Barriers to Trade

Image: Baltar

The OECD has released their report on: Technical Barriers to Trade: Evaluating the Trade Effects of Supplier's Declaration of Conformity

This study explains expected trade-facilitating benefits and other characteristics of the use of Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity (SDOC) as a conformity assessment procedure and assesses the trade effect of the EU’s adoption of SDOC in three product sectors: medical devices, telecommunications equipment and machinery sectors.

The paper explains the rationale for using SDOC, expected benefits and design characteristics of SDOC regimes. The quantitative analysis uses a gravity model and finds compelling evidence that the introduction of SDOC in the EU was a factor that influenced the evolution of import flows into EU markets positively. Intra-EU trade flows and imports from extra-EU OECD countries increased for SDOC-eligible radio and telecommunications equipment and low-risk medical devices, whereas the results for machinery are ambiguous.

The most striking increases, visible in all three sectors, are found for exports to EU markets from non-OECD (developing) countries included in the sample. Analysis of the effect of SDOC for selected individual EU members furthermore suggest that the magnitude of effect depends on the nature of the CA regime that SDOC replaced.

Strategic technologies for 2009

Gartner Inc., a technology research and advisory company, has ranked virtualization as the No. 1 strategic technology for next year, not for its "tremendously obvious" ability to virtualize servers, but for its increasing capability to virtualize just about everything else in a data center.

Here's Gartner's list for 2009:

1. Virtualization. (Ranked No. 5 last year)

In forecasting the impact of the economy on IT spending, Gartner put virtualization near the top of must-have technologies. But to make the strategic technology list, it had to have other characteristics as well, namely a Swiss Army Knife-like capability to be applied beyond servers.

Gartner analyst Carl Claunch said that in storage, for instance, virtualization allows users to "to combine different kinds and generations of storage technology." That gives them the freedom to mix and match storage technologies based on competitive bids, he said.

2. Cloud computing. (New to the list.)

If there was a technology hype list, cloud computing would have been the top choice, said Cearley. He got some audience chuckles with this line: "You can't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody that's talking about cloud computing these days."
But Gartner sees cloud computing as having a massive game-changing role, not only as the platform for software as a service, but as a computing and storage infrastructure provider, as well as a platform for information and business processes.

3. Computing fabrics. (No. 8 last year.)

Server technology is evolving to a point where you buy the physical resource you need, whether that is memory, I/O or processor, and fashion them together to create resource pools.

A computing fabric "combines those [resources] as you need them," said Claunch. IT shops will, potentially, be able to dispense with their separate pools of small, medium and large servers under this model. Blade servers have some of this capability -- the ability to move memory and processor capability -- but it's limited to what's inside the chassis, he said.

4. Web-oriented architecture. (New but similar to "the Web platform" -- No. 7 last year.) Gartner talked last year about how the Web will be the model for services delivery. This year, it discussed in terms of an architectural approach, how Web models will influence service-oriented architectures. The architecture, as the name implies, uses Web standards, identifiers, formats and protocols

5. Enterprise mashups. (No. 6 last year.)

Mashups, a fun word, are becoming a serious enterprise tool, allowing users to use public APIs to combine various services and capabilities quickly. The content aggregation tools give business users the flexibility to combine data inside and outside the enterprise.

6. Specialized systems. (New to the list.) A Cisco router is an obvious example, but there are specialized appliances for Java, data warehousing and other processes. It's an approach that could lead to some cost savings, and "could be wide open" as an emerging trend, said Claunch.

7. Social software and social networking. (No. 10 last year.) The tools offer "the ability to work across the organization in dynamic fashion," said Claunch.

8. Unified communications. (No. 2 last year.) Gartner said that over the next five year, "the number of different communications vendors companies may be reduced by at least 50%," thanks to unified communications.

9. Business intelligence. (New.)

This is hardly new to enterprises, but increases in computing power is giving companies the means to expand business intelligence capabilities, such as applying BI analytics directly into business processes.

10. Green IT. (No. 1 last year.)

Already a strategic technology that will not melt away, Green IT has not diminished in importance. For IT, green is everything, and that includes anything that can help cut the energy bill and reduce fuel use.

CIO published an article on What Gartner didn't say about virtualisation which goes into more detail about client virtualisation.

Are you an immigrant or a native? (When it comes to being digital of course)

Copyright: futurelab

How Digital Natives develop channels for Digital Immigrants is an article by Dick Stroud on the futurelab blog that addresses a concept from Dr. Gary Small, a professor at UCLA.

His most recent bit of research found that when Web-savvy older adults surf the Internet, it can trigger key parts in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. In short, the findings indicate that searching the Web may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function.

You can also see his TV interview where he discusses his studies as well as the pros and cons of being either a "Digital Native" or a "Digital Immigrant".

How IT can reduce your carbon footprint

The McKinsey Quarterly has published an interesting article on How IT can cut carbon emissions detailing how ICT will become a major source of greenhouse gas emissions but can abate far more of them.

Here is the abstract:

Greenhouse gas emissions associated with making and powering the world’s computers
and telecom networks are growing fast. Despite efforts by technology manufacturers and
users to make these tools more energy efficient, rapid growth in demand for computing and
communications—particularly in developing nations—is creating a big carbon footprint.
The good news is that information and communications technologies can reduce far more
emissions than they generate.

Read the whole article here

Related reports:
How the world should invest in energy efficiency

Business strategies for climate change

How companies think about climate change: A McKinsey Global Survey

Cell phones and politics in Africa

Copyright: verzerk

Forbes published an article on the use of cell phones and the Internet in elections in Africa:

--During the Sierra Leonean elections of 2007, National Election Watch coordinated 500 election observers who used mobile phones to text in reports of electoral irregularities.
--In Kenya's 2007 polls, the opposition Orange Democratic Movement announced its own results--based on the party's election monitors--two days before the official results were declared, claiming that its candidate, Raila Odinga, had won by about 400,000 votes.
--In Zimbabwe's March elections, independent observers and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claimed to have figures showing that Morgan Tsvangirai had won 49% of the vote, limiting the ability of incumbent President Robert Mugabe's supporters to claim victory.

--The relatively unregulated explosion of radio stations, manned by often untrained presenters, has resulted in accusations that irresponsible broadcasts have contributed to civil conflict in such countries as South Africa, Rwanda and Nigeria. There is some evidence that callers to talk radio shows helped to fan the flames of ethnic conflict during the recent "Kenya crisis."
--Fake documents on Internet sites were used by supporters of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to discredit Odinga prior to the 2007 election. One forged document purported to record a secret agreement that committed Odinga to establish a sharia state in return for the support of Muslim leaders.
--In Zimbabwe, the ruling party "leaked" forged documents designed to taint the opposition MDC as national traitors on the Internet. The files suggested that the party was funded, and its policy priorities specified, by white farmers and the British government.

Korea - SA - ICT

Copyright: Rotorhead

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed recently by the Department of Communications and the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Public Administration and Security is to pave the way for the establishment of an Information Communication Technologies Co-operation Centre (ITCC).



In a statement, the department said the MoU would formalize the Korean Government's commitment to contribute R8-million over the next three years towards the establishment of an ITCC in South Africa.

The purpose of the ITCC would be, amongst other things, to promote the exchange of complementary experiences of the two respective countries for the mutual development of the ITCC. The MoU would create the much needed Information Communication Technology cadres whose role would be to advance the cause of Information Technology Communications.





The department said the two deputy ministers identified that areas for cooperation were the operation of an e-skills training center, the implementation of e-government and development of e-government related skills.

Who owns the networks in Africa?

Forbes published an interesting article on the state of telecoms in Africa ...

Worldwide, 61% of formerly state-owned fixed network operators were in private hands by 2005, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Yet, the figure in Africa was just 44%. Almost all of Africa's governments still own some, and many own all, of what was once the national phone monopoly.
In the mid-1990s, African telecoms markets were dominated by state-owned fixed network (wireline) monopolies. African telecoms markets have been transformed since then by mobile networks. Fixed line teledensity is still under 4% and stagnant--according to latest ITU figures (published in May), 1.6% outside North and South Africa.

New mobile networks, by contrast, now cover most rural as well as urban areas:
--Continent-wide mobile teledensity has risen to 27%, with South Africa among countries achieving over 80%.
--Mobile phones now account for more than 90% of lines in most countries on the continent.It is mobile rather than fixed networks that are expected to provide the platform for African broadband.
Although many fixed incumbents have mobile businesses, this transformation has been led by private-sector competitors, mostly European, Middle Eastern and South African investors.
For more on this story, please go to Forbes or log in to Oxford Analytica