Google needs Android to succeed in Africa.

iyinoluwa.posterous.com

21 points·OoTheNigerian··8 comments

I don't care about the topic, but I had to read the article to find out how to parse the headline.

Which, for the curious, is: To succeed in Africa, Google needs Android.

I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the post. At this point, do most major cities (e.g. Lagos, Cairo, Kinshasa, Durban, etc.) even have infrastructure to support smartphones? Last I heard, 3G infrastructure was pretty spotty outside of select areas of Johannesburg.

Given that, wouldn't it be in Google's interest to hold off on pushing Android in Africa until said infrastructure is built?

Here in Nairobi, we've had 3g on safaricom for a long time.

I've been to the shantytowns outside of Accra, Ghana with full HSPA. It's spotty, yes, but so is it in Stockholm. As the article says, when Africa moves it moves fast.

> Last I heard, 3G infrastructure was pretty spotty outside of select areas of Johannesburg

Perhaps a good few years ago. You should get HSDPA in all the major cities in SA. A lot of people actually use mobile broadband in place of fixed-line broadband.

In this situation, wouldn't Chrome OS be a better fit? You could have simpler computers, and therefore cheaper hardware, by moving features to the cloud.

But then, you'd be more dependent on working infrastructure, which is a major problem in the 3rd world. Mobile is a better fit than cloud to get started, and will provide the economic incentive for better infrastructure. The market will then shift naturally to cloud.

no one needs anything to succeed in Africa...

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