Gameloft confirmed to speak at North Africa Com 2012, representing a content provider's perspective

Sébastien Givry of mobile games publisher Gameloft has confirmed his participation as speaker at North Africa Com, the annual telecoms, media & ICT event taking place in Tunis on 13-14 May 2012.
Sébastien's presentation will look at global trends in mobile content and multimedia consumption, the specificities of the mobile content market in North Africa, and the mobile gaming market.
Gameloft is the #2 world developer of mobile games with published revenues of €141 million in 2010, expanding its activities in all electronically distributed formats as IPTV and consoles. Through its partnerships and distribution channels, Gameloft is serving its game to over 3 billion consumers.
As Sales Director, Sébastien is in charge of developing Gameloft’s presence and overall turnover in 31 countries. Over the past 7 years Sebastien has been with Gameloft, he has gained an expertise in mobile content from the distribution of Gameloft’s games through various channels, the implementation of in-house turn-key eCommerce solutions, and the promotion of games through social networks and more traditional channels. Sebastien is also involved in the implementation of Gameloft’s IPTV gaming solutions as well as partnerships with manufacturers in the Region.

North Africa Com 2012 programme being confirmed - Get involved!

The North Africa region is experiencing exceptional socio-economic change. As the world is going through a digital revolution, now is a great time to look at the new opportunities and challenges affecting all players in the telecoms, media and ICT sector in the region.

The 8th North Africa Com conference and exhibition will take place in Tunis on 15-16 May 2012. The event will bring together companies from the whole digital ecosystem (operators, OTT players, content providers, regulators, investors, vendors etc.) to discuss all the key trends affecting the market.

The following themes have been pre-selected to be part of the programme:
- How Telcos Are Adapting to a New Digital Environment
- Making Sense of the New Digital Ecosystem: Traditional Telcos, Alternative Service Providers, New Media, Disruptive Players
- Content & Apps: Innovative Applications and New Solutions to Increase Revenues
- Mobile Broadband & LTE Developments
- Smartphone Strategies to Encourage Data Usage and Increase Revenues
- Evolving Regulations to Facilitate Greater Market Development
- Delivering Excellence in Customer Experience Management

As the programme is being developed, now is you chance to send suggestions for topics and speaking proposals. Please contact Julie Rey on julie.rey@informa.com for more information.

OTT PROVIDERS DEFINE THE FUTURE OF THE COMMUNICATIONS LANDSCAPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Last week’s Middle East Telco World Summit in Dubai was a buzzy affair with over 1,400 executives drawn from the entire Middle Eastern telecoms ecosystem in attendance.

Reflecting the changing landscape of the telecoms industry, the keynote panel discussion questioned “How are OTT Providers Disrupting the Operator Business Model?”. CEOs and Vice Presidents from operators and OTT providers debated the next step in competition or collaboration to maximise the potential of OTT service provision for all parties.

A packed conference room heard the views of Google’s Vice President Emerging Markets , Mohammad Gawdat, Ahmed Nassef, VP and Managing Director Middle East Yahoo!, Osman Sultan, CEO, du, Nawras’ CEO Ross Cormack, Khalifa Al-Fora SVP Technology and Network Strategy, Etisalat, Medhat Amer, CIO Mobily , Andrew Hanna, CCO VIVA Bahrain, Jigar Budhdev, General Manager MENA, Nimbuzz and Areeba Areeba’s CEO Ayman Irshaid.

Delegates were invited to join the launch of a report by the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. . With the growth of the mobile tech industry comes opportunity. It makes social & economic sense to include women and the report, prepared by the Foundation in collaboration with STC, provides an in-depth study on the opportunities for women entrepreneurs in the mobile industry report provided an in-depth study of the opportunities available.


The 2nd day focus on LTE highlighted the region’s recent commercial launches. Case studies from Etisalat, du and STC demonstrated the reality of LTE, the impact on the consumer experience and the challenges and opportunities that remain for the operator.


The country focus sessions enabled delegates to gain a deeper understanding of the highlighted markets. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan/Afghanistan were examined in detail with keynote presentations and panel discussions drawing out the successes and opportunities in each market.

The summit concluded, as it opened, with a panel discussion on OTT – this debate asking “Should OTT Players Pay for their Data?” With representation from the vendor, operator and OTT communities the lively discussion was a fitting end to a conference that demonstrated the need for operators to adapt to the changing communications world.

African Cloud Providers Face an Uphill Battle

Another month, another cloud launch in Africa – at the end of October we saw Safaricom's George Makori announce the largest native African cloud launched in Kenya, and in November a similar press releases emerged from Vodacom claiming the first cloud launch in South Africa – so is this the Golden Age for the popular ICT service in Africa?

Clearly Safaricom and Vodacom South Africa think so – I’d say that many Africans understand that virtualisation and the growth of data centres in the continent have been a form of cloud computing for years. So why are some naysayers emerging to claim that South African cloud providers will not be able to challenge international players...

They say that South African hosting is not a competitive option, and that these African service providers are going to be priced out of the cloud services market by global heavyweights. However, this overlooks one important thing – Africa has always produced the best solutions for Africans. International aid is not the most effective solution for alleviating African hunger – yet Kenya’s mPesa is raising millions if US$ to help famine victims in East Africa – outstripping event the efforts of the Red Cross – and proudly raising the slogan Kenyans for Kenya. African apps for mHealth & mEducation are successfully aiding those without access to information or treatment, arguably more effectively and durably than international campaigns.

So why should cloud be any different? African governments are ready to lead by example; they know cloud and in particular SaaS will boost local economies, and there’s no reason African service providers shouldn't succeed in providing the hosting service.

I do agree with one point in that article though, local cloud service providers could face an uphill battle in competing with foreign providers, and each other. Any company looking to gain a foot hold in the African market needs to act and needs to act fast, market share and reputation will be everything, so get a cloud offering soon and get it right.

To learn more about Cloud in Africa register for the Cloud Africa event (part of the Com World Series) taking place in Johannesburg 23-24 May 2012 http://cloudafricasummit.com/

Anthony Smith-Chaigneau of Alticast gives feedback on Africa's TV market following successful launch of AfricaCast

The TV market in Africa offers tremendous opportunities, as was evident at the new AfricaCast conference and exhibition launched in Cape Town earlier this month. The event gathered leading companies from the broadcasting world such as Multichoice and SABC, as well as alternative players such as Southtel and YouTube. The event was co-located with AfricaCom, allowing participants to mix with the players from the telecoms and ICT world.

One of AfricaCast's leading panellists was Anthony Smith-Chaigneau, Managing Director and Senior Vice-President of Business Development at Alticast, a provider of Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) solutions to the interactive TV industry. He answered questions on the overall market trends after the event.

What major developments have you witnessed in Africa's broadcasting industry in the past 12 months?
Clearly the development of the broadband sector with huge investment in fibre across the continent, juxtaposed with the development of a better understanding by the African industry of the importance of the broadcast sector for hybrid opportunities is driving Africa rapidly forward.

What challenges have you encountered as a result of this progress?
There are many challenges as it is a huge, diverse and multi-faceted market. In a market that is developing very rapidly, there are many aspects of technology choices that need to be coherent with the word 'advanced'. Technology selection has to be carefully considered and future thinking is paramount to creating the environment for developing services.

For example South Africa has chosen DTT and Uganda has selected DVB-T2 - described as the 'World's Best Digital Terrestrial Technology' at recent seminars; yet these two countries have chosen the 'oldest and outmoded' interactive middleware (MHEG5) for interactive TV services.

This does not make sense! Why open a super-highway and then ride a bicycle down it? Africa has the chance to leap-frog the rest of the world with systems that offer the best that the market can offer.

How do you believe new technologies can improve viewer engagement?
New technologies are designed with the viewer in mind, by providing better picture quality, better sound, more channels and value-added services. It is up to the broadcaster and operators to exploit these in order to engender viewer loyalty.

The experience of Mediaset in Italy with their advanced terrestrial services using DVB-MHP-HBB is a clear example of the broadcaster offering viewers the opportunity to engage in social media, catch-up TV, enhanced programming, play-along (prize-driven) quizzes and much much more. They have maximised their use of the right technologies for a comprehensible offer that sees receivers at affordable prices in the market.

What role do you think online video will eventually take within the overall mix of television technologies in Africa?
Online video requires a solid infrastructure and a sure-fire Quality of Service which entails a lot of back-office investment and the need to find a business model that supports this infrastructure. Lessons have been learned across the globe regarding the mix of technologies, and many partnerships have been formed between broadcasters and telcos/ISPs to try to balance the weaknesses of the Internet.

Others believe the Internet is ONLY way forward and therefore there is disruption in the market as each and every player tries to obtain the same loyalty from the same customers. At the Recent Future of Broadcast Television Summit in China it was declared that 'the transmission of information to an unlimited number of listeners and viewers is the most spectrum-efficient means for wireless delivery of popular real-time and file-based content'.

In online TV we have a long way to go to serve the population as efficiently as broadcast, especially in countries that have geographic, economic and technological challenges.

How do you believe content providers can best tap these new opportunities?
Content providers throughout Africa will have to beware of fragmentation. Standardisation and ubiquity is primordial for the content industry to be able to create their product once and have it deployed everywhere. If Africa, as in Europe, sees massive fragmentation of receiver middleware and interactive systems this will pose more challenges and add costs to the content industry.

Which markets do you think offer some key insights into the future direction of Africa's broadcast market?

There are many markets that can offer good and bad examples to Africa. They have a great experience in satellite, which is clearly seen as a continual growth market considering SES Astra is launching new satellites to further cover the region. The telcos have concentrated on the huge mobile market and this has been at the best shaky in other markets. The particularity of Africa and mobile phones may lead to a profitable mobile TV market where others have failed.

Terrestrial Broadcasting is clearly going to benefit from previous global experience. I firmly believe that Italy is the best benchmark for the implementation, management and deployment of advanced digital terrestrial services, and not the UK as many people imagine. Since 2004, Italy has successfully grown its DTT market to around 12 million advanced receivers and iDTVs. A very cohesive, interactive and OTT plan driven by the collaboration of the broadcasters under the guise of the DGTVi.

France has seen a badly conceived digital terrestrial market rollout, which saw radical short-term changes of technology from analogue, to terrestrial SD and then to HD, followed by the addition of interactive with the threat of more changes to come in the near term. This has cost the consumer heavily in replacement Receivers. A recent TV Documentary called the 'French Digital Terrestrial War' aired in the last few days; if they are making TV Programmes about it it must have had issues, and been controversial!

News round-up

We'd not normally put in a post that simply re-posts other's efforts, but in the aftermath of AfricaCom we thought we'd make an exception.  The event has drawn nearly univeral praise - 96.5% of respondents to our evaluation survey have indicated they'd recommend the event to a colleague! - and we thought some kind of precis of the event reviews would be in order.

So for your edification, a selection of the event coverage:

http://www.it-online.co.za/2011/09/29/africacom-2011-focuses-on-infrastructure/
http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2011/11/kenya-leading-with-mobile-government-implementation/
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Developing-nations-vital-to-wireless-broadband-20111031
http://www.telecoms.com/zones/africacom/

http://www.abndigital.com/page/multimedia/video/tech-at-work/1102700-14th-AfricaCom-Conference-and-Exhibition
http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/223/19/66665.html
http://www.africanews.com/site/SA_Cloud_computing_gaining_prominence/list_messages/40230

A lot of it echoing the issues we've been talking about here ..

Some thoughts from last week's AfricaCom

Last week's AfricaCom attracted a huge audience of 6000 participants from across the continent and the world (with in particular a strong presence from India and China).
It may be hard to pick the most talked-about topics at the event, as there were so many varied strands of discussion.
In no particular order, here are some topics that stood out for me:
- There is still a massive growth potential in Africa, as was presented by Africa's leading operators at the event: MTN, Vodacom, Orange, Etisalat / Atlantique Telecom and more
- As the market is maturing, operators focus more and more on customer loyalty strategies
- Networks are improving; international connectivity projects are enabling the provision of internet access that is very much needed on the continent
- Africa is ready for a boom in new content and apps, thanks to the better access to mobile data services; social media brands and content providers had a stronger presence than in previous years at the event, with speakers from Mxit, Motribe, Universal Music, and the participation of broadcasters such as Multichoice, SABC and the BBC to the new AfricaCast session.
- Services for the enterprise segments as well as m-health, m-money and m-government were a big subject
- the new Enterprise ICT session attracted CIOs and IT directors from non-telecom companies interested in learning how to improve their ICT strategies; this is proving to be a major new revenue stream for operators and vendors alike
- Cloud services were discussed in several sessions, and were being pushed by a large number of exhibitors
- Infrastructure sharing and managed services will play an important part in improving operators’ efficiencies and cost management
- Regulators and governments have an important role to play in encouraging innovation in Africa
I must have left out a lot of ideas and topics of discussions, so your feedback is welcome!

Cloud takes Africa by storm...

Increasingly industry commentators are talking about Africa as the perfect market for cloud.... Whereas lack of capacity and unreliable connectivity had previously been seen as detrimental to the launching of cloud services, it now seems that the tide has turned and these characteristics actually make the African markets an ideal Cloud launch pad.

Safaricom launched the ‘’largest native Cloud’’ in the past week, and they intend to lead not only the Kenyan market, but the rest of the continent as well. They’re putting their money where their mouth is and have joined the Cloud Africa conference & exhibition’s Advisory Board. This event is the first of its kind – bringing together the telecom operators and enterprise CIOs, offering the full story around Cloud in Africa.  No other event organisers can offer 19 years of successful learning and networking in Africa – as the Com Series can.  What is more Safaricom’s George Makori, Senior Manager for Cloud and Managed Services is joined on the Advisory Board by other experts and Gurus from Microsoft, HP, Ericsson, Ovum & CxO Advisors, and TM  Analysts.  No other conference and exhibition will bring advice and case studies at this critical point, where Cloud has the potential to take off in Africa./

 www.cloudafricasummit.com

The Biggest Show on Earth ... well Africa, anyway

Next week sees our 17th Annual Africa Com take place in South Africa.  We are welcoming thousands of speakers, exhibitors, press, delegates and visitors from all over Africa and the world and it is hugely exciting to see representatives of the entire digital ecosystem flocking to beautiful Cape Town in their hordes.

The weather outlook, so far, is predicted to be sunny & bright and I'm sure this will be echoed in the speakers' visions of how they see the development of the African Digital economy.

Our colleagues in the Informa Telecoms & Media analyst division have long been heralding the impending explosion in African internet connectivity.  Describing Africa’s internet age as largely a "nomadic experience" they talk of the 2nd decade of the 2nd millenium as the age where the internet reaches the people.  By 2015,  20% of internet traffic in Africa will be carried by cellular networks, as compared to a global equivalent of just 3%. 

One of the key drivers of this growth will be highly valued and relevant content - there are plenty of international offerings - adpated for local consumers or otherwise - on the scence but the domestic African content provider market is still nascent.  But as we'll no doubt hear next week this will change rapidly.

If you have any questions you'd like to put to any of the panel sessions at AfricaCom do email them to us and we'll endeavour to get them put before the experts...

Adapting to a changing ecosystem is key for operators' future success

The telecoms value chain used to be relatively simple: vendors would sell infrastructure equipment and software solutions to operators, who would build networks and offer services to end-users. Nowadays, the picture is more complex: the new ecosystem includes many more stakeholders from the whole telecoms, media and ICT world, and the traditional client-supplier relation is being replaced by more inclusive partnerships.
This topic of the changing ecosystem was discussed at the ITU summit this week in Geneva, with AT&T’s VP of International Affairs Eric Loeb saying: “Significant changes are coming from the traditional telecoms environment, including how people communicate, how they pay, how they work together. Two-way traditional, voice and email now co-exists with social media that enables many to many communications. It is not always supplemental, it is sometimes an alternative. Service providers need to be agile and forward-looking in terms of the platforms they provide.” This agility and innovation is essential if operators want to retain their relevance in a world where consumers’ expectations of services has changed so radically. As Johan Denneling, CEO of International at Vodacom said in an interview this week, “creativity is just as important as technology when it comes to developing useful, practical solutions to customer needs”.
That is why the Com World Series is embracing the changing ecosystem by providing platforms to discuss the changes in the telecoms, media and ICT ecosystem. The conferences no longer focus solely on the traditional telcos but cater for the whole digital ecosystem, including alternative service players, OTT players, social media brands, content providers and more. The objective is to facilitate exchanges between the stakeholders to promote new models, partnerships and services to engage with the consumers in a more effective way.
AfricaCom, taking place in Cape Town in two weeks, includes new sessions dedicated to service innovation, social media, content and apps, broadcasting, enterprise services, cloud computing and more. In addition to the region’s traditional operators (MTN, Vodacom, Orange, Atlantique, Airtel etc.), new brands will contribute to the programme: Google, Mxit, Motribe, Multichoice, SABC, Universal Music and more.
The Middle East Teclo World Summit, coming up at the end of November, will open with a debate on the role of OTT players and whether they’re disrupting the operator business model. The session will include contributions from Google, Nimbuzz, Yahoo, Areeba Areeba, as well as operators Du, Nawras, Viva and Mobily.
The 2012 programme will continue expanding its scope with more sessions focusing on telco transformation, innovation, ecosystem evolution and new services for different segments.