Microsoft director technology policy Paul Garnett (left), general manager global strategic accounts Frank Mc Cosker and director, legal and corporate affairs- Microsoft 4Afrika initiative, Louis Onyango Otieno at the launch of the Huawei 4Afrika (right), a Windows 8 phone with select applications designed for Africa in Nairobi on February 5. Photo/Salaton Njau
What you need to know:
The American multinational has hived off three autonomous regions from the 15-member East and Southern Africa unit, each of which will now be led by a country manager reporting to the general manager, Microsoft West, East and Central Africa.
The new regions are Microsoft Kenya, Microsoft Angola and Microsoft East and Southern Africa.
The initiative unveiled on Tuesday February 5, will see Microsoft partner with Internet service providers and governments across Africa to deliver low-cost wireless broadband to locations previously not served.
Microsoft has streamlined its reporting territories in Africa with Kenya and Angola becoming independent units.
The American multinational has hived off three autonomous regions from the 15-member East and Southern Africa unit, each of which will now be led by a country manager reporting to the general manager, Microsoft West, East and Central Africa.
The new regions are Microsoft Kenya, Microsoft Angola (covering Angola and Mozambique) and Microsoft East and Southern Africa (covering Botswana, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe).
Hennie Loubser, the general manager at Microsoft in charge of West, East and Central Africa said the streamlined business will help the company optimise resources, strengthen its business relationship and improve how it works with customers and partners.
“This is a positive move for our business as it will allow us to better scale our resources across the territory, improve our impact in our high-potential markets as well as strengthen our government and business relationships with our customers and partners, while successfully building sustainable businesses for the long term,” said Mr Loubser.
The initiative unveiled on Tuesday February 5, will see Microsoft partner with Internet service providers and governments across Africa to deliver low-cost wireless broadband to locations previously not served.
Eric Odipo is the new manager in charge of Microsoft East and Southern Africa, overseeing operations in the 12 African nations.
Mr Odipo was formerly the “Channel Lead” at Microsoft East and Southern Africa and was responsible for building and overseeing “a scalable and dynamic Microsoft partner ecosystem” across 15 countries in the region.
Previously, Louis Otieno headed the East and Southern Africa unit. He has been promoted to director, legal and corporate affairs for Africa initiatives.
This makes Mr Otieno the highest ranking Kenyan at the Washington-based software giant. He will oversee the firm’s new programme dubbed Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative, a $75 million project that aims to support Africa’s technology market.
As independent regions, Kenya and Angola will each be headed by a country manager, with the Luanda office overseeing the Mozambique market.
Microsoft has opened the search for a new boss to head the Kenya office, in a move that will see Nairobi host three senior executives, affirming Kenya’s position as the continent’s technology hub, dubbed Silicon Savannah.
Microsoft’s project in Kenya uses TV white spaces — white space is the general term for unused but allocated spectrum, in this case, frequencies normally reserved for analog TV.
“White space offers vastly increased range, speed and signals that penetrate areas where 3G fears to tread,” said Paul Garnett, Microsoft’s director of technology policy.
The unused portions of wireless spectrum in the television frequency band are particularly well-suited for a range of applications from better in-home networks to rural broadband, to hotspot access and mobile traffic offload to machine-to-machine applications.
Dubbed Mawingu, the technology will use the television aerial to transmit bandwidth into the house where there will be a box to convert it to a wireless networking technology that uses waves to provide wireless high-speed Internet and network connections.
