TEAMs Cable Ship has covered 2,000kms

As of yesterday the TEAMs cable ship had covered about 2,000kms - completing the 'first load' of cable. At just below halfway, this is good progress. As the second load is laid, we shall be holding our breath hoping that the notorious Somali pirates don't interfere with the progress.

Fingers crossed.....

Cisco Launches Next Generation Data Center with Unified Computing Services in Nairobi

At the Fairview hotel today, Cisco unveiled an evolutionary new Data Center architecture, innovative services and an open ecosystem of best in class partners to help customers develop next-generation data centers that unleash the full power of virtualization.  With this announcement, Cisco is delivering on the promise of virtualization through Unified Computing - an architecture that bridges the silos in the Data Center into one unified architecture using industry standard technologies.

Key to Cisco's approach is the Cisco Unified Computing System which unites, compute, network, storage access and virtualization resources in a single energy efficient system that can reduce IT infrastructure costs and complexity, help extend capital assets and improve business agility well into the future.

To help customers accelerate the transition to the Unified Computing Architecture, Cisco is paving the way with a comprehensive suite of new Unified Computing Services.

TEAMs Cable Ship has set sail - 450kms covered...

Great news. The TEAMs cable ship - under contract with Alcatel-Lucent set sail from Fujairah, UAE on Thursday last week. As of today it has covered 450 kilometres at a rate of approximately 150 kilometres a day.

We are all looking forward to the cable finally landing in Mombasa - and hope and pray that the Somali pirates don't interfere with the progress of this noble venture.

East African Submarine Fiber Projects set to Trigger increased economic activity

So the pundits say that the impending arrival of at least to international submarine fibre cables at Mombasa - Kenya's coastal frontier - later this year is set to trigger a significant increase in economic activity. The Eastern African seaboard has been exclusively dependent upon satellite connectivity for linkage with the rest of the world, thus the advent of these cable systems will be a watershed for the region by bringing lower cost connectivity with many times better quality.

There is presently a flurry of activity in the East African region, with many operators deploying metro, regional, national and cross-border fibre optic networks. Parallel to this is the aggressive rollout of a slew of last-mile broadband access networks - presumably to ensure that as much of the bandwidth that comes off the submarine cables can be delivered directly to users.

Exciting times for sure!

Google Invests into Kenyan Mobile Messaging Company

It has started! Google is making direct investments into African
companies that hold the promise of providing the search giant with
inroads into the buzz, hype and business explosion that is Africa's
mobile industry.

Announcing the investment via their Google Africa blog http://google-
africa.blogspot.com/2008/08/announcing-new-investment-in-kenya.html -
Africa Office Lead Joseph Mucheru sounds quite upbeat about their
expectations and very clear on how he envisions SMS and related
mobile technologies as an avenue for future growth and applications.

Perceptions about Africa

So here we are, working very hard to build knowledge societies,
knowledge economies and bring 'e' into as many areas as possible.

Achieving the highest levels of mobile growth than any other
continent in the world.

Providing the highest returns on any kind of investment into any
sector than any other continent in the world.

But here is how we are percieved:

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/africa-is-
giving-nothing-to-anyone--apart-from-aids-1430428.html

What can we do about this?

Kenya Venture Capital Association moves one step further towards formation

Following a meeting of the various organisations providing private equity, a task force to bring about the Kenya Venture Capital Association has been convened.

We are looking forward to the realisation of this entity which can engage in advocacy, awareness building and coordination for the Venture Capital industry.