Author: Cyrus

You remember the strong argument the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, had with a Dutch Human Rights activist, P. Kuiper, on Twitter in April? The argument was long and refreshing in that it gave you a different side of Paul Kagame. He would rather face his critics with facts and figures and wont “ignore” the small critics as other leaders would rather have it. Kuiper asked President Kagame about Victoire ingabire who is the Chairperson of United Democratic Front (UDF) and is in Prison on various counts of treason related charges. The Tweets; The conversation went on and  on until…

Nokia has announced that it’s moving away from the Ovi name to the more recognisable Nokia name instead. None of the services is terminating only the names are changing. It is purely a re-branding move. OVI services like Maps, Messaging, Music, Store and Life Tools services will continue to be available to consumers all over the world. The re-branding means that Ovi Maps will become Nokia Maps, and the likes of Ovi Chat and Ovi Mail to also follow the same naming structure. The re-branding to Nokia will begin in July 2011 but will only be expected to be fully…

This is going to get nasty. Yu is launching a 50 cents per minute promotion even before the new Mobile termination rates comes into effect. The Ksh 1.44 termination rate is suppose to come into effect as from July 1st falling from Ksh 2.21. But this is just a promotion. The daily voice bundle promotion dubbed ‘amua mdogo mdogo’ enables customers on the network to make calls within the yu network for 50 cents per minute all day and all night. You will subscribe with Kes.2 per day and then enjoy the calling rate of 50 cents per minute for…

The government has announced the RFI&I for the Masterplan Development of Konza Technology city. Through an advert which has been approved and is set to appear in next edition of The Economist, the government is looking for someone to develop the BPO/ITES masterplan.  The government would engage with the Masterplan Developer on a Public Private Partnership model. The Request For Information and Interest Konza Technology City is one of Kenya Vision 2030 flagship projects.The BPO park would contain world class infrastructure and technology to facilitate and cluster research, education and business and create over 200,000 jobs. The BPO/ITES park will…

Samsung brought this year’s Samsung Africa Forum to KICC, Nairobi. The city was literally painted blue. From the hotels where the various journalists from all over Africa were staying, Crowne Plaza and InterContinental, to the venue KICC. It was all the blue theme. And the motto was Built for Africa. Various Managing directors, sector heads and Samsung global leads were in town. The event was such a boost to Kenya apart from the no-show by the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. There were all kinds of electronics for display here and Samsung made sure than nothing went wrong except for the wi-fi…

Nairobi is getting all the right attention from various vendors and manufacturers of IT products. In fact, it is overwhelming. Samsung was in town this week and just when we thought that was enough for one week, TechCom landed. TechCom is unique in that it focuses on an area which has been ignored. Techcom, one of the leading IT Peripherals and Consumer Electronics brands, announced its entry into the Kenyan mobile handset market . The company is focusing on the users interested in the users who switch SIM now and then. The firm launched various dual-SIM handsets into the Kenyan…

Press Release France Telecom’s commercial brand; Orange, has moved to the 36th position in this years Millward Brown BrandZ top 100 most valuable global brands report. This year sees Orange increase its ranking by 14 places and increase its value by $3.3 billion, leading to a new value of $17.597 billion US in 2011. This report, published annually in the Financial Times, demonstrates the value of brands across all industries and the vital role they play in delivering overall financial success for companies globally. Orange’s growth is attributed to the change of category from “mobile only companies” to “telco convergent…

Findings are out and East and Southern Africa leads in the piracy of Software according to Business Software Alliance (BSA) 2010 Global Software Piracy Study. BSA evaluates the state of software piracy around the world. The commercial value of the unlicensed software installed on personal computers in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), which excludes South Africa, reached $109 million in 2010. The figure stands at almost double the global piracy rate for PC software, which is around 42 percent. BSA also notes that the figures have risen by 3.6 points on the previous five year average. During the past 5 years since 2006, Botswana’s…

APC , a division of Schneider Electric and a global leader in integrated critical power and cooling services, has announced the availability of InfraStruxure Management Software Portfolio 6.2, which includes updates to InfraStruxure Central Monitoring Suite and InfraStruxure Operations Suite as well as the introduction of an integration with VMware vSphere 4.1. The new versions bring further support to an open, vendor-neutral platform that addresses data centre management needs holistically by enabling IT professionals to design, operate and manage their physical infrastructure while systematically ruling out human error. InfraStruxure Operations Suite 6.2 offers enhanced network management capabilities, including a new…

Strathmore University is getting all the good rating and attention from all tech companies. Just yesterday, Strathmore was signing and MOU with Samsung Electronics to support Research and Development of Mobile applications by the students. Samsung will be funding the venture and supplying Strathmore with the equipment. But at the Imagine Cup, Team QuestO from Uganda’s Makerere University emerged the winner of the 2011 edition of the East and Southern Africa regional contest. Imagine Cup is a student competition which centers on the use of imagination, creativity and technology to help solve some of the world’s toughest problems. Main focus…

Is tech exploding in Africa? From Nairobi to Cairo to Lagos to Accra and even Johannesburg, Tech events are all over and they are very big in nature. But there is no Tech event in Africa which has managed the stature of Tech4Africa. This is the tech event of all Tech events in Africa. The kind of speakers for this event is just inspiring. This year’s event will be in October and a world-class line-up of international and African technologists will present at the event. The event provides Africans with a rare opportunity to learn firsthand from technology evangelists about…

Access Kenya is not happy. We detailed alot of the mess going on there. And we did not detail some like the sacking of the more than 28 middle level and junior staff in February. None of the staff was warned of the impending sack but they had to go since the company is really not in good financial position. The moves the company has been making lately are just not promising even to themselves. But what Access Kenya knows is that they have to re-assure investors and clients that they still are in a great position. So after detailing…

After the last two month’s aggressive promotion of the new post-pay tariffs by Safaricom, Airtel Kenya is not being left behind. The company has launched a new post pay package in the local market that will see customers sign up for only Kshs 500/- per month. Safaricom has been doing promotion for the post-pay 1,000 and 2,500 which see clients subscribe at Ksh 1,000 and Ksh 2,500 respectively. Orange later reduced their postpaid tariffs with offnet calls at Ksh 3 and on-net at Ksh 1. The Airtel Kenya new post pay tariff is called Postpaid Timam and subscribers to the service…

According to AFP, An Punjab State has told India’s brides to avoid spending too much time talking on their mobile phones for the first two years of marriage as this attracts lots of jealousy. The Punjab State Commission for Women (PSCW) issued the official advisory last week urging brides “to focus on their domestic life instead of having long conversations on mobile phones”. Commission head Gurdev Kaur Sangha told Agence France Presse on Monday that the advice was designed to avoid suspicion between new couples as they adjust to their new life together. Sangha said that she had seen rise in…

Samsung Africa Forum should have coordinated with the Kenyan Tech community to promote this event. The manner this event was being promoted is too old school. Anyway, I thought that it would be good if we help those coming to Nairobi for the first time from outside Kenya on how to get their way around and get connected while around. Data Connection In Kenya, Safaricom is the only GSM network which has a 3G connection operational thought Airtel and Orange are also in the process of installing similar network. Orange Kenya has a CDMA EVO network they market as 3G+.…