Ask HN: OS / Hardware choice for a software startup in Africa | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: OS / Hardware choice for a software startup in Africa

8 pointsnicpottier4 comments

I'm starting a software start up in Rwanda. One question I'm struggling with is what hardware/OS platform to provide my employees with. I have been on OSX for the past five years and love it, the perfect blend of polished apps and real unix underpinnings. But Apple has almost no presence in Africa, so all hardware would have to be brought in. Another choice is Ubuntu, but having run it at various times, I know that there is a good bit of frustration involved now and then due to hardware drivers, especially on laptops. But it is probably the most transferable skill for the employees, which is part of the goal. Lastly, Win7 is a choice, but that makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. I'll be training them on Python/Django/etc and it just doesn't feel right running those environment in Windows.

What would you pick and why?

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I shipped laptops to Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.) Forget starting an Apple shop, or a Linux shop. Most IT people there get trained in MS stack technologies, and most techies you will be able to hire will be familiar with them.

If the purpose of your startup is profit and not some other altruistic or fun reason, I suggest you don't try to introduce you them too many new things at the same time. You wont be able to service Apple hardware there, at least not cheaply.

You can source newish IBM Thinkpads for $350 a piece, if you're buying 10 units+ (feel free to contact me for that) same with HP and Toshiba ones.

They should be able to pickup Python and Django on their own, and fairly quickly. They're already competent in ASP.NET and other more complex technologies.

Nairobi has some decent IT scene as well.

Good luck!

>I'll be training them on Python/Django/etc and it just doesn't ...

If you are going to provide the training the hardware does not matter. You can just extend the training to cover the OS. My preference - having worked in the Continent - would have been for Windows, since it can accelerate the training and introduce Ubuntu at a later stage. At the end of the day it depends on what the software start up is involved with.

Well the interesting thing is that there is really very little familiarity even with Windows. I mean, yes, they've used it, but hardly to such a great extent that it is a big advantage.

Really, I suppose it is almost more of a practical question of hardware.. My preference is clearly Mac's, but how do you manage a company with hardware that isn't even available on the continent, much less the country. Keep a spare I suppose?

There is a humanitarian angle to the startup, that is to train and enable the Rwandans in a way that is very difficult to get here. But is that a wasted effort if you train them on an OS/hardware that is completely unavailable to them outsider your company? Is the added pain of Ubuntu worth it because of that?

I am not surprised that there is going to be little familiarity with Computers and even Windows. I would definitely - not start with Ubuntu and forget about Mac's. Training will be the hard part. Focus on that and maintenability of equipment. Avoid laptops - they get stolen easily and battery packs fail fairly early.

Wishing you good luck!

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