26— Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2013
Ekeh, Microsoft's new African business face By PRINCE OSUAGWU
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OR the next two years, the name Leo Stan Ekeh, would not only be synonimous with his Zinox brand alone, but also with Microsoft. This follows last week's sign-on of the mecurial Nigerian computer maker by software giant, Microsoft, to represent its interests in businesses around the African continent. Ekeh's appointment as one of its Global Partner Advisors,according to Microsoft,was in recognition of his pioneering and pivotal role in ICT development in the continent. More reasons the software maker aduced was that Ekeh merited the appointment,going by his intuitive leadership and capacity to define market trends.No wonder, he was the only African among the Advisors, Accepting t h e appointment, E k e h , thanked Microsoft f o r identifying with his vision to m o v e Africa from the analogue to digital platform. H e commended Microsoft, f o r upholding t h e relevance and merits of the channel thereby helping to grow the IT market in Africa according to international standards. He praised Microsoft for believing in customer feedback as necessary consideration for business planning, product rollout and strategy development in both developed and emerging markets. The Zinox Chairman said that he would use the Global Advisor platform to advance the objectives of the Digital Knowledge Democracy and create technology value for Africans. He explained that part of his responsibility would be to advise Microsoft on how best to domesticate technology and catalyze development in Africa.
He pledged to work closely with ICT i n s t i t u t i o n s , professionals, governments, and the trade to ensure that his contributions to Microsoft are truly representative. Meanwhile, industry stakeholders have reacted on the appointment. President Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria, ISPON, Mr. Chris Uwaje, described the appointment as a welcome development. He said that the appointment of an African into that committee was a reflection of the growing importance of the African IT market. He described Ekeh as having the experience, exposure and goodwill which have seen him pioneer many strategic ICT platforms to make Africa proud in this endeavor. He recalled that Mr. Ekeh’s
BlackBerry reports 3rd quarter results for fiscal year 2014 T
he global leader in wireless innovation, BlackBerry Limited has reported financial results for the three months ended November 30, 2013 Q3 highlights: Company begins transition to operating unit structure: Enterprise Services, Messaging, QNX Embedded business and the Devices business New organizational structure to drive greater focus on services and software, while establishing a more efficient business model for the Devices business
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sustained innovations have propelled many international OEMs to the Number One position in sub Saharan Africa. Uwaje contended that this appointment means more than business for Africans because it would also be a source of inspiration for the development of IT capacities among professionals. The Microsoft Global Advisor Committee is a committee of distinguished IT icons around the world who serve as feedback channel to Microsoft for business models and strategy for product rollout.
including most recently LG; over 250,000 BBM Channels created by global user base since launch of BBM Channels on BlackBerry, including large brands such as Coke Indonesia and USA Today; BBM is
Growing local software ecosystem through Microsoft 9japps challenge By EMEKA AGINAM
• Leo Stan Ekeh
Enterprise Services: Company sees increasing penetration of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES10) with over 30,000 commercial and test servers installed to date, up from 25,000 in September 2013; Company remains a mobile device management leader with global enterprise customer base exceeding 80,000 Messaging: Over 40 million newly registered iOS/Android users in the last 60 days; more than a dozen Android OEMs to preload BBM,
the most secure mobile messaging service for use in regulated enterprises QNX embedded business: QNX to unveil new technology in automotive and cloud services at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show in January Devices: Company strikes joint device development and manufacturing agreement with Foxconn; initial focus of partnership to be development of a consumer smartphone for Indonesia and other fast-growing markets in early 2014
y challenging Ni gerian local software code warriors to build applications that have local appeal, the global software giant, Microsoft may have started growing Nigerian local software ecosystem system though 9apps challenge. Over 120 developers from across Nigeria had entered the competition, which is one of Microsoft’s initiatives to support the local developer community. Earlier in October this year at an event held at Co-Creation Hub Nigeria in Lagos, winners were announced for the best locally-relevant apps in the Windows Phone category. Like the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition that brings best tech students to contest in the global stage, Microsoft had initiated local app development contest aimed at empowering local app developers by helping them drive innovation and grow the local software ecosystem. The challenge was designed to empower local developers to take advantage of Microsoft’s new tools and resources to develop locally appealing and locally-relevant apps for the Windows platform, utilizing Visual Studio 2012 and the Windows Phone SDK, in addition to the Windows Azure SDK, The challenge which was launched on March this year was designed to empower local developers to take advantage
of Microsoft’s new tools and resources to develop locally appealing and locally-relevant apps for the Windows platform Bringing the competition to finals last week in Lagos, Microsoft in a keenly contested final had engaged over 10 other finalist across Nigeria. Oludayo Alli, who represented Nigeria along his colleague Timi Okoya in Sydney, Australia in 2012 during the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition for the global students beat other contestants with his solution called Tourism Nigeria to claim the grand prize in the keenly contested final. The winning app (Tourism Nigeria) allows you to explore your environment and gives real time information on tourist attraction centers and hotels in Nigeria. “It feels good to be the winner and for you to be a winner, you must pre-
pare to be a winner. I would say my effort really paid off because for you to win, you must have put in some effort,” Oludayo Alli, winner of the grand prize. Similarly, Uchenna Okpagu took the second place prize with Places Nearby, an app which provides a direction of useful places around, e.g. hotels, ATMs, Banks, cinemas, among others. He went home with the sum of N750, 000 while five, third place winners went home with windows 8 devices each. For Uchenna Okpagu, the 2nd place winner “I am delighted to have been the 2nd place winner. It is an encouragement to do more. My plan is to improve on the app and equally engage more partners to provide us with deals that will be very useful to users of the application”. Akinsete Sunday and Adedoyin Kazeem who both developed ‘CINE-
MAZ’, an app that enables purchase of movie tickets online thereby removing the stress of queuing for such, and also allows viewing of any paid for movie without going to sit in the cinema hall was named the overall winner and were awarded the sum of NGN 750, 000 for their app. The second place winner, Bukola Akinfaderin also went home with the sum of NGN 500, 000 while the 3rd place winners all received Windows Phone devices. Speaking the capacity building event, Olayinka Oni, Chief National Technology Officer, Microsoft said “We gave the finalist in the Windows 8 category two months additional time to improve on their solutions and we promised to let someone drive home the car today in order to encourage upcoming developers to put their best into the development of locally relevant apps.”
From left: Chief Information Officer UBA, Mr. Rasheed Adegoke, Senior Executive Microsoft, Kabelo Makwane, Oludayo Alli, winner Windows 8 category and Abiye Koko, Chief Information Officer, Diamond Bank shortly after final event of the 9japps competition held in Lagos last week. Photo by EMEKA AGINAM .