ICT | Opening the ‘Gates’ to the information age

The visit of Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, to Jordan last week was a major event for the public and private organizations in Jordan's ICT sector.

Typically, for a man with such a tight schedule and with massive demands on his time, it was not expected that he'd be spending several days in Jordan, or that he would have the time to meet with all the ICT minds in Jordan to thoroughly debate issues. He spent several hours in the country. But, his mere presence has had a galvanizing effect on the industry, even several weeks before he arrived and over a week now following his departure!

Gates has a persona of massive appeal to ICT and non-ICT people alike, and his name is etched in popular culture to such a degree that even local cartoonists provided some light caricatures to commemorate his visit, most prominent of which was a cartoon of Abu Mahjoub in which he proclaimed that 'as a mark of respect to Jordan's great guest, we will not sell pirated copies of Microsoft software today!"

I hope no one actually translated that caricature to Gates!

Above all, this visit has given Jordanians a sense of recognition, following six years of concentrated efforts to build and sustain public-private ICT sector initiatives in the country; and to market these initiatives abroad while inviting all multi-national technology players to invest in and cooperate with Jordan.

Microsoft has been one of the first companies to answer the call, with a host of cooperation initiatives and various forms of support.

In 2003, a Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) was signed between Microsoft and the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, by which the government became committed to using legally licensed Microsoft software in educational institutions in line with intellectual property rights.

In return, Microsoft made a commitment to expand it's help and support of the local ICT economy.As part of Gates' visit, he presided over the signing of the next phase of this agreement, with Microsoft committing to expand its services in Jordan and the region as well as boost the level of investment and cooperation with the private sector.

Gates also met with Jordanian students, and the CEOs of leading ICT companies in the Kingdom who briefed him on their products and services; in addition, of course, to meeting Their Majesties the King & Queen.

Later, he attended an Iftar gala, attended by hundreds of industry stakeholders, in which he spoke briefly about his impression of Jordan's technology industry. "Jordan is on the right track," he said, "What the King told me in 2000 is exactly the strategy that has been pursued."

It's not everyday, or even every decade for that matter, that The Technology Icon of the millenium visits Jordan.

A big occasion indeed, I hope we left a good impression and established the fact that Jordan does indeed mean business in ICT.

zeid@maktoob.com

eBusiness | Web 2.0? Huh?

A new, fancy term has emerged: Web 2.0.

If you've heard it, or read about it then you've probably got a good idea that it's somehow related to the 'new Internet boom' we're witnessing which is now characterized by the huge success of the survivors of the old boom (Yahoo, eBay …etc) and new players (Google, Skype..etc).

If you search the term on Google, you'll get millions of search results, so you can see what a big thing it is. However, there seems to be some disagreement on what it means.

To understand it better, the best way is to illustrate the difference between what a Web 1.0 company, and what a Web 2.0 company. For example, mp3.com tries to sell music, while Napster allows users to share it; Britanicca online just slaps its content onto the web, while Wikipedia allows users to upload their own encyclopedia entries for everything; DoubleClick sells banner advertising on websites it represents while Google Adsense offers the gentler sponsored links approach and enables everyone to become a money-making publisher.

As you can see, the Web 2.0 companies and ideas have high user participation and interactivity.
In fact, they are driven by users, realizing the dream of the Internet making money just by being used!

The initiator of this term, Tim O'Reily, believes that the Web 2.0 spirit is now upon us and things can only get better.

He adds some philosophical explanations as to how Web 2.0 is different, saying that sites are now like solar systems with a central core surrounded by planets run by users, he also says that sites and services cannot be packaged, they transcend physical aspects and control over them is futile as users drive them.

It's interesting here to compare Netscape with Google, as Netscape's IPO triggered the first Internet revolution, while Google's IPO has triggered the second. Take a look at the way Netscape was a packaged, proprietary piece of software that was an elementary tool but which did not truly empower users to interact. While Google is a platform for interactivity.

Therefore another one of the Web 2.0 principles is that a platform will beat an application every time, while harnessing collective intelligence. Obviously, the Web is now a collective, a lot like the Borg in Star Trek!

Users even drive the system upgrades, as the age of the official software release ends and the age of the constantly updated system begins. It seems like a cross between open-source and power to the people!

So, what’s going to happen next?

That’s difficult to say in a fast moving industry like the Internet. When will Web 2.0 move on to Web 3.0? That’s a bit of a long-shot at the moment. There may never even be a Web 3.0 if 2.0 is supposedly so wonderful.

In any case, for those of you who are in e-business: Take Note. Things have already changed. You don’t want to be stuck in Web 1.0 now, would you?

zeid@maktoob.com

DIGILIFE | Children and the cell phone revolution

Last week, the results of a long-term study of the health effects of using mobile phones was published in Britain. The study spanned 7 years, and came up with a simple result: mobile use among adults cannot be conclusively connected to health problems, and therefore is not considered harmful.

However, the study did caution against the use of mobile by children and early teens- also known as ‘tweens’, between the ages of 8 and 12- in addition to those with underlying diseases that may, potentially, be affected by mobile signal exposure.

On the subject of children, there is a growing debate in Europe and the USA regarding the pros and cons of children using mobiles.To begin with, the pros are obvious: the ability to stay in touch with a child could be important in certain situations.

The cons though are more. For a start, a mobile brings with it all kinds of changes in social behavior, and could potentially spoil a child. Then, there’s the matter of health issues.In the United States, several children's advocacy groups, including Alliance for Childhood, Commercial Alert, and National Consumers League, are asking Congress to investigate the marketing of mobile phones to kids.

They are concerned about children's safety, privacy, education, and health. Privacy advocates even go as far as worrying that pedophiles may use cell phones to contact children. They also argue that cell phones will become a vehicle for showing advertisements to children and ultimately reaching their parents' wallets.

The study in Britain details the health risks. The British National Radiological Protection Board, warns of the possibility that mobile phones could cause benign tumors of the ear and brain. The NRPB urges parents not to provide cell phones to children under 8 years old.

Still, a new wave of mobiles for children are being manufactured in the USA and Europe, aimed at children as young as 6 years old. To add to that, mobile service companies (operators) all over the world, including Jordan, consider ‘tweens’ as a key segment and they are planning to target them. I find it offensive to think that any business would be ‘targeting’ children with a grown-up product.

As a parent, I can’t imagine giving my daughter a mobile phone at the age of 8. When I first used one, I was 24! And I find it unacceptable to be unable to somewhat monitor her ‘communication activities’ during the night and day. How will it affect her schoolwork? How will it affect her social upbringing?When we were children, we did just fine without mobiles.

Simply, we couldn’t go anywhere unless we told our parents first and we had be home on time, as agreed, because we couldn’t call them to tell them we’d be late. No excuses, no unnecessary communication.

Those were simpler times, for sure. But, more importantly, they were more disciplined and probably healthier times too!

zeid@maktoob.com