Another year has drawn to a close and the characteristically fast-paced ICT industry has all but stood still throughout it. Mergers and acquisitions, minister musical chairs, feuding, innovation, falling prices, regulation reform, springing up of start-ups - and more - have all been a part of 2013. "The year the millennium became a teenager - a mixture of hope, learning, misbehaviour, disappointment and rebellion," says Adrian Schofield, vice-chairman of the Africa ICT Alliance.
Mobility, wearable tech, big data, digital engagement - all of these are buzzwords that have been bandied about this year - and all of these have seemingly set much of the scene for what we can expect in ICT in 2014.
ITWeb picked some of the sector's top minds to find out what stood out for them in the industry in 2013 - and where they see the industry going in the year that is now on our doorstep: 2014.
Retrospective glance
Market shakeup
So, what did 2013 mean to our industry leaders and what stood out for them the most? What were the highs and what were the lows? The successes and failures? This is what they had to say:
IDC telecoms analyst Spiwe Chireka says the potential buyout of second network operator (SNO) Neotel by Vodacom was one of the standout developments in 2013. "This has the potential to shake up the market in ways not seen before. On one hand, we may have a valid competitor to Telkom, which has until now enjoyed a virtual one-man race, especially in the highly lucrative enterprise communications market. On the other hand, the gap between Vodacom and the likes of MTN and Internet Solutions will widen quite significantly.
"However, such a deal begs the question: will Telkom not then enjoy the monopoly in fixed-line, which the regulator worked so hard to curb through an SNO? Because now there will be no SNO."
Another ICT highlight, says Chireka, is that of French telco Orange entering the consumer space in SA. While the operator has had a behind-the-scenes presence in the country - through its business arm, Orange Business Solutions - for some time now, Orange only started targeting SA's consumers at the beginning of the year. MD of Orange Horizons S'ebastien Crozier says the company leveraged its sponsorship of the Africa Cup of Nations to start leaving a mark on South Africans' minds.
"Orange enjoys great success across most of its operations, but has been lacklustre in the Anglophone countries. While they are yet to make significant waves in the market, I do believe they are one to watch very closely. With market consolidation on the horizon, Orange makes a brilliant suitor for the smaller but competitive providers in the country," says Chireka.
Sharing Madiba online
Schofield says it is hard to recall any other event of significance in light of the recent passing of Nelson Mandela.
"ICT enabled the world to share every detail of every moment, enabled us to participate in the good, bad and ugly events that unfolded across the country and across the world in response to the end of Madiba's journey to freedom. From the sublime oratory of Barack Obama to the ridiculous gestures of an inept 'signer', ICT brought the world to share in this unique experience."
Mandela dominated both local and global online searches this year, according to Google's latest retrospective Year-End Zeitgeist.
"So what else happened in 2013?" Schofield asks. "We didn't get digital terrestrial television (DTT). We did get e-tolling in Gauteng. The former, probably because government has listened to too many stakeholders and not made a decision. The latter, probably because government listened to too few stakeholders and made the wrong decision. We can probably fix the first in 2014, finally. We almost certainly cannot fix the second, which seems doomed to failure, thanks to the rebellious behaviour of 80% of GP number plate owners."
Media masses
MD of Fuseware Mike Wronski says the rise of consumer journalism stands out most when he looks back on the year gone by. "The way the [Oscar] Pistorius trial and Mandela's death unfolded on social media is indicative of just how much society has changed the way it communicates and accesses information. This real-time, always on connection to current events represents a tremendous difference to media consumption that wasn't even around a decade ago."
Fuseware monitors the online market in terms of conversations - a speciality Wronski says gives him a quantitative view of the trends that made the most noise in 2013. "Madiba's death, Pistorius, e-tolls, the Harlem Shake and Kim [Kardashian's] baby had the overall buzz in social media.
"From an ICT perspective, Telkom's VDSL roll-out, the ongoing mobile data price war, BlackBerry's sale announcement and subsequent cancellation, and the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) fiasco were definitely top of mind for many South Africans during 2013."
Data price decline
The Sunday Times expos'e of former communications minister Dina Pule's mismanagement of the Department of Communications (DOC), culminating in her being fired, and Yunus Carrim being appointed minister, are events that stick out for Worldwide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck.
He says trends that 2013 will be remembered for are the continuing fall in the cost of data - for both mobile and fixed broadband; the explosion in new online retail offerings; and the pervasiveness of social networking and instant messaging.
Sahil Mungar, First National Bank (FNB) Mobile and Connect head of sales and marketing, also sees the steadily decreasing price of data when he looks back on the year in 2014's shadow.
"It is positive that this move makes mobile services and the Internet more accessible to more people. The perception of data being expensive should also start to fade, which opens people up to use more apps and do more mobile browsing. We have seen tremendous growth in the user base of the FNB Banking App this year, which definitely speaks to more people using and becoming comfortable with applications and realising the benefits of 'being mobile'."
Mungar says it is this development that really defined 2013 for him. "The accessibility of data to more people, the quality of data connections, and the response of business to the data revolution. For instance, FNB had pre-empted the market and launched the FNB Banking App for tablets early this year. Tablet usage has since grown to 5% of mobile subscribers this year. Later this year, FNB launched Share Investing and covered its bases on all device platforms, including Windows 8 for mobile."
Ever evolving
Ernst Wittmann, country manager at Alcatel One Touch SA - which is making a comeback with the launch of a range of low-cost smartphones it hopes will compete with the likes of Samsung and Apple - says 2013 epitomised the fact that, even 17 years on, the ICT industry is evolving and changing.
"I don't see this stopping very soon, and every year we will see technology advance in leaps and bounds. The heroes of today may be in a different position tomorrow, and this allows doors to open for the likes of Alcatel One Touch."
Taking a bird's eye view of 2013, Wittmann says operators' visible drive to attract data customers is patent. "The reduced inter-connect charges forced on by the regulator has created the demand for customer migration from feature phones to smartphones. On the other side of the coin - bigger sure does seem to be better.
"Phablets are becoming more and more popular and the attached wearables will soon become a fashion accessory as well as a communications tool."
Oscar Ruiz, partner and head of AT Kearney's communications, media and technology practice in SA, says big data going mainstream stood out for him in 2013.
"I see CEOs of one company after the next in every sector making pieces of big data a reality and realising the value of the data and the need for more advanced analytics to differentiate offerings from [their] competition."
Some of the trends to make waves this year, says Ruiz, are the completely digital enterprise, the rise of smartphones above the PC, and of course, he notes, the fact that mobile keeps growing. "Global subscribers have grown in excess of 4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR); mobile broadband has risen by 26% CAGR; mobile data volumes have seen growth of 66% CAGR; and long-term evolution (LTE) [is expected to] account for one in five mobile broadband connections by 2017."
Ups and downs
When it comes to the rollercoaster effect characteristic of any given substantial period of time, Chireka says the one down moment for her was "when yet another minister of communications was ousted with yet again none of the earlier initiatives/targets (digital migration, spectrum allocation, strengthening of the Independent Communications Authority of SA, or ICASA) being met."
The one up moment, she says... "still thinking".
Schofield says the ray of hope in the ICT sector was the appointment of Yunus Carrim as communications minister. "He arrived as a breath of fresh air and stirred the stagnant odours of the moribund DOC. Of course, he could not work miracles and it was inevitable that the first flush of enthusiasm would get bogged down in the harsh realities.
"Can Mr Carrim tip the balance? He showed that he is a fast learner, but needs the freedom to crack the whip. South Africa needs him to succeed. Broadband policy must become broadband practice. ICT policy must be clearly articulated and applied to get this country back into the mainstream of African growth and development. We cannot afford to miss out on the opportunities presented by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the wealth of international and local fibre connections and the use of available wireless spectrum."
On the downside, says Schofield, "the revelations of one Mr Snowden might give us cause to doubt the benefits of being so well connected to the global networks".
Of course, he says, we always knew that governments would be able to probe our innermost electronic secrets, "but we (naively) thought they would only do so with some sort of judicial approval. So it came as a bit of a shock to learn that the American National Security Agency could prevail upon the suppliers of our e-services to hand over any and every detail of our e-lives."
Also tipping the scale in favour of the negative, Schofield says the South African government evidently does not regard ICTs as crucial to development and growth. "Only a miniscule proportion of pupils are exposed to IT in schools, perpetuating our long-term dependence on imported skills. The delay in finalising the production of set-top boxes has probably killed the chance to have a thriving export market in a field where SA led the world at one time.
"There is no BEE Council in place to monitor and encourage the transformation of the sector. I don't want to give a litany of depressing examples - these three just serve to emphasise why SA is losing out in the African context. Our peers in Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, Rwanda, Mauritius and other countries are taking up the challenge of harnessing available investment in infrastructure, research and development and technology clusters."
Wronski reckons an up moment this year was the aggressive uptake of smartphones in SA, a development he says was fuelled in part by Samsung and Apple's massive marketing budgets - but also by the continuing drop in hardware and data prices of these smart devices.
"The more people that can be connected to the Internet, the easier they can educate themselves, start their own businesses, look for jobs or just empower their minds. Internet usage in Africa could add $300 billion to Africa's gross domestic product by 2025, according to a recent McKinsey report."
He says a down moment was the enactment of the e-tolling system by government. "The knock-on effect this will have on the CPIX and inflation may be higher than many predict."
Goldstuck says the up moment in 2013 was ICASA, once again, showing muscle in declaring a new series of cuts in the mobile termination rate.
"The down moments were the delays, once again, in LTE and DTT."
For Mungar, Telkom opening ADSL line speeds up to 40Mbps, and recently, the minimum line speed set at 2Mbps, was an up this year. "This allows more people to be connected to richer broadband content on the Web, such as streaming video, gaming, video on demand, unrestricted surfing and more. Internet service providers have the challenge of now offering high quality data where user limits are not imposed to those who use high bandwidth services. This may mean that services like torrents and P2P (peer-to-peer) sharing become restricted to fairly allocate bandwidth."
On the flipside, he says, the relatively high cost of smartphones in SA still makes the devices something most people aspire to own. "Therefore, we still find a large majority of the population using older devices, without native app support. Thankfully, people are browsing more on their device, no matter what make or model."
Wittmann says his up would have to be the drastic drop in data rates from the operators, which in turn has seen a significant rise in smartphone sales in SA. "We were a little slow on the uptake, but we are playing catch-up rather quickly."
His down in 2013, says Wittmann, would be the rather slow roll-out and adoption of LTE. "LTE has so many benefits for the operators and the end-user alike, but the slow adoption has left LTE a little flat. Let's hope 2014 will be different."
For Ruiz, an up in 2013 was the fact that Apple was still driving innovation and was able to cope with the push of Android two years after Steve Jobs' era.
"A down was the suffering of traditional icons like Nokia and BlackBerry - making the market more a question of two."
Branding 2013
2012 was dubbed "the year of the smartphone" by industry observers. ITWeb asked this panel how they would brand 2013, and what they thought 2014 would possibly be branded. These are their thoughts:
Chireka says 2013 was the year of enterprise communications. "[There was] a lot of activity by telcos garnering for a share of the lucrative enterprise communications market. Operator investments and activities will be focused on their enterprise business units or gaining traction in this customer segment."
She says 2014 is likely to be "the year of war for spectrum". She expects the regulator to go to market with the spectrum - "and that is where the battle is going to be fierce".
Schofield says had it not been for the Snowden affair, he would have branded 2013 the year of the cloud. "In spite of the challenges of available and affordable connections, the year has seen significant growth in the use of cloud services by all sizes of enterprise (outside of government).
"Individuals are making greater use of hosted applications, e-mail and storage services and businesses are leveraging the improvements in cash flow that follow adoption of appropriate cloud services. The vendors will find ways of reassuring their clients that data security and privacy can be maintained.
"Mobile devices will drive the transition to the cloud. Consumers show continued appetite for the latest means of connecting to the network. We need a better description than 'smartphone' or 'phablet', neither of which encompasses the range of applications and services available. We want to be able to communicate, to record, to learn, to be entertained, informed and located, to buy and sell, to pay and be paid."
Had 2013 achieved the potential growth of cloud services, says Schofield, 2014 would be the year that big data moved closer to coming of age. "As the larger enterprises settle in to combining their local and remote data centres for storage and applications, then they will be able to manage their data more effectively and take advantage of the growing expertise in big data methodologies.
"Sadly, our government is way behind the curve in this area. The Department of Public Service and Administration and the State IT Agency have been invisible in 2013, as far as contributing to increased usage of appropriate technology is concerned. Elsewhere in the world, the debate about open data is under way, but it will be a long time before that conversation is heard in the corridors of Pretoria."
Wronski says 2013 was the year of content. "Brands have in many ways transformed into their own publishers, and have invested heavily into creating high quality engaging content and user experiences using technology and social media."
2014, he says, will be the year of personalisation. "Brands will better understand how to unlock the value in their big data and social media in order to drive personalised consumer experiences."
Goldstuck says, for the consumer, 2013 was the year of wrist-fitness (fitness devices on the wrist). "For the enterprise, it was the year of big data."
Next year, he says, will be the year of the 3D printer for the consumer. "For the enterprise, the year of the customer."
Mungar says 2013 was definitely the year of mobile data. "2014, in my opinion, will be the year of Android and apps. I foresee this becoming a mainstream operating system, purely because the market will demand a reasonably priced smartphone, and lower cost manufacturers will opt for this operating system."
Taking a local angle, Wittmann says he thinks 2013 - in SA - was truly the year of the smartphone. "We were a little slow in the beginning and 2012 may have set the foundation, but the industry only started seeing rapid growth in the second half of 2013."
He says 2014, in his opinion, will see the rebirth of a few stalwarts - and perhaps the introduction of a few new players. "[Next year] will be all about change in both the handset manufacturer and operator sides of the industry. Just look at the merger rumours going around about some of the bigger operators in SA and Africa."
Ruiz says 2013 was definitely the year of big data - especially in the fast moving consumer goods sector. He expects 2014 to be defined by the emergence of clear leaders in the analytics space to sustain the growth of big data across industries.
Looking ahead
And then there is the year that looms: industry professionals have rarely been off the mark when it comes to predicting trends based on solid research and observation.
Chireka refers to the IDC's draft top 10 predictions for 2014 - noting that, while the list is titled "Africa Telecommunications Market", most of them apply explicitly to the South African market.
At number one, the document states, enterprise mobility holds promise, but strong growth is yet to materialise. It goes on to say verticalisation will be the key differentiator for 2014, and the lines between IT and telecommunications will become increasingly blurred.
Furthermore, predicts the IDC, fibre strategies will move from backhaul to FTTx (a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fibre to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications).
At number five, a shift in business models will see operators move from dumb pipes to multiple sector operators. Following that, according to the IDC, rural connectivity will become more of a reality in 2014 and government will fast become the important customer for telcos in Africa.
"The role of telecommunications companies in the IT convergence space will change from foe to friend; market consolidation will be on the rise in 2014; and Nigeria and SA will remain golden - but not for consumer services."
Schofield says the good news in 2014 is that it is an election year. The bad news: 2014 is an election year.
"Good news, because there will be some attention paid to service delivery and the underlying efficiencies in a bid to garner votes. Bad news, because the current office-bearers will not expect to hold the same posts and be accountable - and the new office bearers will take the rest of 2014 (or longer) to acquaint themselves with their responsibilities."
Although there has been a great deal of noise about the security and privacy of the Internet, Schofield notes, there has been no sound at all about the development and governance of the Internet.
"Yes, there is the Internet Society, ICANN and the International Telecommunication Union - but does anyone know where we stand on IPv6? If it's not big data in 2014, it's the Internet of Things. That cannot happen unless we understand the changes that will enable the next 'big thing'."
Wronski says, in terms of personalisation, he believes brands will harness their consumer data more effectively to create unique brand experiences for each one of their customers.
"I believe geo-location will be a large part of this, especially in light of the recent Twitter deal with geo-location firm Pitney Bowes. Smartphone adoption will continue to skyrocket, as more feature phone users will be able to afford the upgrade. Combine this with Google's plans to roll-out free WiFi access in Africa, and we might see Internet penetration rates grow much quicker."
Goldstuck predicts 3D printing will go fully mainstream and that electric cars will become widely available.
He also foresees airlines will "stop being stupid about on-board use of electronics". However, Goldstuck adds, "there is no accounting for the scope and scale of stupidity, so don't blame me if South African Airways and British Airways remain in the 20th century".
Mungar believes more businesses will launch mobile platforms and apps in 2014. "We will likely see much more innovative use of mobile technology in the year to come, moving away from the expected content, transactions, and marketing experienced currently, toward smarter applications of the technology to make life easier.
"For instance, Ster Kinekor has just integrated to Apple Passbook. This is a significant step toward mobile vouchers and redemption instruments. Therefore, businesses will respond to the immediacy and quicker conversion of customer engagement via a smartphone."
Wittmann feels next year will be about mobile broadband and connectivity on the go, with products being introduced to allow for wireless connectivity no matter where one is. "I think the phablet craze is also yet to hit in full force, and I see this happening in 2014."
"The exciting thing for us at Alcatel One Touch is that we will be a part of this. But on two opposite ends of the stick. One being our super-fast Scribe Hero, which will compete directly with the traditional A-brand products, and then the exciting device like the C9, which will give you a 5.5-inch 1.3GHZ Quad core device at under R3000."
Ruiz lists four predictions for the New Year: "Cloud will expand from enterprise to individuals; big data will be business as usual, but attract significant investment; all will go mobile - including more and more reach to video applications; and Africa will attract IT investment and talent."
So, there you have it - as the curtains close on 2013, 2014 wades in - bringing with it evolution and progression in technology to set a new standard.
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