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Global Consultant Oracle and its Ethiopian affiliate Boston Consulting conducted a workshop for business owners in Ethiopia at the Sheraton Hotel last week.

The workshop concentrated on enhancing the technological capacity of business by offering them a better understanding of how they can utilize engineered hardware like database machines.

Businesses can avoid down time and associated costs when employees are not working at maximum productivity said Austine Ouma representing Oracle.

Oracle has presented a varied range of high tech solutions for institutions making use of Information Technology in Ethiopia.

The company is confident that the software solutions that it offers will make its customers more competitive and effective on the market said Brook Fekadu, Managing Director of Boston Consulting, Oracle partner in Ethiopia.

Financial institutes in particular are exposed to a range of risks as they adopt modern technology such as ATM’s and electronic banking according to Brook.

The first twitter map of Africa revealed that thousands of tweets were generated in Ethiopia. A total of 6450 tweets were sent from Ethiopia over a three month period according to the map.

An analysis of more than 11.5 million tweets, originating from the continent and identified geographically, was conducted by Tweetminster, a media platform and the Kenyan office of Portland Communications.

Ecom Advertising has joined forces with local realtors in Ethiopia to restart publishing real estate information on the internet through liveinethiopia.com, an Ethiopian real estate website.

LiveInEthiopia was released in the beginning of 2010 to take the rather chaotic Ethiopian Real Estate Industry – the renting, buying and selling part – to a different and modern level. It had a different business model then; it used to collaborate with the realtors, traditionally known as "Delalas", on all levels. It used to advertise the properties, negotiate with customers and was directly involved in the business.

Turkish Company, Karel, is set to enter the Ethiopian telecommunications market. The company is interested in investing in the Ethiopian market which is dominated by only a few companies according to Umut Oner Accounts Manager of Karel.  

Karel, a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) manufacturer, is an internationally recognized producer of telecommunications equipment explained promoters. It hopes to be able to introduce Voice Over IP and Closed Circuit TV services to the Ethiopian market. The services haven’t been allowed in Ethiopia as of yet.

The city administration of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has committed to improve the capital’s information system according to Kefeyalew Azeze, Head of the Addis Ababa City Administration Public Relations Office.

The Addis Ababa administration plans to set up a modern and effective technology based information system he said, speaking at a two-day training held on effective information management given to senior officials.

Crescent Tech, a technology service center, is to inaugurate a Hewlett Packard service center to serve organizations and large networks in Ethiopia. The center will service international brand computers and was set up for a total capital 80 million US dollars.

Crescent is a gold partner of HP but is ready to provide services to other brands as well explained Nathnael Mamo, Accounts Manager with Crescent.

The service center will provide services including backup and recovery problems that Ethiopian organizations had to call in professionals from abroad for according to Nathnael.

Ethiopian based organizations including money transfer agents, embassies and other enterprises dependent on internet and related operations voiced frustration at the services they receive from Ethio Telecom services.

The Ethio Telecom customers complained against the weak internet services in particular.

Complaints were heard at the event commemorating Ethio-Telecom’s Second Enterprise Customers Day on Wednesday.

An increasing number of people in Ethiopia purchase counterfeit software unintentionally according to the Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft loses an approximate 240 million birr to software piracy annually in Ethiopia.

Piracy adversely affects economic growth in Ethiopia as illegal software cannot create jobs for students, IT professionals or developers according to Eric Odipo, Channel Lead, Microsoft East and Southern Africa. 

Karel Electronics of Turkey signed an agreement on Monday with View Computer Engineering, an Ethiopia IT company, to work in partnership and to sell Karel’s IT products in Ethiopia.

It was pointed out during the signing of the agreement that in the long run the Turkish company might start assembling its products here and that the agreement could pave the way for such a venture.