TO CONTENTS

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Dear TAD friends,

The following report has been contributed by the Centre for Lifelong

Learning at Technikon SA. I hope you find it useful.

Regards

Neil Butcher

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Report on Selected Technologies

April 1998

It has been said that technology and especially the Internet

generates a number of new jobs, while at the same time causing the

demise of many others. It seems strange though that the percentage

of women in the field of Information Technology is now half of what

it was a decade ago, that is down to 15% from 30% in 1989. Women

seem to be under the impression that the industry, being dominated

by men, is not sufficiently friendly to women and therefore stay

away from it. In the interests of equality at the end of the

millenium, education institutions and employers need to promote the

importance of women in the IT field. The figures given above are

for the United States. However in South East Asia, women make-up

about 60% of the IT workforce.

One of the technology innovations we can all look forward to in the

future is the scanning of cheques by banks. This means that when we

receive our bank statements they will include miniaturised images of

the cheques rather than the original documents. This will

facilitate storage of and working with processed cheques for both

companies and individuals. Innovations such as these will continue

to be important as long as busy people experience as many as 170

interactions per day, such as telephone calls, passage

conversations, e-mail etc.

Personal productivity expert, David Allen, says that the typical

business person has a backlog of between 200 and 300 hours of

incomplete work which causes stress and lack of productivity. He

recommends that the person identifies all incomplete items and

strategise a way to begin completing them. This may mean taking

action on some of the simpler items low on the priority list in

order to remove them from the list of "incompletes."

Strategic planning

If you do strategic planning for your organisation, Gary Hamel,

recently suggested in the Sloan Management Review (winter 1998) you

should consider bringing in "new voices". This strategy should not

be a monopoly of top management, but should include young people and

people on the geographical periphery. Also to be remembered are

those under represented constituencies who could bring in particular

points of view pertinent to them. He suggests that this could help

develop "new conversations", help the company invent new strategies

and overcome some of the entrenched thinking of past years.

A recommendation from Peter Drucker is that you should select your

clients carefully. Too many clients or the wrong type of clients

could limit the benefit that you could achieve from your insights.

The next area of business the Internet is likely to affect is that

of the Annual General Meeting. Usually few people attend this

function and fewer still take an active part in voting. In future

Electronic Annual General Meetings may replace sections of the

Annual General Meeting or possibly the entire meeting. In such an

environment more people are likely to exercise their power of

voting.

It seems that a San Diego-based company, Jaycor, has invented what

they call a "sticky-shocker", which is a four-inch long cylindrical

device that can be fired accurately up to 30ft using various

existing police and military weapons. When the "sticky-shocker"

hits its target, usually a suspected criminal, it lets off 12 to 15

"muscle contracting shocks per second" and then switches itself off

after about 6 to 8 seconds. The company is also considering

adapting the "sticky-shocker" to deliver a second round of shocks by

remote control.

Its always worthwhile to know what IBM is doing since it remains the

biggest computer company in the world. It is now saying that their

business is "E-Business Tools". The company has announced a $100

million one- year global advertising campaign based on the slogan,

"The work matters. The people matter. The tools matter". IBM

intends repackaging its notebooks, PCs and other computer

accessories as "E-Business Tools". Competitors are expected to

focus on price and features rather than following the IBM trend.

If you now store all of your data on digital media, be aware that

digital is not forever. Some disks and even CD-ROMs can deteriorate

in five to ten years and become unreadable. Unfortunately we do not

yet know when a disk is becoming degraded. One day when you are

looking for information you will find this out unexpectedly.

Mission critical data and information should be copied onto newer

media from time to time.

Microsoft

Microsoft's legal woes have been mentioned in previous monthly

reports. The matter seems to be far from settled with the US

Department of Justice proceeding with anti-trust investigations into

Microsoft. Sun Microsystems have joined the fray by instituting

legal proceedings against Microsoft.

Sun, who created the Java programming language, sold the rights to

Microsoft and many other companies to create programs that can run

on almost any operating system (e.g. Windows 95, 3.1, Unix, OS/2

etc). Sun has alleged that Microsoft has created programs on an

altered version of Java that will now run only on the Windows

operating system.

If this true, it appears to be an infringement of intellectual

copyright. Sun, Netscape and IBM are combining forces to further

develop the Java operating system. Microsoft may have the biggest

selling operating system in the PC market in the world but should

not be complacent about its position. The increasing numbers of

enemies will eventually take their toll on the company.

The visible effects will be delays in the release of new software

and less than 100% reliable programs. Bill Gates experienced this

very personally recently when Windows 98 collapsed during a

presentation at a global conference where he was presenting Windows

98.

Frustrated users may be begin to look more seriously at alternative

operating systems if these problems continue. One such contender is

IBM's OS/2 Warp 4 that claims to run Windows 3.1 and 95 programs.

Internet technology

If you have become used to what HTML means, its time now to begin

learning another one, PGML, which means Precision, Graphics Mark-up

Language. It has been developed jointly by IBM, Netscape

Communications and Sun Micro-Systems and will be used to define more

precisely the layout of a page on the Internet.

If you are in a non-profit academic institution, you could lack

enough resources to benefit from Sun Micro-Systems current free Java

offer. The company is offering more than half a million

institutions a free one-year software license for software

The Internet is speeding up in North America with Internet II's

second backbone already being installed. Internet II will provide

very high-speed Internet access initially to institutions and then

eventually to Internet users. Vice-President Al Gore has called it

the "most advanced and far-reaching research and education network

in the world". Envisaged in this next generation of Internet will

be virtual laboratories, digital libraries, distance-independent

education and tele-emersion. Gore added, "this investment may

enable the best medical specialists to give advice to patients in

rural hospitals, scientists to use remote super computers to predict

tornadoes, and adults to get new skills through distance learning".

Internet use in Africa is beginning to grow but still remains behind

the rest of the world with approximately 800 000 to 1 million

Internet users in Africa with about 700 000 living in South Africa.

42 of 54 Nations on the continent currently have public access to

the Internet in their capitals, while 8 countries have dial-up

access throughout their country. While about 1 in 6 people use the

Internet in North America and Europe, Internet use in South Africa

Access to the Internet in Africa is likely to take on a very

different flavour to that of the rest of the world. With relatively

few individuals owning computers and fewer still having access to

telephone and the Internet, access for the general public is likely

to be through shared facilities.

Telephone shops are becoming more popular in Africa as opposed to

telephone booths in other parts of the world. This enables a set of

telephones to be run by a small entrepreneur who takes a personal

interest in looking after the equipment and at the same time

stimulates job creation. It is a natural extension to this scheme

for Africa to develop a form of Internet Cafe attached to these

telephone shops. These community information centres can then be

used for making telephone calls, sending and receiving faxes and

e-mail and also to provide a reasonable level of Internet access.

One distinct constraint in Africa that will have to be overcome is

that of over-priced telecommunications. If national

telecommunications companies are unable to compete effectively in a

global market, it may be worthwhile out-sourcing the

telecommunications of entire countries to major, global players.

Feedback

If you have a comment, request or suggestion on this report, please

e-mail it to Paul West at: pgwest@ibm.net

Regards

Paul West

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Telematics for African Development Consortium

P.O. Box 31822

Braamfontein

2017

Johannesburg

South Africa

Tel: +27 +11 403-2813

Fax: +27 +11 403-2814

neilshel@icon.co.za