AFRICACOM DAILY 2012 I
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WEDNESDAY 14th NOVEMBER 2012 03
Microsoft loses Windows chief
US software giant Microsoft has announced the imme- diate departure of Steven Sinofsky, head of its fl agship Windows and Windows Live operations. The move comes just a few
weeks after the launch of the company’s next generation software platform, Windows 8, which spans both desktop and mobile devices. Microsoft did not give
any reason for Sinofsky’s decision to leave, but it does leave the future direction of the company in a predica- ment. Windows 8 has been met with mixed reviews and it became evident when the platform was announced that the software does no represent just a product announcement but a new strategic direction that will redefi ne the way computers are used.
With Sinosfky gone, Julie
Larson-Green will be pro- moted to lead all Windows software and hardware engineering, while Tami Reller who retains her roles as chief fi nancial offi cer and chief marketing offi cer will also assume responsibility for the business of Windows. Both ex- ecutives will report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Since 1993, Larson-Green
has worked on and led some of the most well known prod- ucts for Microsoft, including the user experiences for early versions of Internet Explorer, and helped drive the thinking behind the latest Microsoft Offi ce. For Win- dows 7 and Windows 8 she was responsible for program management, user interface design and research, as well as development of all inter- national releases. Reller began her career in
technology at Great Plains Software in 1984 and was
the company’s chief fi nancial offi cer at the time it was ac- quired by Microsoft in 2001. It’s not the only major
corporate shake up to rock the industry however. Just a couple of weeks ago, Californian vendor and major Microsoft rival Apple announced an executive reshuffl e, which will see the departure of Scott Forstall, one of the original architects of the Mac OS X operating system and head of the team responsible for the software platform at the heart of the iconic iPhone device. Apple announced that
Forstall will be leaving next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim. The company did not expand on his reasons for leaving, but rumours suggest he was given the push in the wake of the Maps debacle and issues with Siri. Additionally, John Browett
is leaving after only fi ve months as head of retail. A search for a new head of Retail is underway and in the interim, the retail team will report directly to Cook. Again, the rumourmongers suggest that Browett made some serious mistakes in his short tenure and was pushed rather than jumped. This all smacks of some serious tension at the top of the company’s management tree and leaves Apple without a veteran software lead or a retail chief in the run up to the holiday season. In other movements, famed designer, Jony Ive, who was responsible for everything from the iMac to the iPhone and iPad design is now going “to provide leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in ad- dition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design.”
Africa gets its game on through EA deal
MIDDLE Eastern developer and publisher Nazara Technologies has struck a partnership with gaming giant EA to bring high end games to over 770 million mobile users across 49 countries in Africa. The exclusive business alliance
will see Nazara able to distribute EA’s portfolio of mobile games to all telecom operators across the African continent. Games includ- ing Need for Speed: The Run, and FIFA 13 will be made available to consumers on Java and Android platforms through N Play, one of Nazara’s high traffi c mobile gam- ing platforms. “Our partnership combines
EA’s world-class high end mobile games with our estab- lished distribution and partner networks,” said Savio Saldanha, Nazara’s CEO for the Middle East & Africa. “Through Naz-
ara’s distribution strategy, EA’s games will be able to reach users looking for quality yet afford- able games.” The deal builds on an exist-
ing partnership which has seen Nazara already drive EA
content to consumers across the Middle East and India. Nazara also owns Playcaso, an iOs and Android developer/publisher brand, NZLabs, a work-for-hire apps studio and GCity, a social gaming platform.
Mobile money maturing in Africa
FINANCIAL services fi rm Fun- damo has conducted research examining the opportunities in mobile money services in Africa, and has reported that it expects to see accelerated growth of such services in the coming years. The fi rm, a wholly owned
subsidiary of payment processor Visa, said that the Nigerian market in particular is set for phenomenal growth. Currently, only 38 per cent of the country’s 160 million people have access to formal fi nancial services while there are more than 93 million mobile phone subscrip- tions in Nigeria, the most in Africa. However, according to the results of its Visa Mobile Money Study, signifi cantly more consumers surveyed in Nigeria said that they would like to use mobile money services to save money for their
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family (59 per cent) and pay utility bills (58 per cent). The fi rm added that consumers
in the country have sophisticated fi nancial service needs that go well beyond the established transaction set offered by mobile money servic- es today. To meet this demand, the fi rm has teamed up with First Bank Nigeria to launch FirstMonie, a joint-venture that offers consumers services such as airline tickets, elec- tric bills, insurance payment servies, cash withdrawals and payment for goods at merchant locations. As mobile money services begin
to mature and consumer demand for more sophisticated services in- creases, interoperability between services and the wider economy is critical to ongoing success, Fun- damo argued. Its research found that 28 per cent of respondents
cited a lack of interoperability with other mobile money services as a primary barrier to adop- tion. The fi rm’s parent Visa has developed Visa Mobile Prepaid in response to this to enhance the security, scale and interoperability of mobile money program. “Start small, think big, scale
quickly has always been our advice to service providers. Within 18 months of service launch, consum- ers understand mobile money is easy to use and secure – they trust it and start to use more sophisti- cated services”, said Hannes van Rensburg, CEO at Fundamo. “The next step to drive growth is breaking down the walls between services and countries to foster a rich ecosystem that connect con- sumers in Africa to each other and the global economy.”
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