Chips Computing Services
Posted inConnectivity

Chips Computing Services Wins Best Achiever Award For X3 ERP

Chips Computing Services has won the Best Achiever Award for Sage Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) X3, barely a year after the product was launched in Zimbabwe. Chips Computing Services, which holds the Sage Pastel franchise in Zimbabwe and is the official distributor of Sage and Pastel products, won the award, which is based on sales, ahead of many other participants from across the world, including South Africa and Australia.
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CRASA logo
Posted inConnectivity

Communications Regulators’ Association of Southern Africa Holds Impact Assessment Workshop in Zimbabwe

The Communications Regulators’ Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) will, starting tomorrow, hold an impact assessment training workshop at Elephant Hills in Victoria Falls. The 2 day workshop is aimed at providing forums where awareness of the need for impact assessment in the policy and regulation making processes are discussed. The workshop is being attended by regulatory authorities and the SADC region telecommunications and internet service providers. CRASA operations manager explains in the secretariat message for the workshop:
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Weekly Roundup – 20 March 2010
Posted inConnectivity

Weekly Roundup – 20 March 2010

PowerTel and the BTC Fibre Deal There was an article in this week's Sunday Mail on PowerTel's fibre deal with Botswana Telecommunications Corporation. Again no mention of the bandwidth capacity being purchased. We searched around and found this pdf on the BTC website. It says "...under the agreement with BTC will get access to direct international undersea connectivity with the SynchronousTransport Module One (STM1) at a maximum of 155Mbps." The PowerTel managing director, Samuel Maminimini made the usual promises business leaders make after achieving such milestones:
Posted inConnectivity

Telecel Zimbabwe’s Board Suspends Acting Chairperson, Jane Mutasa

Telecel Zimbabwe’s board of directors has announced that its acting chairperson, Jane Mutasa, has been suspended from the board to enable her to defend herself against the criminal charges that have been preferred against her in Zimbabwe. The following statement was issued after a board meeting that took place today: “At the extraordinary board meeting of the Board of Telecel Zimbabwe, held on March 19, 2010, the directors resolved to suspend Mrs Mutasa as director of the company to afford her an opportunity to defend herself against the charges that have been preferred against her by the state following allegations of fraud brought to the police by the company.
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Sage Evolution
Posted inConnectivity

Pastel Software Zimbabwe Announces Launch Of New Evolution Modules

Pastel Software Zimbabwe, the official Sage Pastel distributor in Zimbabwe, has revealed plans to launch new Pastel Evolution point of sale and branch synchronisation add-on modules in June this year. This will be the first time these modules have been available in Zimbabwe. Experts from Sage Pastel International’s headquarters in South Africa will present, explain and demonstrate the new modules on June 7 and 8. Pastel Software Zimbabwe runs as a division of Chips Computing Services and distributes Pastel software directly and through a network of local dealers. It is the only Platinum Certified Sage Pastel Partner in the country. Sage Pastel grades its business partners as Silver, Gold and Platinum, with Platinum being the highest grade. The only other partner in Zimbabwe, Omni Africa, is a certified Gold Business Partner.
Google Code Jam Africa 2010
Posted inConnectivity

Egypt, South Africa And Nigeria Account For More Than 80% Of Google Code Jam Africa Qualifying Contestants

The first round of the Google Code Jam Africa 2010 is over. Of the 54 countries in Africa, only 18 made it through the qualification round of Code Jam Africa 2010 and of these, only 3 countries accounted for more than 80% of the contestants; Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria. This is despite there being no country specific entry restrictions (well, save for Internet connectivity). An indication of the countries with super brain developers? Or maybe that of those with interest in software development? Maybe of those that knew about the contests?
Posted inBroadband

A Google Map of ZOL Wi-Fi Hotspots in Harare

We thought we'd do a map of all the Wi-Fi hotspots in Zimbabwe to help people locate the nearest hotspot from any location. We started with the ISP that has a good number of them dotted across the country, ZOL. Because of that, this is by no means exhaustive. There are more hotspots in Zimbabwe and if you know any we didnt include here, please just tell use where it is and we'll put a marker on it. Better still, open the map in Google Maps, login with you Google account and make the changes yourself! Once we have enough hotspots from different providers we'l drop the ZOL title and pin the ZOL tag to specific hotspots. We hope it helps you find a hot spot near you!
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Eonet 3G Facebook Page
Posted inBroadband

Econet Asks: Should We Have Waited Until We Could Give Everyone 3G Or We Did The Right Thing To Launch And Sort Out Issues Later?

Econet Wireless Zimbabwe is among the few companies in Zimbabwe to embrace online social media. The company’s 3G Facebook page has about a thousand fans and it gets updated several times a week. For subscribers, this provides an always available face of the company on the Internet. You can have conversation with an Econet techie right there, and he (or she hey) speaks informally and is frank on the issues that matter to subscribers. The kind of way you’d converse with a real person in real life. This as opposed to the call center agents that always make me feel handled. And for Econet, this is a great way to get honest feedback from customers.
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Weekly Roundup – 5 March 2010
Posted inConnectivity

Weekly Roundup – 5 March 2010

Econet held a breakfast meeting today to give an update to stakeholders on the network upgrade project that has been taking place since last year. We’ll give you an update of the discussions held once we have something.
Google Sanctions Search
Posted inConnectivity

Why Google Produces The Most Relevant Search Results

Like many people, for a long time now, Google has been my default search engine. This default state of my online experience makes it easy to forget that there are other options out there; that I could look at the web through a different set of lenses. And that indeed, there might actually be a better experience elsewhere. I don’t want to use Google just because everyone likes it, so every now and again I like to sample the other popular search engines of the day. The one thing that has made me stick with Google for the past 5 years stills stands out; the priority given to relevant local results.
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Skype for Symbian
Posted inBroadband

Skype Comes To Nokia Smartphones

Earlier today, the mobile phone giant, Nokia announced that Skype for it's Symbian smartphones is now available for free download in its OVI store. Mobile users can now use 3G or Wi-Fi connections to call each other for 'free' without needing to route the call through mobile operators. This is a big game changer for mobile operators. Charging subscribers for call minutes is getting harder and harder to justify and this just another nail in the regular calls' coffin. Econet though seems to have seen this coming. It has been heavily investing in reinventing itself into a data career (aka ISP). Just last week, it launched it's fibre network project and promised to make it available to other service providers in the future. Econet founder, Strive Masiyiwa, sums it up in the YouTube video - "As an operator our basic responsiblity and task, is build a network and to provide coverage and connectivity to as many people as possible. That is the instruction we give to our executives."
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Google Code Jam Africa
Posted inConnectivity

Google Announces Code Jam Africa 2010

Google on Friday announced "Google Code Jam Africa 2010", a coding contest event in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The competition is a web-based test and participants can program in the coding language and development environment of their choice. Registration for the contest runs up to 15 March and Round 1 of the competition starts on the same date. Successful coders will battle it out in round 2 after 7 days.
No Love For G-Tide Phones On Facebook
Posted inConnectivity

No Love For G-Tide Phones On Facebook

I received a page suggestion yesterday to a not so usual Zimba page on Facebook. One that doesn't hide it’s feelings for G-Tide. It’s called “I Hate G-TIDE Cell Phones”. First I thought well, negative campaigns are not new on Facebook but I’ll just check it out and leave. But then I looked at the number of fans and stopped a bit. The page was created yesterday morning (Zim time) and by the time I viewed it in the evening, 51 people had subscribed. I visited it just now to find the fans had doubled to 111! No mean feat for a Zim page just 2 days old. The viral effect is working against the Tide here!
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Zimbabwe ICT Strategic Plan (2010-2014) Launch
Posted inBroadband

Zimbabwe ICT Strategic Plan (2010-2014) Launch

We attended the launch of the ICT strategic plan yesterday. An overview of the the strategic plan; what went into it, how it was developed and how it is going to be implemented (and monitored) was given by the permanent secretary of the ministry, Eng. Kundishora. Unfortunately there were no copies of the strategic plan for the audience to take home, but we'll lay our hands on one in good time and post it here. Click back here in a few hours.
Nelson Chamisa
Posted inConnectivity

Chamisa To Launch The National ICT Strategic Plan Next Week

The Zimbabwe Minister of ICT, Nelson Chamisa, will on 22 February launch the national ICT strategic plan for the period 2010 to 2014. The launch will take place at Jameson Hotel in Harare at 1400hrs local time. The ICT strategic plan was approved last month and is expect to be a guideline for the country in the implementation of ICT policies and regulation. Chamisa explained that it’l be “a road map for the Ministry of ICT on how the country can strategically exploit and benefit from ICTs”.
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ZOLspot Internet to go
Posted inBroadband

ZOL Says “Stop Waiting For Promised 3G Connections – Connect Today To Wireless Broadband.”

In obvious reference to Econet’s delayed full rollout of data services to mobile, subscribers Zimbabwe Online (ZOL) is telling customers they don’t have to wait - we have great wireless broadband spread across the country and it is available right now! The message was sent out in a promotional email to customers titled “Introducing ZOLspot Wireless high-speed Broadband from just US $30. Faster than 3G and available today all over Zimbabwe!” To use the ZOL wireless broadband, customers buy a prepaid scratch card available at any ZOLSpot and get immediate access to the Internet. The scratch cards are valid for 6 months from the first time you use them.
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Vodafone 150
Posted inConnectivity

An Ultra Low Cost Phone For Africa

Vodafone yesterday announced the launch of two ultra low cost handsets targeted at consumers in the emerging markets of Africa and Asia. According to the Vodafone press release, the handsets (Vodafone 150 and Vodafone 250) will launch in the coming weeks in India and across Africa. The Vodafone 150 will retail unsubsidised at below US $15 and the Vodafone 250, US $20, depending on the local market.
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Telecel Fraud
Posted inConnectivity

Telecel Unearths Recharge Cards Fraud Worth US$ 1.7 Million

Telecel, the second largest mobile operator in Zimbabwe, confirmed today that it has unearthed a recharge cards fraud case amounting to US $ 1,7 million. The unscrupulous Telecel employees involved in the case, swindled the company through issuing recharge cards and starter packs using manual invoices, an invoicing method long banned by the company.
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