I have been trying to find out what the IBM and Canonical offering for netbooks is about, that is being trumpeted on blogs and news media around now. It sounds very much like a Google solution – office software apps available via a cloud computing infrastructure.
What strikes me about this is that noone currently has cloud computing facilities on the African continent at the moment. That means that the solution being offered is reliant on overseas Internet connectivity.
Well let’s hope that African governments buy into the IBM solution – they will have to finally invest properly in their communications infrastructure (e.g. Swaziland – see previous blog about SATNAC) helping millions of people.
The Wall Street Journal said the following:
“If IBM keeps its part of the bargain and provides cloud-based applications at affordable prices then this service will revolutionize businesses in Africa,” said Venansius Barya Baryamureeba, Dean of the Faculty of Computing and IT at Makerere University, Uganda, who has been briefed on IBM’s plans. ”
Maybe he knows more than I could find out.