Office Open XML enjoys positive momentum - Microsoft

The current debate on the proposed global standardization of the Ecma Office Open Extensible Markup Language (Open XML) has been enjoying positive momentum and widespread use, according to Microsoft Corporation.

Also, Microsoft said that over 2000 partners representing 67 countries on six continents have given their green lights for the ratification of OOXML by the International Standards Organisation (ISO).

Commenting on recent media reports on the debate, the Public Relations and Events Manager, Microsoft Nigeria, Ms Ndidiamaka Victoria Uwadoka, informed that even third parties have also endorsed the standard.

This, she said, includes contributors from the Open Source community and those appreciative of interoperability software solutions.

“Other third parties have endorsed the standard, including contributors to the Open Source community and those who appreciate the need for interoperability among mixed software solutions,” she declared.

In addition, Ms Uwadoka said that contrary to reports, African civil society organisations as a homogenous group are not against the Open XML, stressing that over 2000 partners representing 67 countries on six continents have given their support for Open XML approval.

“More than 2000 partners representing 67 countries on six continents support Open XML and its ratification by ISO,” she said, adding that this expanding community of voices recognised the fact that this format gives partners many opportunities to innovate and deliver the full value of XML-based technologies to customers.

“ … Helping them to achieve their goals of increased productivity and decreased costs,” Ms Uwadoka asserted.

She explained that although Microsoft has been instrumental in the development of the Ecma Office Open XML standard, “Open XML is not a Microsoft standard but an international one.”

Microsoft further said that Open XML is an international, open standard for word-processing documents, presentations, and spreadsheets that could be freely implemented by multiple applications on multiple platforms.

According to her, the work to standardise Open XML is being carried out by a technical committee of Ecma International, which includes representatives from Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba and the United States Library of Congress.

“The standard is under the maintenance of Ecma; Microsoft has just one vote of the more than 20 members,” she stated.

Microsoft further said that contrary to reports, United States and Germany have voted ‘Yes’ with comments to accept Open XML as an ISO standard.

As said by her, “’Yes, with comments’ means that it was a progressive outcome from the national standards body, and Ecma looks forward to resolving these comments during the ballot resolution process, claiming that South Africa will only be voting on Sunday, September 2, this year, while the finale ISO ballot process will be in 2008.

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Innovative weblogging and social change

Features of the week:

The new phase of development in the nation’s telecommunications sector has been found in the Value Added Services (VAS) based on information sharing. REMMY NWEKE in this report examines the effect of weblog as a means of sharing information for social change.

The web call blogs

Now, evidence abound in the West African Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that shows it has taken a new dimension with the evolution and advent of blogging.

This was boosted with the acceptance of ICT and strengthened by the massive roll-out of the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), which has pushed up the need to improve on value added services such as the Internet in the country, as the subscriber-base rises.

Blogging, an ICT industry term is daily increasing reception among various upcoming professionals since the web advancement caught up with the region and in Nigeria and Ghana precisely, hence, the need to examine blogging by parts of media, civil society and political class in West African region at large, to drive social change.

Primarily defined as act of keeping a dairy on the web, weblog often referred to as a web-log, weblog or blogging, while those involve in carrying out this mission of pushing more information through the ‘community journalism’ module are known as bloggers.

Also, blogs have since grown into what some experts categorized as push-button-publishing, a concept that has simplified its module of ownership and publication, which actually takes the push of a button to accomplish.

So, to own a weblog, a potential blogger requires, a computer system connected to the Internet and then make a choice out of the several Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) templates. This entails that programmers; those who coded the initial formula for weblog made it free for users to have access to the programmable codes and change same at will, without hiccups of proprietary.

This is unlike proprietary software being propagated by the likes of Microsoft and Adobe, were simply paid for; align to FOSS activists believe that this attitude contributed to the widening of digital divide between several stratums in the society.

Creating blog …

Creating a weblog lasts for less than 10 minutes, depending on the skilfulness of the potential-blogger and the speed of the Internet access. And by simply logging on to any weblog-inspired sites such as UserLand.com, ScriptNews.com, TypePad.com and Blogspot.com to name a few, borders on issues of paramount importance to an individual and content generation could be consistently raised among peers both locally and globally, and given the ‘global village’ epistle, with the choice of making it FOSS affair or private like in http://donaldduke.blogspot.com.

Typically, weblogs are initiated on non-profit basis though dated with logs as in diary, which could be updated daily, weekly or as frequently as possible. It’s also published in reverse chronological order, making it handy on a specific subject with sub-themes. Name it and there is a blog for it and could contain recorded ideas too.

13 blind men?

Ten online media websites were examined during the course of our investigations across seven acclaimed national dailies in Nigeria and three magazines, additional to three Ghanaian media websites. The outcome showed that only one media website reflected a weblog column in its home page, which is an intension to tap into the future and benefits of weblog through engaging its readership and obviously getting some newsworthy materials as feedbacks. Incidentally this column was found in Daily Champion, was not active.

Others consist of Nigerian Tribune, The Guardian Nigeria, The Nation, The Sun, The Punch, Vanguard, The News, NewsWatch and Weekly Trust.

Ordinarily weblogs afford people with the ICT-power to write, share experiences by posting them online, and through a new global diary format called ‘a web in our log’ by some industry analysts.

As for neighbouring Ghana, our investigations showed that media organisations in this domain are not distanced to ICT but the effect of blogs and consequent usage or propagation is totally absent.

Study also revealed that an Accra-based Ghanaian Chronicle, styled to be independent and published thrice weekly, does not have weblog column, while Daily Guide also based in Accra was very difficult to access and Ghanaian Times was not different either.

Nigerian Journalists blog!

Today, blogs in Nigeria and Ghana are visible on Technorati.com and search would unveil estimated 289 blogs on Nigeria sorted out by relevance, cutting across arts, blogs, books, business, design, entertainment, humour, life, media, movies, ICT, music, news, personal, politics, sports and travel among others.

As-such there is a Nigeria Official blog-DTI with 60 blogs linked to it that definitely have to do with Nigeria, even as specific events could be sourced through and positive focus on Nigeria.

Equally, Nigerian ICT-media has explicitly risen to the occasion with weblogs dedicated to the sector, including ITRealms Online and ICTNewsNow to name a few.

Research also informed that very few journalists actually have access to the Internet, while very little have access at homes; even at offices journalists find it difficult to blog because supervisors could be watching which would amount to abandonment of duty.

Mr. President’s blog!

Significantly one of the April 2007 election’s Presidential aspirant in Nigeria, Prof. Pat Utomi, has been severally described as the new face of Nigerian technocrats, mostly as he has a blog called UtomiNotes.com; where he share his thoughts and actions towards the new Nigerian dream hinged on WordPress, a FOSS component.

Apart from being the first Nigerian presidential aspirant to take such a step, it goes to show Prof. Utomi’s passion for ICT-entrenched growth and need to engender this factor in every facets of the economy. In so doing, it was seen by stakeholders as an alternative to reaching out to millions of Nigerians in diaspora and specifically the youth, whose embrace to blogging is on the rise.

Experience is said to be the best teacher, especially if shared the Utomi way and expected to boost ICT penetration in the country.

Blogger’s Voice

Speaking on impression of blogs in the region, Nigerian blogger cum ICT Consultant, Mr. Gbenga Sesan, said that there are a number of blogs and bloggers in West Africa both in terms of citizenship and location, but this does not compare favourably with the high volume of blog traffic that exist in some other regions of the globe.

“In West Africa, Nigeria commands a high number of blogs and bloggers. Blogs on Nigeria and by Nigerians cut across various discussion topics on a number of platforms through which some of these blogs can be seen as a group; the Nigerian Weblog Ring, Nigerian Blog Aggregator and Global Voices,” he said, calling for more collaboration among bloggers, especially with the much-needed task of popularising blogs as a tool of local content propagation, citizen participation and tool for development.

He said that blogs impact positively in Nigeria, especially this election year, even as he blogs about the elections among other topics and judging from the comments, people are reading politics a lot these days.

He noted that some candidates are going online, citing Prof. Utomi’s Notes, where he shares stories from the field, campaign pictures and response to questions raised thereof.

On way forward, he advocated for collaboration among bloggers to sharpen each other, learn more and jointly to take advantage of blogging, declaring, “Let’s drop guns and pick up keyboards. It’s time for West Africans to blog!” Even as improved Internet access would naturally facilitate increased number of bloggers from this region.

Conclusion:

Efforts by media practitioners could boost blogging in the region, if various stakeholders group like the Joint Action Committee ICT Awareness and Development (JACITAD) set up in 2003 with 75 per cent membership drawn from the media, queue into available options in partnership with local, international and service provision entities to make this dream a realty through workshops narrowed down to webloging, Internet-ready Personal Computer ownership structure for media practitioners and annual prizes for best-of-blogs in West Africa and precisely Nigeria.

courtesy: Haayato Mediatric

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MTN spends N700m monthly on power supply

Leading Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operator in the country, MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, has declared that it spends close to N700 million monthly on provision of alternative power supply for its operations nationwide.

While decrying the state of epileptic power supply in the country, at a one-day stakeholders summit on the “State of Nigeria’s Energy and Power Sector: Implications for Telecommunications Development,” at the weekend, the chief executive, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Ahmad Farroukh represented by the Head, Regulatory, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Wale Goodluck, said that approximated N700 million is being spent on monthly basis by MTN on diesel and related costs to keep the network running.

“We spend close to N700 million on diesel per month,” he asserted, noting that no telecommunications operator would like to run its operations on alternative power supply like in generating sets.

“Self provision of power supply is expensive,” he declared, adding that presently the renamed power company of the federal government, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) is now regarded as back-up for all the operators in the country.

Justifying his claims in a special presentation made at the occasion on “The Challenge of Accelerating Network Expansion in an Expensive Energy & Erratic Power Regime: Exploring bio fuels as cost-effective alternative,” Mr. Farroukh said that an estimated 400 litres of diesels per hour is being consumed and when multiplied by 24 hours of all the base stations running into thousands owned by the operator it would be getting close to N700 million every month.

According to him, every operator that knows its onion now has two generating sets of between 15 to 20 KVA, dubbed master and slave to sustain operations.

Just as they have to contend with the challenge of security and how telecommunications services impact on the citizenry eventually.

As said by him, an estimated 40 generating sets could not be reached for routine maintenance due to community issues, especially those who are seeing telecom operators as kind of national cake that ought to be shared.

This is coming even as about six generating sets have been declared missing from the site of location, pointing out that all this contribute to the kind of quality of services that consumers get at the end of the day, just as on average, each of the cabins housing base stations has two air-conditioners.

Telcos, Mr. Farroukh said, are investing lots of fund on security and intelligent security as well, stressing that the number of organisations in search of generating sets to serve them have grown in recent times in the country, hence these generating sets have to be mainly imported.

He also alleged that some of the stolen generating sets are being offered on second hand value openly in the market.

“We can do nothing about it and even the security agencies seem helpless,” he lamented.

On the industrial noise pollution of using generating sets, Mr. Farroukh pointed out that communities have to take a stand if they want telecom services and obviously ready to safe guide such equipment and then live with the noise pollution.

He maintained that in the real terms, it’s difficult to find the solution of power supply through wind, bio fuel, and solar energy apart from diesel as a means of alternative power supply outside PHCN.

Therefore, he advised that fixing PHCN, which has been commenced by the federal government, is the only solution if power supply generation is to be cost effective.

“PHCN remains the only solution. It’s the only organisation to generate power with cost effective,” he said.

MTN Nigeria, which commenced GSM operations in Nigeria on May 16, 2001 is part of the MTN Group, and prides itself as the continent’s leading cellular telecommunications company after paying the $285 million for one of the four GSM licenses in January 2001 and has invested over $1.8 billion on building mobile telecommunications infrastructure.

And since August 2001 when it launch services in Lagos, MTN claims provision of services in over 223 cities and town and over 10,000 villages and communities across the 36 states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, while its subscriber base is in the neighbourhood of 15 million.

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FG to find lasting solution to energy crisis

The Federal Government (FG) has said its determined to find a lasting solution to energy and power crisis in the country anchored on the premise of Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

Minister of Information and Communications, Mr. John Odey gave this assurance at the stakeholders’ summit on power and energy, organised by the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) in Lagos.

Mr. Odey who was represented by Mr. Samuel Osahon, noted that the government is not unaware of the immense challenges businesses have to face due to erratic power supply especially in the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) sector and is determined to find a lasting solution.

He expressed dismay that in spite of abundant primary electricity resources in the country, including coal, natural gas, geothermal, tide, solar, biogas, biomass to name a few, the inadequate power supply and outages have persisted.

He pointed out that the effect of this on the economic growth and developments have been quite profound.

“The capacity to create wealth at individual and corporate levels has consequently been constrained leading to low output,” he noted.

As said by the minister, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adu’s administration is determined to find a lasting solution on energy and power thus considering it the top priority of his government.

“This administration is determined to actively engage Nigerians on every aspect of governance in order to deepen the gains of democracy … With this approach, Nigerians both home and abroad would be able to think positively and give necessary encouragement to government efforts in developing the country.

Also speaking, chairman, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Ransome Owan corroborated Mr. Odey, saying that government alone cannot provide adequate energy and power supply to the populace.

“Power is made in Nigeria and its problem requires made in Nigeria solution. Government cannot do it alone but needs Public-Private Partnership (PPP),” he said.

He pointed out that in the energy and power sector, it has been discovered that power is grossly inadequate in demand and there must be constant planning for the future which takes upto 12 years to mature or yield any good result.

He emphasised that out of the estimated 140 million Nigerian, only 4.5 million are recognised by PHCN as consumers, noting that for instance, in South Africa, $7.5 billion was voted for spare capacity while in Nigeria the case is the reverse.

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What to know about OOXML

Market Intelligence:

Like in the April general elections, Nigerians, especially stakeholders in the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) sector would today, Wednesday, August 29, 2007, assemble at the headquarters of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in Lekki-Lagos State, to decide on whether or not Nigeria should adopt the controversial DIS 29500 ‘Office Open Extensible Markup Language (OOXML).’

OOXML is a standard being proposed by software giant, Microsoft Corporation seeking the certification of the International Standards Organisation (ISO), even as Sunday, September 2, 2007, has been scheduled as the final global voting day on the subject by ISO.

Before now, countries of the world and members of ISO have the opportunity of picking a date before the main global voting session to reach a consensus on the matter on whether or otherwise OOXML should be given or accepted as a global standard for document format.

However, experts have been raising dust of the implication of endorsing such a format in spite of the efforts at various levels of the globe to further close the digital divide.

The opposition to the OOXML endorsement being led by the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) argued that OOXML has many flaws disqualifying it from being globally applicable and acceptable, especially by ISO.

XML is a programmable code initiative by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which permits information and services to be encoded with meaningful structure and semantics, which computers and humans could understand.

Software experts described XML as a great formula for information exchange, and easily extendable to include user-specified and industry-specified tags.

United States, South Africa, Kenya, Spain and others, for instance, have already taken a stand by saying ‘No’ to the adoption of OOXML as a global standard.

Champion Infotel investigations revealed that if adopted, it is only those that own Microsoft Office 2007 could benefit from the document format.

“If you use any Office apart from 2007 edition, you first have to upgrade. I cannot understand why norms cannot be used unless certain proprietary changes had to be made,” one advocate told Champion Infotel.

It was also gathered that there would be no implication of voting ‘No’ to OOXML, mostly since some countries have began migration of their operating systems to Open Document Formats (ODF) as an alternative file format, including South Africa.

“Office Open XML’ (OOXML) does not meet the criteria defined by ISO and others for an International Standard, adding that OOXML is an immature documentation of one vendor’s proprietary document format, which depends on software patents held by this vendor,” our source declared.

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GAPP: Omatek takes gospel to Ogun

Foremost Original Equipment manufacturer (OEM), Omatek Computers Limited, has taken its Personal Computer (PC) penetration gospel to Ogun State.

Speaking at the inaugural partnership with the Government Assisted Personal Computer Purchase Programme (GAPP) in Ogun State recently, the Managing Director, Omatek, Mrs. Florence Seriki, said her firm has resolved to support Ogun State government to ensure that greater number of its citizens and especially the civil servants are computer literate, beginning with the ownership of PCs and laptops.

She noted that through the state’s GAPP, computer acquisition version of Computer for All Nigerian Initiative (CANi) project of the federal government, that the bureaucratic bottlenecks associated with civil service would become a thing of the past, tasking those interested in the computers to acquire it now with utmost ease.

She also expressed delight on the opportunity to spread what she described as the “digital age gospel” in Ogun State through Omatek brand, emphasizing that the use of computers to access the global information highway will accelerate civil service operations.

In addition, she revealed that Omatek has already mapped out an undisclosed number of PCs and laptops for the state to boost its GAPP project.

She implored interested civil servants and individuals to embrace the project, especially at this era of electronic governance.

“The eras of carrying files are gone. Its all about e-governance now,” she asserted, adding that those who embrace the programme would never regret it, predicting that, they would be competitive among other states in the country and abroad.

According to her, to acquire PCs through GAPP in the state has been designed to make life easier and the product affordable for the citizens, mostly now that AfriBank Nigeria Plc is supporting the initiative.

The bank, she said, provided N1.5 billion facility to Omatek for the launch of e-xpress in the state, thereby making it possible for everyone to be able to buy a computer and pay by instalments over a period of 12 to 24 months.

In his remarks, the Ogun state governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel said that GAAP is another milestone of his administration in an effort to transform the state into an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) hub in the country.

Otunba Daniel, represented by the state’s ICT consultant Mr. Bayo Banjo, the governor lauded the strategic partnership between Omatek and Afribank, which has given boost to Ogun State GAPP.

A project, he said, was aimed at empowering the civil servants in order to assist the state in building home grown professionals.

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Security is vital in mobile messaging – Manafa

Chief executive officer, Race Telecommunications International Limited, Mr. Theo Manafa, has said that security is a vital part of mobile messaging business especially in push electronic mail (push-email), and is a differentiating factor Seven Always-On has against competitors.

Champion Infotel recalls that the French government recently banned the use of Blackberry device in the country for fear that information sent through the device is not secured and this makes it vulnerable to unauthorized access.

Speaking on the development, Mr. Manafa said, that security goes beyond adding firewalls to a server and encrypting users personal data when it comes to push e-mail.

He also said that as Nigeria continues to adapt to the push email technology, there is need to safeguard against the threat of unauthorized access to the information sent to the mobile device through the push email server.

“The consequences of unauthorized access to data can be devastating and it poses a threat to national security,” Mr. Manafa said, stressing that security borders on making the user feel comfortable with the system and feel in control of the information sent to his mobile device without the risk of interception.

Mr. Manafa pointed out that although e-mail had existed for many years, one of the first uses of the system with a portable “always on” wireless device was the Blackberry service, adding that Blackberry was called addictive, wonderful and now, it has become a threat to national and corporate data.

He emphasised that conventionally, the information sent from the Blackberry goes through a handful of servers in the United States and Britain and the concentration of data on the server poses a threat to the security of data.

He noted that the French government argument was that the US security agency has the ability to view the content of any data sent through Blackberry server and any email that risk falling into foreign hands will pose a threat to national security.

Equally, he said, a study carried out recently revealed that Blackberry poses a data security problem, just as Total, an oil company in France has never allowed its staff to use Blackberry for security reasons.

According to the company, “there are plenty of other perfectly good push email devices in the market.”

The senior economic advisor to the French Minister, Alian Julliet was quoted as saying that government and businesses should be more wary on how they use technology to exchange information especially while using the Blackberry.

“With Blackberry, there is a problem with the protection of information; it is expected that other governments and security conscious organizations may follow in the trend to keep the Blackberry device at arms length,” Ms Julliet said.

However, Mr. Manafa, Seven Always is similar push email solution and serves as a full mobile office offering for mobile operators and service providers.

According to him, it delivers all the benefits of real time enterprise and private messaging with a very comfortable user experience and end-to-end security bringing all the components that users are familiar with when using their computer to check their email.

Seven Always-on products, Mr. Manafa said, have been designed to address the security needs of the most demanding enterprises, taking into consideration the unique challenges that are prevalent in the mobile environment.

“Unlike other mobile email solutions that replicate and store data, Seven pushes data to mobile devices in real time. The data is delivered from enterprise applications that reside behind the firewall directly to the mobile device,” he asserted.

He explained that Seven utilizes the most advanced security technologies to ensure that no one but authorized users can read or access corporate data.

“All the messages exchanged between the desktop and the mobile device is encrypted using a key only available to the connector software and the mobile device. This key is never transmitted over the public Internet or wireless network and it is never available to the relay server or its hosting organization,” he said.

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Koch leads @ HP Africa

Technology distribution giant, Hewlett Packard (HP) has announced the appointment of Rainer Koch as the managing director and Technology Solutions Group (TSG) leader of HP Africa operations.

This appointment was immediate effect, just as Mr. Koch is expected to report to Ken Willett, vice president and managing director HP Middle East, Mediterranean , Africa (MEMA).

Mr. Koch succeeds Olivier Suinat, who had assumed duties as the vice president sales, Technology Solutions Group for HP Central & Eastern Europe earlier this year.

Mr. Koch has been acting managing director and Technology Solutions Group lead of HP Africa since May 2007.

Before the latest appointment, Mr. Koch headed the HP Services business in Africa since 2004 where he was responsible for accelerating business growth across the entire HP services portfolio.

His career in the IT industry extends over 22 years, having joined HP Germany in 1985 as a consultant and account manager and since then has held several senior management positions in Central & Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa .

“Rainer has demonstrated strong leadership, sound execution and excellent knowledge of the African ICT market combined with exceptional passion for customers and their success,” Mr. Willett said.

Koch is a German national and holds a diploma in economics and computer science from the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt, Germany.

HP focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers; from individual consumers to the largest businesses.

With a portfolio spanning across printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure, HP is among the world’s largest IT companies, with revenue totalling $97.1 billion for the four fiscal quarters ended April 30, 2007.

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VIA unveils pc3500 for Vista-ready PCs

In the bid to further drive the penetration of its VIA PC-1 Initiative, the foremost fabless supplier of market-leading core logic chipsets, VIA Technologies Incorporated, has unveiled pc3500 mainboard for Vista-ready Personal Computers (PCs).

Vice President of Corporate Marketing, VIA Technologies Incorporated, Mr. Richard Brown, said that this new product would strengthen the firm’s leadership in providing the world’s most energy-efficient computing platforms.

VIA Technologies announcement of the VIA pc3500 Mainboard, which is a low power, feature-rich platform, he said, enables Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and system integrators to build Windows Vista Basic PCs that draw less than 24 watts in Idle State – less than half the requirement of the US EPA’s latest Energy Star Program Requirement for Computers: Version 4.0.

He explained that to draw less than 24 Watts when in Idle, a system based around the VIA pc3500 Mainboard draws only 1.09 watts when in sleep mode, and 0.68 Watts in standby (off mode), comfortably meeting the latest energy star requirements for a category A system.

According to him, the system even draws less than 35 watts when playing back a Digital Video Display (DVD), one of the most power-intensive computing applications.

“With the launch of VIA pc3500 mainboard we are leading the way in developing innovative low power platforms that enable our OEM and SI customers to meet the growing worldwide demand for energy-efficient PCs,” he declared, adding that consumers and business users who purchase PCs based on the VIA pc3500 mainboard will not only be able to significantly reduce their energy costs but also minimize their environmental impact while running all the latest software applications.

Mr. Brown pointed out that the VIA pc3500 is the latest addition to the energy efficient VIA pc-1 Mainboard line, and is based on the VIA CN896 digital media IGP chipset, featuring the VIA Chrome9 HC IGP with a DirectX 9.0 3D accelerator for high performance, a 2D accelerator for productivity applications, and the Chromotion 3.0 video display engine for advanced hardware-based video processing.

Combined with the power efficient VIA C7-D processor supporting the 400MHz VIA V4 bus, the VIA pc3500 mainboard delivers high performance and a rich digital media experience at an average power consumption of less than 25 watts.

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Docemo launches services for SMEs

Experts in empowering Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to optimise Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) tools, Docemo Business Systems, has launched its services in the country.

President, Docemo Business Systems, Prince Michael Docemo told Champion Infotel in Lagos that by opening its office in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of the nation, they are now ready for business in the most populous nation in West Africa.

According to him, Docemo has been in operation for over five years offering ICT-related training and advice to SMEs and decided to replicate the same services in the country.

He stressed that in ICT industry, Docemo has an edge in offering training for SMEs through enabling them to derive insight from customer relation management (CRM) modules to keep them in touch with their customers.

Prince Docemo also said that his firm’s focus would be on hands-on training to boost the application of IT tools by participants in its training.

“We try to focus on those who have theoretical experience by converting this knowledge into practices,” he said.

Docemo president accompanied by the Marketing Executive and Support Engineer, Messrs Emmanuel Okoye and Segun Bello, further said that his firm conducted a study in order to ensure that the business modules being introduced are in tandem with demands.

“We have done a study on this kind of project and we know people are looking for well-trained individuals,” he said.

Equally speaking the Managing Director of the company, Mrs Olori Maxine Docemo, said that its training takes up to six months segmented into phases of three months for practical and internship.

As said by her, the first three months would be devoted in acquiring practical experience for participants while the next three months would be for industrial training.

This, she said, would enable any participant have adequate practical to withstand the challenges in working environment.

“It takes six months - three months on practical which would be in house and another three months in the field and would cost about N70,000 per trainee,” she said.

Mrs Docemo expressed optimistic that the future looks really bright in the country in this kind of specialised training for SMEs.

“We’re really prepared to face the challenges in the Nigerian environment,” she declared.

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