Blackberry-maker RIM says co-chief executives step down
Blackberry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) has said its co-chief executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have stepped down in a shake-up. Mr Lazaridis, who founded RIM in 1984, will become vice chairman. Mr Balsillie will continue to sit on the board but not have any operational role. Chief operating officer Thorsten Heins will replace them on Monday. Investors have called for a strategy change as the company struggles to compete with Apple and Google.
Management shuffle
The departure of RIM’s co-chief executives was long overdue. Not even troubled computer giant Hewlett-Packard – which lost two CEOs in less than a year – was as bad a technology car crash as Research In Motion.
Here was a company that defined what smartphones were all about; that had cornered the oh-so-important corporate market; that had made serious inroads into the youth market with cheap entry-level smartphones. And then threw it all away in an orgy of poor executive decisions, lacklustre innovation, unkept promises in delivering new product and – the greatest sin of all – a total lack of understanding that its part of the tech industry was undergoing a fundamental shift.
First Apple, then Google managed to eat the Blackberry pie, and RIM did nothing to stop them. The company’s new boss will have to work very hard to keep RIM in the smartphone game. Mr Lazaridis, speaking after the announcement, said he recognized things needed to change at the company. “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership,” he said at a press conference at RIM’s headquarters in Waterloo, Canada. “Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now.”
Mr Heins started at RIM in 2007, having previously worked at Siemens Communications. He became the chief operating officer in August 2011, according to the company. Mr Heins said: “As with any company that has grown as fast as we have, there have been inevitable growing pains”. “We have learned from those challenges and, I believe, we have and will become a stronger company as a result.” Barbara Stymiest, who has been on the board of RIM since 2007, has been made the new chairman, a post that Mr Balsillie and Mr Lazaridis also shared.
Sharp decline
Blackberry, which was once extremely popular with users has suffered major setbacks in recent months. It had its worst service outage in 2011 and has been losing market share to its competitors in the smartphone markets. Billions of dollars have been wiped from its market value as shares have tumbled 75% and sales have dropped.
One of its latest offering the PlayBook tablet, a reply to Apple’s iPad, has not proven as popular as the company had hoped. Larry Magid, a technology analyst with CNET, told the BBC World Service that Mr Lazaridis and Mr Balsillie had to go. “Research In Motion, which once dominated the smartphone market, has been steadily losing market share both to the iPhone and iPad and the tablet area and the various android devices,” Mr Magid said. “I think it was a matter of time before these two made the wise choice to step aside and see if anybody else can do better with the company.”
Tanzania to boost its internet connectivity
Tanzania will be boosting the access of the internet and lowering the cost of connectivity in the country when it plans to fork out over $189 million on laying the national fibre optic network.
The project will be jointly financed by China and Tanzania, while the Minister for Communication Science and Technology Professor Makame Mbarawa confirmed that China will invest $170 million, while the host country will pay $18 million.
Mbarawa added that the project aims to connect all the regions of the country, and should be completed by the end of 2012. “Over 10,000km will be connected by March this year and the government plans to expand to all regions in the country,” he said.
“ICT development and advancement have a positive correlation.
Where there is ICT infrastructure, established structures and unconditional and reliable accessibility then automatically there is social, cultural and economic development.
ICT can therefore be a tool for achieving sustainable development, which comprises economic development, social development and environmental protection,” the East African wrote.
India’s appetite for ‘apps’ grows as mobile users surge
In a corner of a swanky mall in Mumbai is a “first” for India. A small shop by the escalators is home to India’s only “off-line” mobile phone application store, where you can buy mobile “apps” off the shelves.
Mobile “apps” are functional programmes installed on phones and tablet devices, and range from games such as the famous Angry Birds to messaging services such as WhatsApp messenger, travel guides and online newspapers. Usually they’re downloaded onto your mobile phone through the internet, but in India millions can’t access the web through their phones, which is where this shop, Mobiworld, spotted a gap in the market.
“People want to access more applications on their mobile phones, but GPRS connections can be slow or non existent in India, so it’s just not possible,” says Partha Chaudhari from Onward Mobility, the company behind Mobiworld. At Mobiworld, customers owning smartphones can get mobile applications downloaded onto their phone via Bluetooth and a secure SMS code.
A member of staff is on hand to help you through the process. Mr Chaudhari says this method appeals to a large number of Indian consumers who like personal service and like to “touch and feel” a product before they buy it. He admits the range of apps his store offers, nine currently, is minute when compared with the thousands of applications which can be purchased over the internet through the iTunes, Android or Nokia stores, for example, but says they plan to expand their range in the coming months.
‘Ready to invest’
Getting a foothold into the Indian apps business is seen as a lucrative move by many in India. The cover of a recent issue of the Indian magazine Businessworld asked whether the Indian app business would be the next big model for entrepreneurs to make money. In a cramped office in the Ville Parle area of Mumbai are the offices of Spiel Studios. About a dozen young men stare intently at their computer screens as they perform a range of tasks. Some are designing cartoon characters to star in their latest game, others are working on complex software codes.
The company creates apps for clients in India and around the world, specialising in games. It was started in 2007 by Mohit Sureka, who was 22 years old at the time. “When we started, this industry didn’t exist, mobile apps development wasn’t taken seriously as a career and as a business proposition, but now there are investors who are ready to invest in a company just because you’re into mobile app development,” says Mr Sureka.
Made in India?
This change in the industry’s fortunes, which has been propelled by the growth in the ownership of smartphones worldwide, is one reason Sureka has been able to expand his team by opening offices in the US and the UK. With lower set-up costs and a huge pool of IT talent, many more Western companies are eyeing up India for app production, effectively outsourcing this process.
But the domestic app market is also booming. The value of the Indian value added services industry, which includes mobile apps, was estimated at $3.4bn (£2.2bn) in 2011, according to Deloitte. The mobile application industry in India alone is predicted to top $4bn by the year 2015, according to figures from Asia Pacific Research Group (APRG). Figures from the Indian research company IMRB suggest that one in three of the country’s urban internet users have accessed a mobile phone application. Globally the mobile app industry is expected to be valued at $17bn by the end of this year.
Domestic boost
Developers have come up with creative apps targeting the fast-growing domestic market Many more mobile apps in India are being tailor-made for the Indian market. There are applications available to teach you how to drape a sari the correct way, others allowing you to check whether you’re paying the correct fare in an autorickshaw, and plenty offering local maps and travel guides.
One of Sureka’s most popular games is Sealink, which allows you to take to the wheel of a car and drive on Mumbai’s Sealink toll road. There are more than 121 million people online in the country according to IMRB, still a relatively small proportion of the country’s 1.2bn population. But there is a sizeable number who are becoming more tech savvy and are already using mobile phones. The country has more than 858m mobile subscribers, and the number is rising fast. Judging by the brain power and the increased investment, India’s role in the growth of mobile apps is set to be huge – it’s likely the country’s appetite for apps will only get bigger.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg takes coding course
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has resolved to take an online computer coding course. The mayor is joining more than 180,000 people currently taking part in Code Year, a campaign to encourage more people to program.
“My New Year’s resolution is to learn to code with Codecademy in 2012!” he wrote on Twitter.
Participants in the course receive an interactive lesson each week, via email. The campaign promises that participants will be “building apps and websites before you know it”. It has proved a hit on Twitter with thousands using the hashtag “#codeyear”.
Some of those tweeting about the news wondered if London’s Mayor Boris Johnson would follow Mr Bloomberg’s example and also learn to program. The London mayor’s spokesman told the BBC: “Once again the mayor is in awe of his good friend Michael Bloomberg, and if re-elected will explore whether he can join him on that course.”
However, former mayor and Labour party candidate for the top job at City Hall, Ken Livingstone, argued that his time would be fully occupied dealing with the city’s problems. “If I’m elected, I’ll be a bit too busy to take any education courses,” he told the BBC. London’s mayoral elections will be held in May.
‘Awesome’. It is not clear what Mr Bloomberg hopes to do with his new computer skills, but his decision to learn comes at a time of renewed interest in encouraging people to program.
In October, the Next Gen report into the teaching of computing in UK schools was published. Co-author Alex Hope told the BBC that coding should be “the new Latin”. Codecademy, the start-up behind Code Year, was launched in August of last year in response to the company founders’ “frustrations” with learning how to program.
The US site offers free web-based tutorials in programming JavaScript. More than six million lessons were completed within the first month of the site going live. Mashable quoted co-founder Zach Sims as saying Mr Bloomberg’s decision was “awesome”
Shilling Benefits Tanzania Telecom Companies
According to a recent Bloomberg Businessweek report, Tanzania telecommunications companies are currently working with the government in order to begin paying fees in shillings, which, according to Vodacom Group Ltd., will offset the currency volatility and ensure investment.
In an interview with Businessweek, Rene Meza, the managing director of Vodacom Tanzania, explained that East Africa’s largest mobile phone company currently pays its license fees in dollars, but operates in shillings.
“The shilling has been very volatile against the dollar,” he said, “and this could mean we have to cut back on investment to pay regulatory fees.” According to the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), Tanzania telecommunications companies pay annual fees for earth satellite stations, switching centers and networks at a rate of 0.8 percent of turnover in dollars.
In an effort to expand and improve its network coverage, Vodacom Tanzania is currently planning to invest approximately USD 62 million over the next 12 to 18 months. The exact figures are still being worked out according to Ms. Meza who indicated that Vodacom is currently in the process of finalizing their budget.
In addition to their expansion and improvement project, Vodacom is also currently working on developing software that will allow for cross-border money transfers with Safaricom Ltd. of Kenya, which is 40 percent owned by Vodafone Group Plc, who also owns 65 percent of Vodacom.
“We will leverage on the numbers of our sister-company in Kenya to grow our M-Pesa money-transfer service,” said Meza. Vodacom Tanzania is currently expecting to have 11 million subscribers this month alone, 3 million of which the company has said now have active money-transfer accounts. According to managing director of Vodacom Tanzania, the company is considering the possibility of outsourcing its tower infrastructure to Nokia Siemens, as they did similarly with their network management.
“We are discussing internally whether to outsource our towers segment, because it is not our core business,” Meza said, “Telecoms companies are essentially marketing and sales units now.” In addition to their communications with the government of Tanzania regarding the use of the shilling for fee payments, companies are also working with the Tanzanian government regarding the introduction of number portability.
According to Mr. Meza, the service was a failure in neighboring Kenya, where he served as the managing director of Airtel Networks Kenya Ltd., a unit of Bharti Airtel, but Vodacom is working with the government on value vs. cost. “It is not about moving a number to another operator, but what value that will add,” said Meza, “We are in high-level talks with government and are waiting for guidelines on issues like who will meet the investment cost.”
Source:Tanzania Invest