Cape Town, 01 Sep 2008
It is the first day of spring and the first day on the job for Microsoft SA's new country head, Mteto Nyati, arguably the most controversial appointment since the US software giant opened its doors here.
Nyati is the first black South African to head up Microsoft's South African operation, as his predecessor, Pfungwe Serima, originally hailed from Zimbabwe.
Unlike many executives in the ICT sector who are inclined to keep their political feelings and observations under wraps, Nyati openly stepped into the political arena when an article written by him about the African National Congress leadership race was published in the Sunday Times, just over a year ago.
"I believe that company executives always have to look at the environment in which they operate. The results of the Polokwane conference [the ANC congress held in November] show that service delivery is the critical factor and the new [political] leadership are under a lot of pressure to deliver services. This is an area where a company such as Microsoft can help," he says.
Eclectic view
Nyati's view of the world comes from his eclectic education, which includes a degree in mechanical engineering, an MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand and a year's fellowship at the US ivy league University of Yale that focused on studying the overall global environment that business has to operate in.
He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship (former US president Bill Clinton also received this award) to further his engineering in Germany. However, he declined to take it up due to his mother being ill and, as the first-born son, Nyati felt it was his duty to look after her.
That diverse education seems to have granted Nyati the ability to hold opinions on a number of topics concerning Microsoft today.
He says the two main issues facing Microsoft SA are the fact that it must increase its penetration of the small and medium business market, and this means providing incentives for the channel to do so. Secondly, Microsoft is essentially a platforms developer at the core and must put together a "serious platform services experience".
Open hostility?
On the issue of open source, Nyati believes the traditionally perceived hostility between the proprietary software firm and the open source community is incorrect. The two can co-exist alongside, if not co-operate together, he notes.
"We may be partly to blame about that perception, but we will try and communicate our standpoint to the market more effectively. Microsoft is embracing open standards and we are willing to work together with anyone," he says.
Nyati believes that he has an understanding of the open source software community following his 12-year career at IBM, as that US company has being leaning heavily in the open source direction for a number of years. That part of his career ended with him as director of the company's global services division after he had worked in its communications division (which included media and telecommunications). Before that, he was instrumental in starting IBM's small and medium business division.
Nyati says he would like to ensure Microsoft continues its heavy involvement in schools and education.
"As a company, [Microsoft] has the vision of enabling people and businesses to realise their true potential. We believe we are the right platform to do that," he says.
Related story:
Microsoft appoints new MD
Share