for the first time, ahead of Nokia in Western Europe and Asia.

Gartner attributes this to the strong performance of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones, which now cover a broad range of prices, and a weaker competitive market. Analysts expect more competition in the fourth quarter of 2011, not least because sales of the iPhone 4S, 4 and 3GS will capture share from Android manufacturers.

Apple down, but big comeback expected

Apple shipped 17 million iPhones, an annual increase of 21%, but down nearly three-million units from the second quarter of 2011 because of Apple’s new device announcement in October. Gartner believes Apple will bounce back in the fourth quarter because of its strongest ever pre-orders for the iPhone 4S in the first weekend after its announcement.

Markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Russia and China are becoming more important to Apple, representing 16% of overall sales and showing that the iPhone has a place in emerging markets, especially now that the 3GS and 4 have received price cuts.

Android now on more than half of all smartphones

The Android OS accounted for 52.5% of smartphone sales to end users in the third quarter of 2011, more than doubling its market share from the third quarter of 2010.

“Android benefited from more mass-market offerings, a weaker competitive environment and the lack of exciting new products on alternative operating systems such as Windows Phone 7 and RIM,” commented Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner.

“Apple’s iOS market share suffered from delayed purchases as consumers waited for the new iPhone. Continued pressure is impacting RIM’s performance, and its smartphone share reached its lowest point so far in the US market, where it dropped to 10%.”

Strong smartphone growth in China, Russia

Smartphone sales to end users reached 115-million units in the third quarter of 2011, up 42% from the third quarter of 2010. Sequentially, smartphone sales slowed to seven percent growth from the second quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2011. Smartphone sales accounted for 26% of all mobile phone sales, growing only marginally from 25% in the previous quarter.

“Strong smartphone growth in China and Russia helped increase overall volumes in the quarter, but demand for smartphones stalled in advanced markets such as Western Europe and the US as many users waited for new flagship devices featuring new versions of the key operating systems,” said Cozza. “Slowdowns also occurred in Latin America and the Middle East and Africa.”

440m phones sold worldwide

Worldwide, sales of mobile devices totalled 440.5-million units in the third quarter of 2011, up 5.6% from the same period last year, according to Gartner. Non-smartphone devices performed well, driven by demand in emerging markets for low-cost devices from white-box manufacturers, and for dual-subscriber identity module (SIM) devices.

“Our forecast for the end of the year remains broadly in line at a worldwide level as regions such as Asia/Pacific and the Middle East and Africa make up for weaker performance in the Western European market,” said Annette Zimmermann, a principal analyst at Gartner based in Munich.

Samsung Galaxy Note in SA: pricing and details

Is it a tablet? Is it a phone? Actually, it’s a bit of both. Samsung Electronics has launched what it’s calling the first and largest 5,3-inch high-definition “Super Amoled” smartphone in SA. This is a beast of a phone. And it has a beastly price tag: expect to have to fork over at least eight and a half grand to own one (outside of a contract).

Samsung puts the recommended retail price at between R8 499 and R8 999 and is punting the phone, which has a 1280×800-pixel display and a stylus for note-taking and other tasks, as combining best of tablets and smartphones in a single device.

Despite its enormous screen, the Galaxy Note is a just 9,7mm thick and weighs only 178g, which is not much more than the popular Galaxy S II.

The display is reinforced with Gorilla Glass — a standard feature in high-end smartphones these days — and the Note comes preinstalled with Google’s Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system. Samsung says an upgrade to Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, will follow.

The Korean company hasn’t crimped on the hardware innards, either. It includes a dual-core 1,4GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor and 1GB of RAM. It’s available in 16GB and 32GB models in international markets, though only the 16GB is available in SA at launch.There’s a microSD slot that supports up to a further 32GB of storage space.

The Galaxy Note includes an 8-megapixel camera, LED flash, autofocus, and shoots 1080p video at 30 frames a second. It also offers a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video calling.
Connectivity is provided via Wi-Fi (up to 802.11n) and 21Mbit/s cellular downloads (5,7Mbit/s on the uplink). There’s DNLA support, too, for streaming content to and from compatible devices like PCs.

The stylus, which Samsung calls the “S Pen”, and which slots into the bottom of the device, allows users to annotate Web pages, documents and images and take screenshots, which can be shared via e-mail, MMS and social networks.

For business users, Samsung has included support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Cisco WebEx for video conferencing, and a wide range of virtual private networking support.

The Galaxy Note is being called a “phone tablet” by Samsung. It supports multi-touch input and includes new gestures like a “judo swipe” that involves swiping the side of your hand across the screen to take a screenshot.

Users can also take selective screenshots from websites by circling the elements on the page they want to save. These can then be further annotated and shared.

In conjunction with the Galaxy Note, Samsung has launched an instant-messaging service called ChatON, its equivalent of cross-platform message service Whatsapp and Apple’s iMessage. ChatON doesn’t come preinstalled on the Galaxy Note but can be downloaded from the Samsung app store.

The Galaxy Note will be available in SA in the second week in November. — Craig Wilson, TechCentral

How employees are driving an iPad revolution, and what IT’s doing about it

September 15, 2011

 

Mirroring the adoption of smartphones and PDAs before it, the explosive growth of the iPad in business can be attributed almost entirely to employees’ obsession with Apple’s “magical” tablet.

The iPad’s transformation from consumer gadget to enterprise tool points the way to an employee-driven tech future in which users — not IT departments — get to choose their own gear and applications.

IT managers are learning how to adapt, fast.

“When the iPad was first released, we didn’t have any kind of enterprise strategy about supporting the device,” said Jeff Niblack, an IT manager at UnitedHealth Group, a diversified health and well-being company with over 80,000 employees worldwide.

“Within two weeks, we started getting our first inquiries. In the following two months, though, things really exploded, and I started getting requests for pulling iPads into nearly all aspects of the enterprise. There are now around 1,100 iPads deployed.”

Kaplan Higher Education agrees. The certificate and degree program company found itself bombarded with requests from employees who wanted to use their personal iPads on the job.

“Kaplan has a very young executive team and they were just in love with the iPad,” a Kaplan representative said. “They just started buying them, and so we had to learn to integrate the iPad as quickly as possible.”

Even the IT departments at smaller organizations are having problems with crowd control when it comes to denying iPads to their users.

Jeff Gargas is the IT Director for Robinson Engineering, a civil engineering firm with 120 employees spread across eight offices through the Chicago area. Robinson currently has a dozen iPads deployed, with more to follow.

At first, Gargas was nervous about giving iPads to his users.

“I’m a big fan of Apple products, so I was bringing my own iPad into work and using it for apps like Evernote, Dropbox and RemoteDesktop,” says Gargas. “Even so, one of the main reasons I was reluctant to deploy the iPad was because there’s no easy way to centrally manage the tablet, including mass-installing apps or connecting to files on our network.”

Eventually, Robinson Engineering realized it couldn’t keep employees from using their own iPads, and had to figure out how to make it work.

“As the iPad gained more traction and press, it became a lot more difficult to fend off people going, ‘Hey, why can’t we use iPads here?’” Gargas says. “Users started just purchasing their own and bringing them in, just like I did.”

“That was both a blessing and a nightmare: a blessing because we didn’t have to train users in how to user their iPads, a nightmare because we had no way to control them.”

The difficulty in centrally managing users’ devices is the biggest barrier to entry facing IT managers who want to deploy iPads to their users. For example, while Kaplan Higher Education eventually rolled out over 500 iPads to its users, it wasn’t easy, due to the company’s inability to distribute a device with a standard “image” of all the standard apps.

“That’s not the way Apple wants it done,” the Kaplan representative said. “They see the iPad as a personal device, each iPad as distinct as its owner.”

Problems that IT managers face in deploying iPads also include the mass purchasing of apps and the inability to add the iPad to corporate data plans.

Even so, Kaplan considers the rewards of deploying iPads to be greater than the drawbacks, and it is now considering giving iPads to as many as 10,000 students.

“Once the iPad’s actually out in a user’s hands, we love it. It’s easy to support. We don’t have to pay a company like Research in Motion licensing fees for a product like Blackberry Enterprise Server, since the iPad connects with Microsoft Exchange,” says Kaplan’s IT department.

Ultimately, IT managers seem to agree: Even though there are hurdles to deploying the iPad across an enterprise, the rewards are too great to ignore. But it does take a leap of faith.

What’s the lesson for businesses?

“Part of what we discovered here at Robinson Engineering was that letting our users figure out how to use their own iPads was the best part,” says Jeff Gargas. “If we hadn’t learned to trust our users and trust the iPad, I don’t think it would have been successful.”

As for Apple fans who want to use their iPads at work, the message is clear: The best way to get your company’s IT department to start supporting iPads is to bring yours to work and just start using it. Eventually, your company will have to catch up.

Photo credit: Nibaq/Flickr.com

How the enterprise is adopting tablets (infographic)

October 21, 2011 | Sean Ludwig

inShare

It’s no secret enterprises have begun to adopt tablets with the same fervor of consumers. Since the debut of Apple’s iPad in Jan. 2010, the integration of tablet devices into our lives and work has progressed rapidly — so fast that it’s sometimes hard to put in perspective how quickly got here.

The exclusively obtained infographic below breaks down how far workforce adoption of tablet technology has come — and where it’s headed. (The graphic was sponsored by Lenovo and Qualcomm.)

In overall world market share for tablets, the iPad clobbers all others. The iPad accounted for nearly 80 percent of worldwide tablet sales during the past 12 months, but Android is slowly gaining ground, thanks to a wide variety of devices and prices. On the higher end, there are devices like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9, and on the lower end there’s the upcoming Amazon Kindle Fire and already well-established Nook Color.

Enterprise adoption is quite different from total adoption. A just-released survey from Good suggests the iPad and iPad 2 were responsible for 96 percent of tablet activations in the enterprise in the third quarter of 2011. With just 4 percent of activations being Android-based, Apple has a clear lead with the enterprise crowd.

Business users have different needs with their tablets, chief among them are strong and versatile applications that keep the mobile workforce connected. The iPad has a clear lead in this area with more than 136,000 iPad-optimized apps while Google won’t reveal how many apps are actually optimized for Honeycomb-based tablets. (Some estimates guess it is under 1,000 at present.) One of the most promising enterprise applications we’ve seen recently is Polycom’s video-conferencing app that works for both iPad and Android tablets.

It’s unclear at this point if Android will be able to take away much of the share the iPad has secured with enterprise users, especially in Bring-Your-Own-Device workplaces. But we’ll be watching to see what happens in this exciting space and let you know the latest.

The ‘iDevice’ nightmare facing corporate IT shops

Employees want devices like Apple's iPad to work with their company's IT systems

Employees bringing their own gadgets, from smartphones to tablet computers, into the companies they work for and expecting them to function seamlessly with corporate technology systems is proving to be a significant and growing challenge for IT departments.

Warren Johnson, account technology specialist at Microsoft, says IT departments are struggling to
figure out how to accommodate the growing range of devices and online ecosystems that employees expect will interoperate with company-managed systems. In many cases it’s creating a security headache for IT directors, he says.

It’s becoming a tricky balancing act for many companies as they try to figure out how to benefit from this “consumerisation of IT”, while at the same time ensuring their systems aren’t compromised and the IT department doesn’t become overloaded because it’s supporting a multitude of nonsanctioned devices and ecosystems.

Employees are also expecting more from IT because they come across business systems online and want the technology function in their organisations to replicate it.

“We don’t see this trend stopping,” Johnson says. “IT has to catch up with what consumers are demanding.”

The question, he says, is whether they can. Though some companies are “really trying” to adopt and adapt to consumer technologies, it can become a “nightmare” to manage all the devices. “Internal developers are asking how they keep up with all the different technologies out there.”

The challenge for many IT departments is it’s often the CEO that is demanding his iPad or other new-fangled device interoperates seamlessly with the corporate backend systems, meaning they don’t have the choice of simply barring their use.

“The executives want the funky stuff. Four years ago they were saying you have to secure and manage everything because it’s too costly for us. Now they’re saying bypass it for me because I want my funky laptop.”

Johnson says embracing IT consumerisation has many benefits — and some employees may shun the idea of working for a company that doesn’t allow them to use their own gadgets for business purposes — but there are also big risks. “What if there is a zero-day attack on a platform you’re not in control of?”

Part of the solution, he says, is for companies like Microsoft to make it easier to develop applications that run across platforms. In Windows 8, the upcoming release of Microsoft’s dominant desktop operating system, developers will be able to write apps in Web-based programming languages and port these to other platforms.

“But it’s hard,” Johnson says. “We get organisations saying that if they allow users to bring in any device, then what sort of apps do they permit? If I can’t secure that device, how do I control which devices can have which apps with which data?”

Of course, not all organisations can allow consumer IT products and services. Johnson says Scotland Yard, by way of example, controls what devices are able to access its systems very tightly to prevent sensitive information from leaking. The organisation is strict about what devices, applications and data its employees may use.

But for many companies, embracing the trend has bigger benefits than trying to fight it, Johnson says.
Ultimately, he says, end-user devices will catch up with standards and allow IT departments to manage them better. “Manufacturers will come up with devices that support data encryption and they’ll be more on par with each other in terms of security and manageability.”

Until then, companies have a very real challenge on their hands: embrace the benefits and assume the risks, or try to move against the trend and face a revolt from users.
— Duncan McLeod, TechCentral

What is the Total Cost of Operating a Contact Center?

by Greg Smart -

 

People frequently ask me how much the technology costs to successfully run a contact center. What I find interesting about this question is that people often think that the technology component of running a contact center is one of the largest portions of the total cost of operation...but it isn't.

Experience has shown time and time again that there are four broad categories of costs in running a contact center business. Those four categories are:

1. Contact Center Staff and Labor
2. Contact Center Facilities and Overhead
3. Contact Center Technology and Maintenance
4. Contact Center Telecommunications and Networking

In addition, experience has also shown that about 75% of the costs of a contact center are for the Contact Center Staff and Labor and the remaining 25% is divided among the remaining categories: Facilities and Overhead, Technology and Maintenance, and Telecommunications and Networking in that order. Go ahead and check the math in your contact center. How do you size up? To help you out,

I have included a list of items for you to consider in each category when adding up the total cost of operating your contact center. Remember, some of these items are variable charges month to month, while others are fixed costs that must be spread across the year or month you are measuring.

Contact Center Staff and Labor

1. Wages, benefits, taxes and hiring costs of your contact center agents and supervisors and quality management staff
2. Salaries, benefits and taxes of your contact center management team
3. Chargebacks for business services such as HR, accounting, IT, etc. ( if applicable)

Contact Center Facilities and Overhead

1. Facility rent, utilities, maintenance and janitorial
2. Investment in office furniture and maintenance
3. Build-out and customizations made to the facility to accommodate growth
4. Supplies and consumables for the office and break facilities
5. Travel costs

Contact Center Technology and Maintenance

1. Investments in computers, headsets, telephones, monitors, printers, overhead displays
2. Technical support chargebacks or services
3. Technology maintenance contracts
4. Investments in Contact
5. Application and Storage Servers and Software for Contact Handling and Workforce Optimization applications
6. Contact Handling hardware if applicable including ACD, IVRs, Dialers

Contact Center Telecommunications and Networking

1. Dedicated Internet Access and mobile internet contracts
2. Dedicated T's and mobile voice contracts
3. Voice network per minute charges for toll free, local, and long distance usage
4. VoIP services

These items should get you thinking and cover the vast majority of the most significant costs of operating a contact center. As you can see, the technology investment is really only the tip of the iceberg.

Best wireless broadband deals « Broadband « MyBroadband Tech and IT News

Staff Writer

October 4, 2011

3 comments

MTN, 8ta, Cell C, iBurst, Neotel and Vodacom have all cut their broadband prices recently. Here are some of the best deals.

Summary: All of South Africa’s mobile and wireless broadband providers are currently running mobile broadband promotions. This includes uncapped broadband products from MTN and iBurst, and 8ta’s 10GB for R199.

Last week (29 September) iBurst slashed the price of their capped wireless broadband products. At the same time the company also launched their first uncapped broadband services.

iBurst’s new pricing and products come amidst a torrent of price cuts and new offerings from broadband providers.

It can be challenging to keep track of the best mobile and wireless broadband deals in the market, and the list below may assist you to stay on top of recent changes in the South African broadband market.

iBurst

• Uncapped for R599: Includes an uncapped account (with 1GB daily fair use policy) and a USB or desktop modem on a 24 month contract
• Uncapped+ for R879: Includes an uncapped account (with 3GB daily fair use policy) and a USB or 2Mbps desktop modem on a 24 month contract
• Pro 10 for R198: Includes 10GB of anytime data, 10GB of data to be used between 00:00 and 08:00 and a USB modem on a 24 month contract

MTN

• Uncapped Lite for R289: 3GB data bundle, after which service is throttled to 128kbps, but not capped. From 1 October 2011 to 31 January 2012 there will be no throttling. Comes with a MTN F@stlink USB modem on a 24 month contract.
• 2GB promotion for R149: 2GB of data and an MTN F@stlink USB modem on a 24 month contract.

Neotel

• NeoGo Datacard 2GB for R99: 2GB of data for an upfront payment of R299 and a month-to-month fee (no contract) of R99. A 3GB contract service without any up-front payment is available at R179 which includes the data card.

Cell C

• 24GB for R1,499: 2GB of data per month for 12 months and a 7.2Mbps data card for R1499 once off.
• 60GB for R2,999: 5GB of data per month for 12 months and a 7.2Mbps data card for R1499 once off.
• Recharge Rewards: Subscribers who recharge with R50 a week and receive 50 bonus SMSs, 50 Cell C to Cell C minutes and 500 Megabytes of data.

8ta

• 10GB for R199: 10GB of data per month on a 24 month contract for R199 per month. For R100 per month extra you can get another 10GB to be used between 00:00 and 05:00
• 2GB + 1GB for R149: 2GB prepaid data bundle for R149, with another 1GB which can be used between 00:00 and 05:00

Vodacom
Vodacom is currently running a ‘double your data’ promotion where users will get double the allocated data for Prepaid and Top Up once-off data bundles. This promotion applies to Broadband Standard MyGig 1, MyGig 1.5, MyGig 2 and MyGig 2.5 data bundles purchased between 19 September 2011 and 31 October 2011.

It should be noted that even with the additional data, Vodacom’s data prices remain uncompetitive when compared with the prices listed in this article.

Mobile Phones dominate in South Africa / Nielsen Wire

September 30, 2011 Jan Hutton, Director, Telecoms, Nielsen Southern Africa

Africa is in the midst of a technological revolution, and nothing illustrates that fact than the proliferation of mobile phones. Consider this: more Africans have access to mobile phones than to clean drinking water. In South Africa, the continent’s strongest economy, mobile phone use has gone from 17 percent of adults in 2000 to 76 percent in 2010. Today, more South Africans – 29 million – use mobile phones than radio (28 million), TV (27 million) or personal computers (6 million). Only 5 million South Africans use landline phones.

Nielsen’s recently released Mobile Insights study in South Africa, which examined consumers’ usage of and attitudes toward mobile phones, networks and services, reveals a number of interesting insights:

- High levels of network loyalty: 95 percent of subscribers have been with their carrier for an average of 4.2 years, and 81 percent said they’d recommend their network providers to friends and family, reinforcing the importance of word-of-mouth and reputation in the industry.
- Move from pre-paid to contracts: While pre-paid plans still make up between 82 and 85 percent of the market, 25 percent of subscribers say they could switch from pre-paid to contract packages within the next year.
- Network quality a key decision factor: More than a quarter (27%) said they left their previous provider due to poor network quality.
- Nokia rules: More than half (52%) own that company’s handsets, followed by Samsung and BlackBerry, and 56 percent of those currently using other brands indicated their next handset would likely be a Nokia.

How do South Africans Use their phones?

As in other countries, mobile phones are being used in a range of ways aside from talking. South Africa ranks fifth in the world for mobile data usage, ahead of the United States, which ranks seventh.

More than 20 percent of those surveyed said they download ringtones and a similar number said they download music. Wallpapers, screensavers and pictures are also popular downloadables. The mobile phone as an Internet device is also on the rise – 11 percent of South Africans use their mobiles to go online, and consumers aged 25-34 are the heaviest users.

Facebook is the most popular social media platform, used by 85 percent of mobile subscribers. Half of all users of Facebook in South Africa access the site via their mobiles. MXIT, a mobile instant messaging platform, is also popular in the country, with 61 percent saying they access the site. SMS text messaging is practically ubiquitous among South African mobile customers, and is used by almost 4.2 times more people than e-mail.

More than two-thirds (69%) of consumers prefer sending texts to calling, in large part because it is less expensive, and 10 percent believe texting to be a faster way of communicating.

The majority (60%) of South African mobile users said they are aware of mobile banking services offered by banks, but only 21 percent say they use such services. A much larger number of those aware of the services said they would never use them, suggesting banks might need to invest in communicating the benefits and security of mobile banking.

This survey provides a comprehensive benchmark against which the changes occurring in the rapidly evolving telecom sector can be measured. When one considers that just three years ago, there were no smartphones being used on the continent, the pace of change is stunning. South Africa is the biggest market, but other countries on the continent are likely to catch up fast.

Cisco’s Cius tablet is all business | TechCentral

— Craig Wilson, TechCentral

With all its rivals focusing their tablet computing offerings squarely at consumers, networking giant Cisco is taking a bet that its tablet offering, the Cius, will appeal to the corporate set. The product, which is now on sale in SA, is only available to business customers.

The seven-inch Android-based tablet has a 1,6GHz Intel Atom processor, a back-lit, multi-touch LCD screen with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels, 32GB of storage, front and rear cameras both capable of 720p video (and offering support for all Cisco TelePresence videoconferencing) and weighs just 535g.

At launch, there is only a Wi-Fi model available, but mobile broadband models will follow soon. The Cius includes a microSD slot for expanding the on-board memory. This can also be secured so the card can’t be read when used in a device other than the Cius.

Despite its capable hardware, the Cius runs the somewhat outdated Android 2.2. The company says this is because of the need for high security specifications and that there will be support for Android 3.1 in future.

Regarding the decision to go for a 7-inch screen, Cisco engineer Leon Wright says the company decided seven inches was the ideal combination of functionality and portability.

Considering its target market, it’s not surprising the Cius offers virtual desktop integration, a unified communications porfolio, cloud centralisation of device management, and high-definition videoconferencing support, all of which is complemented by its “contacts-driven” user interface. The Cius also ships with QuickOffice preinstalled for viewing and editing all major document formats.

It offers operating system and file system-level encryption, password management, the ability to push and enforce policies remotely, the large-scale provision of services across multiple devices and the ability to remote lock or wipe the device – or a batch of them – on demand.

The Cius connects to a company’s existing telecommunications network via an optional docking station, which supports fixed-line telephony, includes a full duplex speaker for hands-free use, two USB ports for a keyboard and mouse, an HDMI-out port for extending video capabilities to an external display, and a power-over-Ethernet port for networking and charging.

Another feature of the Cius that has yet to make its way to consumer tablets is the detachable battery that offers an anticipated eight-hour battery life and can be swapped out with a spare if necessary.

Cisco has also created an application store that it calls App HQ, which is complementary to the Android Market. Apps HQ hosts applications specifically designed for the Cius and tested by Cisco.

It is also possible for system administrators to limit which apps users can install, and can do this per user or per group of users – for example, the sales team can all be granted access to the same apps.

System administrators can even create a custom marketplace with handpicked apps for their particular business.

Techcentral // Acer’s Iconia A500 Tab: an exercise in optimism

Just about every computer and phone manufacturer now makes tablets in the hope of grabbing some of the scraps of market share Apple doesn’t hold with the iPad. Acer has a couple of tablet offerings, but its headline act is the Iconia Tab A500, a 10,1-inch Android-powered monster with innards that compare well to rival offerings.

Some of the A500’s vital statistics include a 10,1-inch capacitive LCD touch screen with a resolution of 1280×800 that supports multi-touch gestures with up to ten fingers, a light sensor for auto-brightness adjustments, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video calling or checking for spinach in your teeth.

Behind its not-unattractive visage — albeit one more prone to fingerprints than its competitors and less than great in sunlight — is a dual-core 1GHz Tegra processor and 1GB of RAM, meaning lag is no problem even when running a range of applications simultaneously. There are all the usual bells and whistles we’ve come to expect from tablets, like a microphone, surprisingly good speaker, accelerometer, GPS, multi-tab browsing and Bluetooth, but it’s the unexpected additions that are the A500’s strongest selling point.

Though the mini-HDMI port isn’t unheard of and neither is the microUSB port — which unfortunately is only for data transfer, not charging, purposes — Acer has included a full-sized USB 2.0 port, making it a far more flexible device than any of its competitors’ products.

Not only can you plug in an external hard drive, but card readers and other USB devices suddenly become tablet friendly. Naturally, there are limitations to what will work with the A500, but it is nevertheless a great differentiating feature. Another of these differentiators is the LED flash that accompanies the rear-facing, 5-megapixel camera, which also includes autofocus and the ability to shoot video at 720p at 29 frames per second. There’s also a microSD slot that allows for expansion of the default 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage. The A500 is Wi-Fi only, while the A501 offers support for 3G. The A500 appears to include a crippled Sim slot under the same flap as the microSD slot, but it’s covered with a sticker that reads:
“Warranty void if seal is broken.”

At R5 399 for the 32GB version, the A500 costs as much as the equivalent Wi-Fi-only iPad 2. However, it weighs slightly more than the Apple device and, despite the price, the A500’s build quality doesn’t feel as good as those of Samsung’s or Motorola’s tablets, let alone the iPad.

The seam running around the edge of the device is unsettling, and prompts visions of the device winding up in two parts if dropped accidentally. Also, although the rest of the buttons feel decent enough, the orientation lock/unlock button and volume rocker feel flimsy and cheap.

Then there’s the proprietary charger, something common to most tablets, but annoying nevertheless and a reminder of the days of proprietary cellphone chargers. The charger also seems bulkier than it should, and rather than incorporating a data cable with a power adaptor the A500 requires carrying both.

There are two big failings with the Iconia A500. The first is its size. Not only is it quite thick at 13,5mm, but tipping the scales at 730g it weighs more than the first-generation iPad and about the same as the Motorola Xoom.

There’s one another failing: poor battery life. Plugged in and fully charged on day one, with Wi-Fi left on and less than 30 minutes of use, the A500 was almost dead the by the morning of day two. Having charged it again, by the end of day two and having played around with it intermittently for no more than two hours and having had it on standby for another eight, the battery charge had fallen to 27%.

The Iconia A500 runs Android 3.1

The A500 gets around six hours of use to a charge, which is relatively poor next to the competition. What’s more troubling is the standby time. Perhaps Acer needs to refine how its tablets behave when they’re on, but idle.

In its defence, the A500 offers excellent functionality, a respectable display with superb viewing angles, a plain-and-simple Android interface atop Android 3.1, some great features other tablets don’t offer, and it has a respectable design.

However, the price, in conjunction with the build quality, brings to mind a (somewhat paraphrased) line from the cult Australian film The Castle: “Tell ‘em they’re dreamin’”.

— Craig Wilson, TechCentral

Auditing and Benchmarking your communications costs

You don’t know what you don’t know, and you cannot manage that which you don’t measure.

CommsCloud believe that managing communications expenditure without Business Intelligence [BI] tools and the insight it affords role players could be equated to running a large business without accountants or computers. The opportunities afforded any decision maker are significant when you are making well informed knowledgeable decisions based on fact.

CommsCloud’s point of departure for any new project is twofold;

1. Gain a detailed understanding of the communications costs before offering up any opinion
2. Ensure that all the role players are well informed of the results thereof and obtain buy-in on a way forward

CommsCloud starts by performing an Audit [and benchmarking] of all communications infrastructure for both fixed and variable costs. During this Audit phase we benchmark your communications costs against market trends in SA and CommsCloud’s "Best Practice Standards". We then present the “BI” derived from this process to all the role players in a way that makes sense and allows the role players to relate to the opportunity and play a definitive role in building a communications strategy.

The information we gather and report on in during the “Audit phase” informs the decision making for all the roles players going forward. This process not only highlights opportunities but also savings and ROI on any project.

CommsCloud have found the process will;

• Ensure that all role players are well positioned to make decisions and understand
o their unique business need
o fixed and variable costs
o infrastructure efficiencies and problems
• Highlight problems and opportunities; thus enabling decision makers to
o define a common goal and purpose
o define a strategy
o understand where to start and what to start with
o measure success of the implementation on any project
o hold vendors and service providers accountable after implementation of a solution to the “promised” efficiencies, costs savings and SLA

CommsCloud have a strong track record when it comes to managing organisations with large geographical footprints. We have the requisite resources, project management skills, supplier relationships, product knowledge and “Best Practice Standards” required for a project of this nature. Any business wishing to improve efficiencies, effect savings, upgrade technology and business processes, put together a strategy and managing a large geographical footprint will find it difficult to do so without a partner such as ourselves.

CommsCloud will help your business manage the process from A to Z and ensure a successful implementation of any communications project, be it infrastructure or a solution.

We hope this overview enables you to get a sense of what is possible using our unique methodology and would welcome the opportunity to give your business more detail on the processes, the BI reporting and how we could simplify your project.

For further information see;

• www.commscloud.com
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwalshzar

Cape Town - September 2011

BlackBerry Bold 9900: fantastic and forgettable // TechCentral

BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) makes both high- and low-end devices, and its Bold range has traditionally fallen somewhere in the middle of its range. The latest addition to the Bold family, the 9900, is a beautiful device that errs on the higher end of the scale and promises users faster browsing and easier interface navigation.

If we had to sum up the 9900 in a single sentence it would be: “It’s very much like the previous Bold, but with a touch screen.” Though that’s a little reductive, it sums up our first impression of handling the device.

The 9900 is a curious combination of the sort of comfortable Qwerty keyboards that make most BlackBerry’s devices instantly recognisable and capacitive touch screens that so many non-BlackBerry users have assumed the devices include when trying to use one for the first time.

The result is a BlackBerry that’s easier to operate than non-touch versions, albeit one that is still burdened with an operating system (OS) that is more complicated and frustrating to use than it should be, especially for first-time users.

Though the 9900’s menu structure is somewhat better than its predecessors’, changing settings still requires digging about in menus, and sections still aren’t labelled as intuitively as they should be. Long-time BlackBerry users won’t find this a problem, but for those who aren’t accustomed to the BlackBerry software, it’s an annoying aspect of an otherwise lovely device.

Equipped with a 1,2GHz processor, 768MB of RAM and 3G HSPA+ aerial, the 9900 runs BlackBerry 7 OS, which includes support for HTML5 and promises much faster browsing speeds. RIM claims there is an improvement in speed of as much as 40% over BlackBerry 6 and 100% over BlackBerry 5.

The 9900 has the same dimensions as the Bold 9000 but is far thinner at only 10,5mm thick and — this is a big selling point — it includes a larger keyboard. The keyboard is superb and the bigger keys result in fewer typing errors. If you’re a fan of Qwerty keyboards, the 9900’s is best in class.

With support for 16m colours and a resolution of 640×480, the phone’s 2,8-inch screen is bright, crisp and responsive to the touch. It supports pinch to zoom, which makes Internet browsing and document reading even better.

Click image to enlarge

The 9900 also includes a digital compass and accelerometer as well as support for near-field communications (NFC), the mobile payments technology. Although there aren’t as yet any real uses for NFC in SA, it does mean that the 9900 has a degree of future-proofing.

One of the most appealing things about the 9900 is the styling. It feels and looks like a top-end device. From the feel of the keyboard and the vibrancy of the screen, to the stainless-steel trim and matching buttons around the edge of the device, it exudes style.

The high-gloss rear cover is a fingerprint magnet, but the rubberised portion that surrounds it makes the 9900 a pleasure to hold and less slippery than it would be had the cover’s material been used for the whole rear.

The 9900 comes with 8GB of internal storage and support for microSD cards up to 32GB. Like its peers, the 9900 is charged or tethered by means of microUSB.

It also includes a 5-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash. The camera is capable for its class, and although RIM hasn’t included a front-facing camera, considering how rarely we’ve actually ever used one, this doesn’t seem much of an impediment.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900, which retails for R6 999 without a contract, is the logical evolution of the Bold range and that’s both where it succeeds and where it fails. It succeeds because it offers a familiar but improved experience to the BlackBerry faithful. It fails because it offers little in the way of features compelling enough to attract outsiders to the fold.

If you like BlackBerry devices, you’ll probably love the new Bold. If you don’t, you probably won’t even notice it. — Craig Wilson, TechCentral

Gadget Web Site - The eee Pad has landed

The WiFI version of the Asus eee Pad Transformer sneaked into South African stores in July with little fanfare. But the high-end 3G unit arrives this month, and Asus expects it to shake up the market. ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK assesses its chances.

Four years ago, Asus was one of the earliest and most aggressive players in the Netbook market with its Eee PC. It practically invented the format.

So, when Apple redefined portability with the iPad in 2010, Asus was expected to be one of the first challengers. And, indeed, it hit the market mere weeks after the iPad, confusingly announcing an e-reader it called a Tablet, and a tablet it called a Pad. The fact that Apple didn’t immediately take them to court may well have been an indication that these devices posed little challenge to the iPad at the time. Fast-forward a year, and Asus has a device on the market that goes beyond the iPad.

It’s called the eee Pad Transformer, a 10.1” tablet running Android 3.0 or Honeycomb, and offers an optional docking keyboard that also boosts battery life from 9 hours to 16 hours. Well-priced at $399, its first production runs – estimated at about 100,000 – reportedly sold out immediately in some markets, and in June it shipped a further 300,000 units.

That it remained in short supply is an indication that, with more aggressive and courageous marketing, it could join the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 as the main challenger to the iPad.

The first version of the eee Pad (pronounced “e-pad”) was WiFi only, and that’s the version that arrived quietly in South Africa in early July. September sees the 3G version arrive in South Africa, around mid-month.

“We have some significant retail developments to be announced in September which will boost our unit sales,” says Tyrone Grüner, Asus product manager at Platinum Micro.

He points out that the Asus eee Pad Transformer has quickly become the number one-selling “open” tablet in a number of international markets. Its success, he says, is a design which delivers against the demands of a market spoilt for choice.

“While a number of Android tablets are emerging, the eee Pad is winning market share owing to its battery life, performance and design. It is on these criteria that it is unbeatable,” he says.

Asus also makes much of the fact that, in July, it was reported that Asus has assumed the mantle of the world’s biggest non-iPad tablet maker.

“This is significant,” says Grüner, “as there is no shortage of competition in this segment of the market. With over 400 000 units shipped, and with the Asus device listed as the number one selling tablet on Amazon.com in April this year, consumer demand is strong.”

It’s not the tablet alone that is selling, he adds.

“What is particularly noteworthy is that the bundle including the keyboard is the top-selling configuration. This tells us that tablet users want more than touchscreen input from their device. That’s especially true as the tablet is seen not as a ‘play’ device, but one which is at home in the office or after-hours.”

In the light of criticism that Sony’s newly unveiled Tablet P is “plasticky”, it is also significant that the eee Pad uses high-quality materials that include brushed aluminum. It takes on the iPad with dual front and rear cameras, the Galaxy Tab with an SD and MicroSD card slot, and delivers on the now standard tablet expectations of embedded GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity.

Since it uses the Google Android operating system, says Grüner, “it represents an ecosystem which is delivering hundreds of thousands of apps to the user. Easy interoperability with compatible mobile phones is assured, which, when tethered, create a WiFi hotspot. With support for Flash and supplied with the Polaris Office suite, the versatility of the device is clear.”

At $399 in the USA, the eee Pad is the most affordable Android Honeycomb tablet on the market. However, this price advantage is not carried over to South Africa. The official prices announced in June start at R4499 for the 16GB version, which at first site appears to compare directly with the iPad 2’s R4 399 for its own 16GB version.

But comparing Apples with Asuses, this is plain poor strategy. The comparable US prices being $399 and $499 for the Pad and iPad respectively, the South African cost for the eee Pad should be around R3600. That would make it far and away the cheapest major name brand large format tablet in South Africa (with only Huawei’s 7” Slim at the same price point), and give it an unbeatable advantage in this market.

Perhaps we will see more competitive pricing when the 3G version arrives in bulk. Meanwhile, the reseller channel – Hirsch’s, Look & Listen, Computer Mania and Chaos are lined up to stock the device – should expect customers to demand that it be better than the iPad if they are expected to pay the same price.

Grüner is confident the customer will make the right choice: “Consumer demand is there; it’s hard to describe the appeal of this product without seeing it for yourself, so we believe that as word of mouth gains momentum, there will be plenty of people who are looking for the advantages of great hardware design combined with Android’s appeal who will choose the Asus tablet above any other. We’ve seen it internationally; we’ll see it in South Africa, too.”

* Pricing for the Asus eee Pad Transformer is estimated at R4499 (16GB), R5499 (32GB) and R6499 (32GB dock bundle). Final pricing is reseller-determined. For more, including specifications and demonstrations, view: http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101. For more information on Platinum Micro, visit www.platinummicro.co.za

* Follow Arthur on Twitter on @art2gee

Operators must up service game – Bain | TechCentral

Vittorio Massone

SA’s mobile operators must do more to up their game in customer service instead of simply trying to outdo each other on price, says Vitorrio Massone, managing partner in SA at management consulting firm Bain & Company.

In the past year, the operators have slashed their mobile data prices in the hope of attracting new customers as the market begins to reach maturity. But Massone believes they could be doing more to retain their existing customers by improving the service experience.

“What’s happened in the past year is they have kept competing more on price than anything else, especially the new entrants,” Massone says.

The entry of Telkom’s mobile arm, 8ta, into the market, coupled with a reinvigorated Cell C, has shaken up the market in the past year, with operators undercutting one another on price, especially in broadband.

“The operators have been focused on attracting the most number of new customers as fast as possible, but the game is now about retaining customers and selling them more services. This is a completely different game and requires a different way of competing.”

Now, rather than chasing new customers, SA’s operators must understand how to create “happy customers” who will promote their brands — Massone calls them “promoters” — and win over clients from rival networks. “Growth now needs to be based on loyalty economics.”

Massone says promoters help operators attract other customers through positive referrals and typically spend 20% more than other customers. Also, they’re much less likely to move to other networks. Companies need to understand what keeps these customers loyal and what creates “detractors” and improve their customer touch points to turn more subscribers into promoters.

“You need to understand what in those touch points can create a promoter and what can create a detractor,” he says. “There’s a need to focus on creating a consistent performance at the most important customer touch points. It’s a pervasive exercise and has to become something that is done at the CEO level, if not the board level, and must become part of the mission and strategy of the company.”

The challenge for operators, Massone says, is that customer-facing employees are often not sufficiently empowered or trained because they are too far from where power rests and where decisions are made.
“The key step is empowering these people,” he says. He suggests operators could call back customers within 24 hours of an interaction at a key touch point, asking them to score the quality of the interaction to create an objective measure of what’s happening in the company’s branches and call centres. Then, he says, offer to have the employee who dealt with the customer call them for further feedback.

“You empower the front end so these employees begin to understand the impact they have on clients,” Massone says. “From this feedback from clients, [employees] will learn enormously.”

He adds that it’s also important for operators to identify their best customers and focus extra attention on them. “If you are able to understand what clients want, and offer them a differentiated service, then you can prevent yourself from competing only on price.”

Customers will often look for the reassurance of the brand and the quality of support and service on offer and won’t always go for the cheapest option.

However, operators must also reduce their costs as competition intensifies and prices fall, Massone says.
Networks can define who and where their most important customers are and plan differentiated coverage that helps them to manage their capital expenditure better. Operators must also focus on extracting more productivity from their field staff as a way of improving efficiencies and reducing costs. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral

Telkom gets aggressive with business mobile | TechCentral

Telkom has launched its first mobile offerings aimed at the business market and is taking the fight to its rivals with aggressive introductory offers on smartphones and tablets.

Telkom Business Mobile — the brand the company is using for its business-focused products — is offering tablets from Apple, Motorola and Research in Motion at aggressive prices on 24-month contracts.

The company is promising savings of about 20% compared to products offered by rival network operators.

For example, the company is offering Motorola’s Android-powered Xoom tablet for R340/month with 10GB of monthly data on Telkom’s own mobile network (plus 10GB for use late at night for R100/month more).
It’s also providing BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets on two contracts costing R410/month and R595/month, depending on the hardware taken.

It’s offering Apple’s iPad 2 tablet, too, though is offering a R6 000 rebate for use at iStore outlets as the US company does not allow the iPad to be sold on contract bundles. The offer allows consumers to buy any Apple product except the iPhone and includes 10GB of monthly data for R375/month on a 24-month contract. — Staff reporter, TechCentral

Android on your iPhone | TechCentral

[By Craig Wilson]

There’s less and less separating mobile handsets from one another when it comes to the hardware that powers them. So, what happens when users can decide for themselves what operating system software they want to run on their phones?

Just looking at the latest smartphone offerings from Motorola, Samsung, HTC and other device manufacturers, high-end phone hardware is looking increasingly similar: dual-core processors, 1GB of RAM and screens with at least 900 pixels on the long side are now standard smartphone qualities, regardless of brand.

Despite minor differences in screen resolution, dozens of phones from different manufacturers all run Android pretty much out the box. What separates them is a user interface overlay of some sort — Samsung’s TouchWiz, HTC’s Sense or Motorola’s Motoblur.

And that’s really the point: as devices look more and more like one another, there’s less emphasis on hardware differentiators and more on the little tweaks and user interface alterations made by manufacturers.
And then there’s the iPhone. Unlike Android, Apple’s iOS software doesn’t even pretend to be “open”. But that hasn’t stopped people from finding ways around this. The iPhone can be “jailbroken” and then the possible alterations are only limited by the user’s imagination and abilities.

Apple tried to argue that “jailbreaking” a device violated end user agreements. But US courts disagreed, saying that once you as a consumer have bought a device, it’s yours to do with as you wish.

So what if you love iOS but can’t afford an iPhone, or you can but you’d love the LED-flash and higher resolution camera a competitor’s device has to offer? Just as some people run Windows on Apple Macs, and vice versa, it’s surely only a matter of time before you choose your device, and then your operating system, rather than the other way around.

Of course, manufacturers hate the idea. They spend fortunes on user interface design and operating system development, in part so that they can try and be the first to offer something a competitor doesn’t. Where devices are becoming more homogeneous, software is a great place to differentiate.

But the disapproval of manufacturers isn’t going to stop resourceful consumers from figuring out how to make their devices operate exactly as they’d like them to, even if that means replacing the software that powers them.

Android users are already well known for overhauling the software shipped with their devices through a process called “rooting” — not to be confused with the Australian use of the same term which means something decidedly less technical. By rooting an Android device, users can make big or minor alterations, from choosing to store applications on an SD card rather than the device’s internal memory to installing a heavily customised operating system.

Steven Ambrose, MD of SA consulting firm Strategy Worx and a serial device dabbler, says that as hardware gets more and more generic, it’s possible consumers will start installing different operating systems on their phones, much like they’d choose to install Linux on a PC instead of Windows.

“A perfect example is the HTC HD7,” Ambrose tells me. “That phone has been released running Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows MobilePhone 7 and Android. The devices have had slightly different names, but all run the same hardware.”


He says with the forthcoming iOS 5 from Apple no longer requiring a desktop or laptop to set up, this may be the final step required to move the ideas of the Hackintosh to the world of mobile devices. The Hackintosh community creates hacks that allow users to install Apple’s Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.

Though the majority of consumers are quite happy to use their devices as the manufacturers intended, there are a growing number of power users who want to eke the most out of the hardware and make it conform to their expectations rather than the other way around.

iOS users might ask why anyone would want Android on an iPhone, and Android users might ask the same of iOS users, but consumers have different demands.

Recently, a woman approached me in a coffee shop and asked me to help her connect to the Internet. She put her MacBook Pro in front of me and my jaw dropped when I saw it was running Windows 7. I asked her why she’d ditched Mac OS X and she said it was because her company used software that didn’t run on the Apple operating system.

Like it or not, we’re still bound by the whims of those who make the smartphones we use and, despite the enormous capabilities inherent in their devices, we remain constrained by the artificial walls created by manufacturers. Those walls may be about to come tumbling down.

Social, mobile and the cloud are the future of collaboration | memeburn

4
inShare

By Michelle Atagana: Managing Ed.

Companies are looking for easier and more cost-effective ways to collaborate within their organisations. The death of Google Wave left room for more innovative ways of collaborating. The future of collaboration seems to lie in the convergence of mobile, social and the cloud.

“By 2014, all smartphones will transparently synchronise local data with at least one cloud service. By 2014, most organisations will deliver mobile applications to workers through private application stores”, says vice president of Gartner Research Monica Basso.

The Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Africa 2011 kicked off in Cape Town on Tuesday 23 August with a heavy focus on cloud computing. Analysts are convinced that “our future lies in the cloud” and that mobile technology seems to be best way to get there.

Basso’s presentation focused on collaboration via mobile devices with cloud capabilities and how they will drive innovation in the workplace. Her argument was heavily leveraged on the convergence of social media and emerging mobile technologies.

Basso sums up mobility’s move to using the cloud for consumer services including social network communities, microblogs, app stores and cloud synchronisation and file sharing.

“By 2014, social networking will replace email as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users”, she adds.

This takeover of email by social networks is important because, according to Basso, there is a new paradigm of collaboration in business. Social networks which were originally consumer oriented, for instance, are now being adopted by organisations.

This convergence of mobility and cloud in various consumer spaces leads to synchronisation of data:
“Cloud synchronisation enables mobile devices to synchronise local information and applications with a web-based, in-the-cloud service automatically and transparently. Information spans contacts, calendars, email and text messages, as well as pictures, videos, music, documents and other media. Service offerings include data backup, federation of social networking information into a single application, and so forth.”

Basso suggests that organisations integrate mircoblogging platforms such as Twitter, SocialCast and Yammer into corporate collaboration environments such as Microsoft SharePoint. She believes that such integration encourages employees to share ideas with each other as well as source ideas.

This type of mobile collaboration relies heavily on social tools that enables users to create one-to-one or one-to-many associations within or across timelines and is cost-effective.

“Convergence is developing on the device, bringing simplicity of use to people and letting them focus on messaging content only. Different messaging and social capabilities are converging into a single client application — integrating a variety of cloud services from multiple providers”, says Basso.

Basso also warns that organisations are losing control of data with consumer mobile cloud. She stresses the importance for businesses to be alert and provide more secure alternatives. Security is recurring theme in the cloud. Daryl Plummer, another Garnter analyst, says that 70 percent of companies with more than 1 000 employees are yet to start a cloud initiative because of the security risk.

“Cloud computing carries specific risks that are slowing corporate adoption. For example, cloud providers that serve a large number of customers generally cannot tailor contracts to address the individual needs of a given customer. As a result, most public cloud services operate the same way for all customers, with only minor differences”, says Plummer.

Basso suggests that organisations put policies in place for a more secure service. She also emphasises that investing in mobile device management is important to ensuring a secure mobile cloud service.
Plummer predicts, however, that security issues will persist in the cloud through to 2013 but “80 percent of cloud security incidents will be due to administrative error by cloud service providers or user management of cloud services.”

Ultimately it is up to the organisations who rely on the cloud heavily for collaboration to take the necessary steps to secure their servers and carefully choose their providers.

Gadget Web Site - BlackBerry launches 3 new Curves

23 Aug 2011 by Editor

* Follow Gadget on Twitter on @gadgetza

Research In Motion today announced the BlackBerry Curve 9350, 9360 and 9370 smartphones, all featuring the company's new BlackBerry 7 Operating System.

Research In Motion (RIM) today announced three new BlackBerry smartphones featuring the BlackBerry 7 Operating System (OS). The all-new BlackBerry Curve 9350, BlackBerry Curve 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9370 smartphone are exciting additions to the popular BlackBerry Curve series.

These new models are designed to address a large and important segment of the global mobile phone market where customers are looking to upgrade their existing feature phone or existing BlackBerry Curve with an affordable, easy-to-use, full-featured and socially-connected smartphone.

“These new models will build on the incredible success of the BlackBerry Curve line and further expand the largest global launch of BlackBerry smartphones in our history,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The new BlackBerry Curve smartphones are absolutely stunning and offer a significant performance upgrade with an unmatched mobile social experience for the millions of feature phone users in the market as well as our existing Curve customers.”

Everything You Need

The new BlackBerry Curve smartphones are slim, stylish and simply beautiful. They are ergonomically designed with a comfortable and iconic keyboard for fast, accurate typing and an optical trackpad for easy, one-handed navigation. GPS and Wi-Fi support are also included, as well as a 5MP camera with flash and video recording so that memories can be captured and instantly shared on social networks. The microSD/SDHC slot supports up to 32 GB memory cards for additional media storage.

In addition to supporting the new BlackBerry 7 OS, the new BlackBerry Curve smartphones feature a range of powerful hardware enhancements including upgraded processors, displays and memory, and built-in support for NFC (Near Field Communications), a new technology that is enabling many exciting capabilities, including the ability to pair accessories or read SmartPoster tags with a simple tap of the smartphone.

Next-Generation BlackBerry 7 OS

BlackBerry 7 introduces a next generation BlackBerry browser which combines the dramatically improved performance of the advanced WebKit browser engine with the hardware enhancements in the new BlackBerry Curve smartphones to deliver a significantly faster, more fluid web browsing experience. 

Additional enhancements to this next generation BlackBerry browser have also enabled smoother navigation and optimized HTML5 performance for incredible gaming and video experiences.

BlackBerry 7 OS also includes a number of other pre-loaded applications and integrated functionality for increased productivity and collaboration right out of the box. The Premium version of Documents To Go is included free of charge, offering users powerful document editing features as well as a native PDF document viewer. 

BlackBerry® Protect is also pre-loaded*, offering customers the peace of mind that personal data can be backed up and secured in the cloud. With BlackBerry Protect, users can locate their misplaced BlackBerry smartphone using GPS or remotely turn up the ringer for an audible notification if their handset is close-by. 

BlackBerry® Balance (announced May 2, 2011) is integrated in BlackBerry 7, allowing users to enjoy the full BlackBerry smartphone experience for both work and personal purposes without compromising the IT department’s need for advanced security and IT controls. The popular universal search capability has also been enhanced with support for voice-activated search, so users can now simply speak to begin searching their device and the web for information.

Best In Class Communications and Social Experiences

The next generation BlackBerry Curve smartphones deliver the world’s best mobile communications and social experiences with a highly refined and integrated suite of phone, email, messaging and social apps to keep users connected and productive throughout the day.

The latest release of BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger) is pre-loaded and now extends the real time BBM experience to a range of other apps, such as Foursquare, allowing users to easily interact with each other from within the ‘BBM connected’ app (see separate announcement on July 28, 2011).

The updated Social Feeds (2.0) app has been extended to capture updates from media, podcasts, and favorites all in one consolidated view. The new Facebook® for BlackBerry smartphones (2.0) app introduces features like Facebook chat and BBM integration that makes it easier for users to connect with their 

Facebook friends in real time utilizing push notifications. Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones also delivers a deeply integrated experience including use of real time push notifications and Social Feeds integration.

Availability

The BlackBerry Curve 9350, 9360 and 9370 smartphones are expected to be available from carriers in Canada this month and from other carriers around the world beginning in September. Availability dates and pricing for specific devices from specific carriers will be announced in conjunction with RIM’s partners.

Why do businesses need to benchmark communication costs?

You don’t know what you don’t know, and you cannot manage that which you don’t measure.

We are always amazed at how businesses [big business included] make decisions around vendors and solutions for their communications needs with little or no accurate fact-based information of their own. The reliance on vendors and their sales person[s] is high. And uninformed decision making can lead to poor decision making.

Time and time again businesses we are working with implement solutions based on information received from the sales person who sold the solution to them in the first place. This information is typically neither supplier agnostic nor the full picture due to lack of access to information.    

At CommsCloud we believe that managing telecoms without Business Intelligence [BI] tools is like running a large business without accountants or computers. Your procurement decisions in the communications space can end up being with your business for many years to come and we see the results thereof in our customer base every day.  

Our point of departure for any new client is to gain a detailed understanding of their communications costs before offering up any opinion. We do this by performing a detailed Audit of all their fixed and variable costs; for all their service providers.

During this process we benchmark their communications costs against;

• Market trends in SA 
• Industry Best Practice Standards   

The information we gather and report on in during this audit phase is used to build a documented business case which informs all the decision making for all the roles players going forward. 

And in our experience if decision makers and their project managers are well informed, return on investment and user experience with new solutions and services will be greatly enhanced.

Lastly, with accurate information [benchmarking included] your business is able to measure savings, hold service providers accountable to their SLA's and ensure a successful implementation of any solution or service.  

Peter Walsh

Cape Town

August 2011