Category Posts: mobile

Developers in Zimbabwe have just 8 days, specifically until next week Friday the 25th, to submit their eTXT apps for the ZeTXT Apps Challenge that has been going on since March. The challenge has presented local developers with an opportunity to develop mobile based applications for the eTXT platform available on the Econet network. The best app will win prizes and an opportunity to be launched on the Econet network to earn the developer ongoing revenue.

So what do you do when you find yourself in an environment where specialist skills are rare with the few talented individuals that can provide specific skills not able to deliver on what they not so good at leaving your job somewhat patchy and therefore mediocre at best? What do you when the ecosystem of talented graphics designers, film production professionals, software developers and others that you need for a job is just not there?

I remember when I first heard about BlackBerry around 2005. It was through the prestigious “sent from my BlackBerry” signature at the bottom of an email response I got from a contact in the UK. It was a short response to my rather long email; something to just let me know he had seen the email and would attend to it once he got to his office. I immediately fell in love with it and spent the better part of that day researching on the company and the technology.

A press release just sent out on behalf of Econet announced the dismissal by the Federal High Court of Nigeria Bharti Airtel’s application to prevent, pending an appeal, the implementation of a judgement in favour of Econet handed down in January this year. The judgement in question generally requires Airtel to reinstate the shareholding of Econet Wireless Nigeria Limited (EWL), the reversal of all decisions made that Econet didn’t participate in since the dispute began back in 2003 and the restoration of the EWL name (the company is called Bharti Airtel now).

In an apparent bid to have more mobile subscribers using the freshly launched Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Econet has slashed tariffs for the service by more than half, from US 15 cents to just 6 cents. The country’s largest telecoms firm made the announcement yesterday to customers via an SMS which read:

As you probably already know, the initial ideas deadline for the ForgetMeNot Africa ZeTXT Apps Challenge is near. By the end of this coming Friday, 4 May, all ideas must have been submitted via the eTXT Developer platform to be considered for the challenge.

We just got some clarification from Econet. Basically their website has incomplete information on the deal. The $6,000 contract part is correct. However the deal is that you get $250 worth of voice calls, SMS and mobile broadband data every month. Effectively this does make the Samsung Galaxy I9000 free, as in free. Here’s an image we received to confirm this:

Yes, you read that that right. Econet Wireless Zimbabwe is apparently selling the Samsung Galaxy I9000. At least that’s what their website says. A Twitter user @munron43 posted his shock at the prices earlier this afternoon:

As you may already know, Econet announced its full year audited financials yesterday. We posted a bit about it yesterday but there wasn’t much besides the impressive profit figures the telecoms firm continues to post. Today we have more details; information on the company’s plans this year, their operation challenges, what they are doing to overcome them, EcoCash uptake, Ecolife, Average revenue per user, their gratitude to POTRAZ and other such.

Zimbo Jam, Zimbabwe’s most popular entertainment news and culture website is down. The site has been down since Friday due to a problem that happened during an upgrade to a new version of the website. We got in touch with Zimbo Jam founder Fungai Tichawangana today and he told us that one of the major components of the site stopped working on Friday last week and his team had to spend two days restoring it. “Totally derailed us- as so many other things depended on it,” he said.

Zimbabwe has over the years become a predominantly cash society while mobile communication continues to grow and be pivotal to most consumers in the informal sector. We recognise the inherent burdens airtime pre-payment inflicts on consumers.

Two months ago, Artwell Mataranyika the Aquiva Wireless chief operations officer told us their telecoms company would be launching VoIP service by April. He said they were actually ready to launch on the technical front but had to finalize commercial interconnection agreements to with incumbent operators.

For website development and web companies that rely on heavy internet usage (to push ads), Africa has presents a unique problem and opportunity because of its minimal local content online. For web developers, it’s been how to convince and be trusted by small businesses that having some web presence will deliver and make a difference to their bottom line. It’s not easy to do this especially as the SMEs have to part with some dollars.

It was just a few months ago, sitting with the CEO who had moved back into the country after working as a successful starter-up in the US. The interview part hadn’t started and I was shaking a bit (he had come to pick me up in a classy vehicle and drove me to his classy house so yes I’m not used to being so..I don’t know). He was narrating his experiences in the States and how you could earn big from the silliest of apps or nothing from a huge idea. Then he leaned forward, reached in his pocket and brought out a monochrome phone and said “If you want to be big in Africa, you can’t go wrong with mobile. This is the only way. The regular guy knows SMS…[bla bla bla]“. I nodded and shook (50-50). He was definitely not the first to tell me this, and wasn’t the last but I wasn’t and still am not convinced.

The co-founder of US-based messaging startup WhatsApp, Brian Acton, has denied popular notion that their startup is a threat to mobile operators’ revenues. In an interview with Reuters a few days ago, Acton said that instead, they were helping operators move their customers to data packages which would prove more profitable in the long run; “It’s all about the data”.