One can`t help being somewhat cynical when hard-nosed businessmen like Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy start sounding all altruistic and concerned about the planet, but whatever his motives, his latest mantra does make some sense.
At last week`s Oracle Open World event in San Francisco, McNealy told thousands of attendees during his keynote address that although the world was moving into the participation age in which Internet users would contribute content instead of just clicking and looking, only one in four people on the planet were in a position to participate.
Claiming that Sun had adopted the cause of working towards participation for all, McNealy pointed out that the world`s power grid would be unable to support every person on the planet powering up a computer built using current technologies.
In other words, as the world in general and developing nations like ours in particular seek to bridge the digital divide, technology developers need to get real about the fact that current technologies and approaches to technology development are not going to do the trick.
Time to change
McNealy is seeking to portray vendors still clinging to proprietary hardware and software models as enemies of a participation age that is both "planet-friendly" and all-inclusive.
Warwick Ashford, portals managing editor
According to McNealy, getting everyone online will not only require new "planet-friendly" technologies, but also a transformation in the way technology development is undertaken.
Recent advances by computer chip manufacturers and hardware designers have begun to address the power consumption concerns and some vendors have already begun eliminating raw materials that are hazardous to the environment.
Just this week, a serious attempt at bridging the digital divide from a hardware point of view was announced by the Media Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It plans to launch a prototype of a $100 laptop in November that is designed for use by school children in developing countries.
In addition to offering low-cost computing functionality, the laptop will feature a dual-mode screen, so it can be viewed in colour or black-and-white for viewing in bright sunlight, as well as a crank for generating power.
So while there is some hope, McNealy is seeking to portray vendors still clinging to proprietary hardware and software models as enemies of a participation age that is both "planet-friendly" and all-inclusive. He maintains the key is large-scale community-based technology development focused on providing the infrastructure necessary for universal access to the network.
Call to action
One can`t help wondering if McNealy is merely championing recent moves by Sun to improve its fortunes by open-sourcing significant parts of its Solaris operating system and sponsoring other community development initiatives, or if his reasoning really does make sense.
Although Sun`s new commitment to open standards and the principle of sharing may seem altruistic, McNealy is on record as saying this strategy is very much aimed at achieving growth and revenue, but in new ways that do not encumber the technologies required to enable participation by all.
Whatever McNealy`s goals and motives are, the message is clear and makes a great deal of sense: If we are ever to bridge the digital divide, something has got to change to lower the barriers to entry as well as the barriers to transitioning from one set of technologies to another.
As South Africans, perhaps we should heed the call to action because we could easily become world leaders in bridging the digital divide. After all, look what we achieved in terms of political participation for all once we put our mind to it.
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