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Steve Song recently wrote a great post on 3 reasons why M4D may be bad for Development where he says that:

Mobile operators have entrenched themselves with development agencies as the saviours of access and give generously to m4d development programs. Development agencies have rushed to embrace mobile operators.

While the latter is surely true, mobile phones are all the rage at USAID, I do not see the mobile operators "entrenched" with development agencies, nor do I see them giving "generously" to M4D programs. At least I don't see them involved with the implementers of aid agency programs. In fact, with the exception of Nokia and Vodafone, none of the major mobile line operators (MTN, Safaricom, Airtel, Glo, etc) seem to even notice the development sector.

When juxtaposed with the efforts of technology companies like Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco to support the development industry, the disengagement of the mobile operators is even more striking. I propose there are 3 reasons why mobile phone companies are not entrenched and not giving generously to M4D implementers:

1. Mobile technology doesn't need donors
   The startling rise in mobile phone adoption has primarily been consumer driven - built on millions of micro scratch card transactions without many donor dollars amongst them. So mobile phone companies (handset manufactures, network operators, and their respective ecosystems) don't feel the need to adapt to donor business practices, all of which seem very rigid and constraining when compared to the free-wheeling retail marketplace.
2. Donors can't adapt to private industry's speed
   Mobile technology lives by quarterly targets. New models, pricing plans, and consumer services start, blossom (and die) in 3 months or less. Most donors can't even issue an RFP in 3 months, often taking over a year from idea to contract award - an eternity in the mobile space. In addition, donor agencies require specialized business practices and expertise that might as well be a whole other language to private industry. And don't even get started on the contracting constraints imposed by government purchasing departments who are used to domestic acquisitions.
3. Implementers can't afford in-house mobile expertise
   Last but not least, the implementers who do know how to work with donor agencies, and could be a bridge between the development and mobile communities, often can't afford the mobile expertise. Mobile phone application developers, like other hot IT skills, are commanding salaries that are well beyond international development. Remember, the unwritten rule in development is that no one makes more than the contracting officer at the donor in charge of the contract.

These reasons were inspired by Roxanna Samii's post where she says, "enough with pilots, let's get serious about mDevelopment," and concludes with this great summation of the mobile phone in development issue:

So, quite frankly speaking, I see private and public sector as two separate circles, who are continuously struggling to find an intersection point. However, the reality is that public and private sector live in different time zones and do not seem to have found their preferred collaboration tool which allows them to seamlessly work together and indeed create a win-win situation!

This should be a fair warning to those at donor agencies and within implementers who get all giddy about mobile phones and think that mobile line operators will be just as giddy about their M4D idea.

Working with mobile operators is not easy. Mobiles phones are not an all-encompassing panacea. And just maybe, not the right bet to make at all. Remember that according to the World Bank, broadband Internet access beats mobile phones in boosting GDP.

It is no longer news that Nokia’s market share has been suffering. Even the company’s CEO once said that Nokia is failing to compete and losing ground to competitors such as Apple and Google. Now, Nokia and Microsoft officially announced that Microsoft’s Windows 7 would serve as Nokia’s primary smartphone platform.

Nokia smartphones are currently using Symbian which accounted for 37.6% (46.9% in 2009) of the total market share in 2010, according to Gartner. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Windows 7 share dropped drastically to 4.2% in 2010 from 8.7% share in 2009. In contrast, Android’s market share stood at 22.7% in 2010, a massive increase on its 2009 share of 3.9% and Apple’s iOS market share was at 15.7% in 2010, a little increase on its 2009 share of 14.4%.

Before now, there were indications that Nokia will team up with Microsoft to fight Apple and Google. Under a new strategic partnership between Nokia and Microsoft:

1. Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.
2. Nokia would help drive the future of Windows Phone.  Nokia would contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.
3. Nokia and Microsoft would closely collaborate on joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.
4. Microsoft development tools would be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem’s global reach.
5. Nokia’s content and application store (otherwise known as Ovi Store) would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience. In a nutshell, Nokia and Microsoft plan to create a new global mobile ecosystem.

But what does this mean for developers and entreprises in Nigeria?

According to Saheed Adepoju, Encipher’s co-founder:

“Nokia’s alliance with Microsoft shows one thing: they’ve got no clue what they are doing with regards to developers, they (developers) will decamp to other playgrounds. Nigerians need to awake from their ‘symbian slumber’ and stop dreaming that Symbian still has something to offer. Existing Symbian developers will jump ship to Android and Blackberry as it feels like home because of Java.”

He sees developers developing for Android and corporates looking up to the Nokia platform because of Microsoft’s Windows 7, though Windows 7 hasn’t impressed that much amongst developers. He also thinks that Microsoft partners would develop for Nokia, but regular developers who want to monetize their efforts would not. For iPhone, he thinks its still far fetched for developers in Nigeria due to Apple’s strict rules.

I tend to agree with Adepoju and it would be interesting to see how app developers in Nigeria would react to this development. He further said that in Nigeria, internet access is getting cheaper and because Nigerians have spending power, they’ll buy and use more smartphones phones. He predicts that smartphones will do what GSM did in Nigeria, back in 2001, exploding in usage because Internet is becoming cheaper.

“Nokia will become a second alternative now as everyone will have a smartphone which isn’t a Nokia”, said Adepoju.

In the end, the deal would benefit enterprises more than developers in Nigeria.

This was originally published as What Nokia-Microsoft Deal Means For Developers in Nigeria: An Analyst View

Do you have a Nokia mobile phone? Want to keep up with ICTworks news and network activity? Then download the ICTworks Nokia app from the Nokia Ovi Store.

Before you think this was some technical feat, I used the handy Ovi App Wizard to create the ICTworks application in about 5 minutes. Its that simple.

The ICTworks app for Nokia mobile phones joins the ICtworks iPhone App we created in January.

The Hard Part: User Adoption

While its easy (and free!) to create a simple mobile phone application like these, and you should create one right now, there is a big difference between creation and usage.

Nokia says the Ovi Store has 2 million downloads daily in 30 languages through 91 operators to 120 devices in 190+ countries, but not many of those are of the ICTworks application.

I don't know how to track the usage of our ICTworks mobile application, but overall, only 3% of ICTworks viewers use some type of handheld mobile device (mobile phone, iPad, etc). Good luck with your efforts to have a higher number.

Raila Odinga registering to vote in 4 minutes flat

Regardless of their political affiliations, ICT firms should be pushing electronic voter registration and voting in every country of Africa. Why? Not only does it increase participation in the elections process, and make it more transparent, it also makes great business sense.

Here's an example from Business Daily Africa: the Kenyan constitutional referendum earned several suppliers of technology goods and Internet services millions of shillings when the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) used electronic registration and voting in 18 constituencies.

Nokia, the largest handset manufacturer, supplied IIEC with 18,000 mid-tier mobiles worth Sh38 million, according to documents seen by Business Daily. Listed telecom firm Safaricom provided 100 megabytes (MB) of data for each of the mobiles, earning it over Sh2 million in the two-day process.

Apart from handsets, the IIEC staff used laptops and other peripheral devices to conduct voter registration, voting, and tallying of results. The electoral body has said it plans to spend about Sh32 billion in a step by step process to build the infrastructure that would see Kenyans vote electronically in 20,000 polling centres around the country by 2012.

Now that's a political change I think every ICT company can vote for!

Do you have an idea on how to change lives with mobile phones? Is it also a good business opportunity? And can it work with Nokia phones? Then submit it to Nokia's Growth Economy Venture Challenge

Nokia is offering a $1 million (USD) venture capital investment (not a gift or grant) and support from Nokia to help turn the idea into reality. Your idea can be hardware, software, applications or a new service. As Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo says:

"We've seen what the tech community can do when it focuses on problems that are also opportunities. We want to channel that energy toward improving lives in the deveoping world."

Just make sure that your submission has a clear mission statement and viable business model on how it will enhance the lives of people living on less than $5 per day.

Interested? Then apply today!