MarcForrest.com

Author: Marc

  • Interview with Fred Baumhardt – Microsoft SA CTO

    Interview with Fred Baumhardt – Microsoft SA CTO

    It’s Microsoft TechEd Africa 2013 time again, and I have been fortunate to be invited to attend this awesome event once again. This year the event is bigger in terms of the number of exhibitors, sponsors & sessions on offer. Things kicked off yesterday afternoon with the Keynote & Opening party, but today was when all the in depth sessions started. I managed to catch a couple of sessions earlier today and am well impressed with whats been on offer so far.

    I also got the opportunity to sit down and chat with Fred Baumhardt, who is the Chief Technical officer of Microsoft South Africa. We chatted about a number of things and where Microsoft South Africa is going.

    One of the major talking points in yesterdays keynote was the increased demand and usability of cloud based services such as Microsoft Azure. Azure allows you to host your application & service in the cloud, making it easily accessible to all your users. With a shift towards the ability to rapidly deploy these applications, it’s only a matter of time before everything is cloud based. I also found out earlier today that iCloud is in fact hosted on the Azure Platform !

    Chatting about if Microsoft would look at hosting locally based cloud servers, Fred leaned towards that not happening anytime soon. Currently Microsoft has a number of data centres around the world, and South Africa uses the Ireland & Netherlands centres for cloud based services. Given that bandwidth costs in South Africa have decreased dramatically over the last couple of years, and the number of international bandwidth services offered, it doesn’t make economic sense for Microsoft to launch a data centre in South Africa (yet).

    That said, there is a huge shift in enterprise & consumers moving towards cloud based services like Office 365. Cost wise it works out a lot cheaper that having to pay an up front cost for the traditional CD media.

    I also popped in a sneaky question about when we might see the Microsoft Surface in South Africa after Microsoft SA CEO, Mteto Nyati, hinted at it earlier today. No official dates have been announced but we could possibly see it in the latter part of the year. On the other hand, there are a number of different devices on display here at TechEd, which offer similar functionality.

    All in all, Africa & South Africa are in for an interesting couple of years ahead in the Tech Space. As Fred mentioned, we are probably only 18 months behind Europe & the US in terms of Tech developments, and that gap is narrowing rapidly.

    TechEd runs till Friday, and I will probably pop up another post or 2 with some of the highlights of the event. So far it has been a rather interesting & fulfilling 2 days!

  • iwantmycoffee Coffee Shop – Umhlanga Ridge

    iwantmycoffee Coffee Shop – Umhlanga Ridge

    Earlier today after working at the amazing spot, The Sett, which I posted about the other day, I managed to pop into an awesome new spot called “iwantmycoffee” in Umhlanga Ridge.

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  • The Sett – Agile Workspace in Durban

    The Sett – Agile Workspace in Durban

    I first heard about The Sett a couple of months ago over a coffee with 2 great chaps, Don Muller & Trav Gale who work for a cool company called Appletree Catalyst Agency. Both these guys have been amazing influences in my life over the last couple of years, so I knew this was going to be an awesome spot.

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  • Great customer service from Incredible Connection

    Great customer service from Incredible Connection

    Last week Wednesday  I came across an awesome deal from the guys at Incredible Connection, where they had a 3TB external hard drive on special for just over R1000. As I had been looking for something along these lines, for a while I decided to grab the opportunity and purchase one through their online store.

    I have admit though, I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to e-commerce in South Africa. I honestly don’t think there is anything wrong with the actual system, but our biggest problem is the logistics and the delivery of goods. (That said, I have to exclude Takealot from this generalization, who have delivery nailed)  In this case, Incredible Connection were offering 3-5 day shipping for free on the day (normal price R55) and overnight shipping for R45. Being the gadget junkie that I am, I needed it now, so I selected the overnight option.

    Bad Mistake.

    Assuming because I placed the Order after 12pm, I thought I would it give it a day when it didn’t arrive on Thursday. By Friday lunch time I still hadn’t heard anything and sent the Incredible Connection twitter account a message, asking if they could find out what was happening. I gave them the required details, and waited in anticipation. Nothing :(

    It seems that nothing happens over the weekends, So on Monday I made a bit more noise on Twitter, and *eventually* I got a phone call & email from the Online Manager, Jean, humbly apologizing for their mistake. Granted, it wasn’t his fault, but I just wasn’t happy, so I just asked that they reverse the order. Once again,  Jean tried his best to rectify it, and ensured I would have it in my hands by Tuesday morning.

    A few minutes later, I got a call from Shane, who is the KZN Ops Manager, apologizing for what could only, what seems to be, an honest mistake. He offered to have someone drive out to my house, and deliver the drive to me personally and offered to give me the drive for Free ! I was amazed. An hour later (at about 5pm) , Mike, who is the Branch Manager at Incredible Connection in Springfield Park, personally delivered the external drive in my hands. I was seriously impressed with the action taken, and how everything just happened.

    Yes, E-Commerce in South Africa has a long way to go, and at the best of times, and I absolutely hate using twitter as a soapbox to moan. But I saw yesterday that some brands in SA are taking their customer service very seriously, and are willing to ensure their customers are happy all the time. So a big thanks to everyone at Incredible Connection for making what could have been a horrible situation, into a happy experience, ensuring I will be a return customer.

    Now to fill up that hard drive…

     

  • Santam Backtracks iPhone app – WHY ?

    Santam Backtracks iPhone app – WHY ?

    If you follow this blog regularly  you will notice I am a huge fan of South African developed iPhone apps for South African brands, and often feature them after finding out about them.

    But this one baffles me, and I honestly can’t figure out, why ? Why would, Santam, who are an insurance company (who indecently looks after my personal insurance) create an app that has absolutely nothing to do with insurance ?

    I only found out about the app after listening to a rather cheezy radio ad on my way to a meeting, and decided to look at the app and what it offers. I thought that maybe the ad was a front for their corporate app, but nope, it seems my insurance company has developed an app that allows you to add backtracks to your videos and just allows you to play a noise, which will “help you out of an awkward situation”

    Awkward…

    There are 2 buttons in the app, 1 which tells you that Santam is in fact a insurance provider, and the other to let you request a quote from them, just in case you didn’t really believe they were an insurance company…

    All I can think is that what happened with this app, is the top brass said (a common occurrence these days) “We NEED an APP !!” and the marketing team thought it would be a great idea to make a really great and fun-filled app !

    Seriously Santam, you might want to re-think this one ? Rather give me an app where I can view my policy, lodge a claim, view claim progresses, and get in touch with your team. That’s 4 buttons you can replace with the 4 you already have at the bottom of your app ?

    Unless I am seriously missing something ???