Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Saheed Adepoju, Co-founder & CEO of Encipher Group where he shares insightful analysis into Google’s possible strategy towards merging the recently unveiled Chromebook with android-powered devices. He argues that Google will not kill the android ecosystem with the Chromebook and further provides insights into the Google way to Cloud Computing. The post was first published on the Encipher Group website and flags off a series of sponsored posts from Encipher.

At the just concluded, Google I/O, something fascinating was unveiled, the Google Chromebook. According to their website, Chromebooks are built and optimized for the web, where we all already spend about 90% of our time. It would be available from June 15th in stores around the world.

It is believed that Chromebooks would destroy Windows powered laptops and change the way we do our computing, I couldn’t agree more but from an entirely different perspective.

It has also been said that Chromebooks might destroy the Android ecosystem and its advances and ultimately the Android tablets. Well, I simply don’t agree. Why? Because I don’t think a company as big as Google would allow their products to kill each other or at least have seen that they might be a clash in the future of both innovative thinking.

In one of such discussions that Chrome is going to kill android, it is said that Google may scale back its android development because of Chrome. Although this was way back in 2009, I still think that most industry experts still believe that end users still need to choose between both platforms.

However, this year’s Consumer Electronic show (CES 2011) gave rise to a seemingly interesting product which most industry experts may have missed: Motorola Atrix 4G.

From the specifications, it feels seemingly decent but the real deal with the Motorola Atrix isn’t the phone but the Laptop dock accessory. The beauty about the dock is that it is powered by the Atrix’s Tegra-2 processor which is a dual-core 1Ghz processor. When docked, it charges the Motorola Atrix and launches a tiny kernel within the laptop Dock and this mode is called Webtop mode. It has generated a lot of buzz and interests amongst tech savvy geeks and also corporate executives who want a phone laptop combo without the risk of losing anything if both devices get missing.

Google, I believe is going to build a combo just like the Motorola Atrix and its laptop dock. It would eventually be Android powered Chromedock devices. Since Android 2.4 (codenamed: Ice-cream Sandwich) is said to be the end of android fragmentation and the merging of tablet experience and the mobile experience, unifying it brings developers some relief as they would just end up coding once and the experience is shared across multiple devices. I believe this is simply the beginning of Google unveiling their ultimate product line up yet, the unification of Android Ice-cream sandwich and the Chromebook.

The Chromedock essentially would be no different from the Motorola laptop dock. Both are powered by a tiny Linux kernel, both run applications within a browser, Firefox for Motorola and ChromeOS for ChromeDock. So I believe the upcoming Tegra-3  chip (quad-core based) would be an interesting mix to the entire deal as I believe that future Chromebooks would spot a dock-like feature which would allow Android ICS be docked and access all your contacts, applications via the Chrome browser and allow a user switch between Android-mode & Chromebook mode. In the end, it would be beautiful to fully live in the cloud as described by Google.

Since Google already has a solid move in it ChromeOS venture and partnerships with ACER & SAMSUNG, I believe these partners can develop ChromeDocks for future Android-powered phones. In the end, ACER, SAMSUNG and others would release Android-powered phones to work respectively with their ChromeDocks stations. Even Encipher would jump on this bandwagon.

What’s the future like?

Google’s strategy is to take over cloud computing not just via services but control the hardware and also certify such hardware. Their ultimate strategy isn’t really to kill the laptop PC running windows OS but to take over a budding cloud computing enterprise where industry players are yet to really make a big dent. In a bid to win the race for social, which Facebook currently dominates, they are creating hardware to help them connect to this social experience and monetize via it. I believe with such integration, Google kind of puts a dent in the social media experience in being able to integrate your social experience on a mobile device and ChromeDocks.

This also appeals to enterprises as Google has almost any services that are done in premise.  Their Google Apps & Google Apps marketplace has a plethora of applications that can compete with Microsoft anytime. Apps ranging from Google enterprise mail to ERP solutions. And this list is endless. Some are free while some are on a rent basis which allows one to ensure ROIs immediately rather than spend so much and wait for ROIs later on during the quarters.

Microsoft also has a cloud strategy for its products and also gaining recognition but with its slow pace within the tablet market and the mobile space, in the end a combo like a Android powered Tegra-3 device and a ChromeDocks might eventually slow down their pace in being king in such a thriving and bubbling space. This futuristic move might as well kill Microsoft in the enterprise market space where it is currently king. Although I strongly believe Microsoft office is still a killer reason why anyone would stick to Windows for a long time to come.

This also would eat deeply into other ERP solution providers like SAP and Oracle as all infrastructures would be hosted by Google and small start ups can compete with the big boys in terms of scalability without breaking the bank.

What’s in it for developers?

This could be a dream come true. Java’s inspiration as always been, “Write once, run everywhere”. Everywhere refers to any platform be it SPARC, INTEL etc. I believe with Android ICS + ChromeDocks, it would really be a true “Write once, run on every device”, every device being Tablets + Mobile + PC (Chromebooks, Windows, Linux), Apple (via Safari).

Developers wouldn’t need to boot different operating systems to build innovative programs anymore as there now cloud-based IDEs (e.g. Cloud9) which allows developers build and execute web apps straight from your browser. This would enable developers build scalable applications and test on Google App Engine instantly and test it out on the mobile for mobile phones, tablet via the tablet features of ICS via the Chromebook interface emulator for Tablets and finally on Chromebooks itself for a browser feel. Also remember, the Google web-based IDE for Android development (App Inventor) which allows building Android apps straight from your browser to the docked Android phone and tested straight from the ChromeDocks interface for mobiles all courtesy of the power of the ChromeOS.

What’s in the bank for Google?

At the end of the day, this has to translate to revenue for Google. As always, they have been generating revenue from search since inception and I believe it would be no different. Now that they certify both products (Chromebook & Android ICS), I believe they would invade users with ads (though in a positive way).

Interestingly, Chromebooks (ChromeDocks) could have a segment to the right-hand side with interactive HTML-5 ads which changes when a user searches for results. When a phone is docked, it instantly displays relevant apps from the market place which a user may choose to install directly on the docked phone and either played via the ChromeDocks or when the phone is undocked.

With YouTube having a lot of user-generated content and now trying to gain Live-TV attention, your bet is as good as mine. Youtube may replace your TV which in turn translates to more revenue for Google. It would be cool to have HDMI outputs from the ChromeDock to your TV and allows the user watch TV comfortably and use Bluetooth keyboard/Mouse to control the ChromeDocks (with phone docked) and can interact. Adverts would be streamed and played for the user based on interests all stored up in the cloud.

What’s fishy about all these?

Security

It all sounds good and fun, until a breach happens someplace and it dents our happiness. The recent SONY PLAYSTATION breach is a classic example. A lot of enterprises still love on-premise computing as they can safe-guard their data and also prevent exploitation from cloud infrastructure. Google must be able to ensure secured data and also timely delivery of critical transactions whilst using cloud-based applications.

Integrity

Would Google keep their integrity and maintain their mantra? The mantra “Don’t be evil” has shaped them to become a world-class company but occasional breaches such as the Google Street cars snooping of Wi-Fi passwords can dent such integrity especially since a ChromeDocks + Android combo would highly depend on such integrity. However, Google has been a kind company in admitting to such mistakes and I believe they genuinely admit when they cross lines that breaches their motto.

Outage

Ok, I love the idea of outsourcing all my on-premise computing infrastructure to the cloud but what in the world do I do if Google cloud infrastructure goes off for a few hours? I sit and hope they fix it. There have been outages even from the masters of cloud infrastructures. Amazon, Microsoft and Google occasionally report outage and end up apologizing. I believe we cannot dodge this fact since we are talking about computers running the infrastructure. They break down, parts needs to be replaced; OS needs to be upgraded etc. However, I believe Google in time would master the loopholes and provide incredible failovers for such outages. Only time will tell.

Bandwidth

Well, for most part of North America and some other parts of the world, this isn’t an issue but writing from Nigeria and being part of a budding enterprise here, it is a heavy concern. How would a thriving startup here plug into such an innovative idea without decent broadband?  They can’t. However there is hope, with more cables landing, I believe the prices would go down much further producing more competition and faster speed. It is also good that it is happening now so when the combo hits, we would be able to enjoy the innovation as well within Nigeria.

Final Thoughts

I hope I have been able to shed more light into what I believe might be a strategy Google might employ to marry both Android ICS + Chromebooks into what I have termed (Android ICS + ChromeDocks). Disclosure: I don’t work for Google so these are entirely my own insights and forecasts for a thriving cloud computing industry.

I believe strongly that Google I/O 2012 would be a very interesting one for Android + Chromebooks. They might even be giving away the duo for free. Either way, I hope to participate at Google I/O in 2012.

Saheed Adepoju is the Co-founder & CEO of Encipher Group, a software development company based in UK and Nigeria with expertise in ensuring that products and services are always available on the “cloud”, regardless of platform or device.

Image via: Reuters

Perhaps the most memorable royal wedding to date is that between Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer who got married on the 29^th of July, 1981 at St Paul’s Catheral before an invited audience of 3,500 and an estimated global TV audience of 750 million.

Fast-forward to 2011, about 30 years later and we are about to witness the first social media royal wedding between Prince William & Catherine Middleton, which could become the most memorable royal wedding of all time. William is second in line to the throne and marrying Middleton will make her the next Queen.

Apart from news coverage that could attract viewership from more than 1 billion people around the world, it is expected that people all over the world will be tweeting, facebooking and blogging on the day of the Royal Wedding.

Already, discussions about the Royal Wedding have taken over social media. According to Greenlight, a London-based independent search marketing specialist and technology firm, new research shows that in the past seven days the royal nuptials are getting one new mention every 10 seconds.

About 12 years ago, the world witnessed a Royal Wedding between Prince Edward Windsor and Sophie Rhys-Jones on the 19th of June 1999, but without the help of social media. Even the last Royal Wedding between Peter Phillips, the Queen’s eldest grandson and Autumn Kelly on 17 May 2008 (in the age of social media) couldn’t produce the world’s first social media royal wedding.

But on the 29^th of April, 2011, the world, yeah I mean even the worldwide web and the social web will witness the first ‘Royal Wedding’ of the digital age between Prince William & Catherine Middleton.

The Official Royal Wedding website for Prince William and Catherine Middleton’s wedding was launched on 2nd March and has received 9.5 million page views as at 19th April. The website features news and information about the royal wedding which holds at Westminster Abbey, London at 10 am (GMT +1).

The site, powered by the Google Apps Engine, provides details about the service, the procession and the reception. It also features exclusive photos and videos, including links to official Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube accounts as well as a virtual tour of Buckingham Palace.

For such a significant and historic event, social media has cemented its place in our lives and it’ll be interesting to see what impact this event would have on social media usage for future weddings.

Will the royal wedding help increase people’s hunger for social media weddings? Will you use social media for your wedding? If you’re already married, do you wish you used social media?

Sarah Lacy, one of TechCrunch’s senior editors is planning a visit to Nigeria in May 2011. She announced this recently on her Twitter page.

The internationally acclaimed technology entrepreneurship journalist and author travelled around emerging markets such as China, Isreal, Brazil, India, Rwanda and Indonesia looking for the best entrepreneurs that Silicon Valley (and perhaps the world) had never heard of and researching for her second book about tech entrepreneurship in the emerging world.

Last year, Lacy wrote a post likening emerging markets to dating, saying that she has “a raging crush on Kenya” and hoped to visit there early this year. I’m not sure if she has visited Kenya yet, but it seems Nigeria would be her third African visit to date.

While in Nigeria, Lacy would be attending the Tech Open Day with Sarah Lacy, an event that would provide an opportunity for Nigeria’s internet entrepreneurs to pitch their products and services to Lacy.

The event will hold at Quez’ ville, Eko Gym and Spa Complex, 9b Akarigbere Close, Off Idejo Street, Off Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island, Lagos on Thursday May 5, 2011 at 4pm.

It’ll be a great opportunity for her to meet with some of Nigeria’s tech entrepreneurs. And maybe she could discover a local product or service worth mentioning in her next book or even on TechCrunch.

Thanks to @OoTheNigerian for the tip.

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President Jonathan would be campaigning in the United States for the first time since he flagged off his presidential campaign around Nigeria.

As such, The Jonathan Diasporan campaign would be broadcast live on Ustream 14th March at 7pm (PST), that is on 15th March, 3am (Nigerian time).

The President would be represented by his Senior Special Adviser on Strategy, Oronto Douglas (pictured above), who is an environmental rights lawyer recently listed as world’s most influential thinkers.

Announcing the event, the President posted this on his Facebook page a couple of hours ago:

As earlier mentioned, I am taking my detailed plans for Nigeria to all Nigerians including those in the Diaspora and my SSA on Strategy, Oronto Douglas, will represent me at a policy briefing in California. It will be broadcast live on this page and streamed at http//www.ustream.tv/channel/diaspora4jonathan at 7pm (PST) while questions will be entertained by teleconference: 17124320075, Access Code: 538351.

The event is scheduled to hold at the Courtyard Marriott, 5555 Shellmound St Emeryville, CA.

If you’re in Nigeria, you can watch the event live via Ustream on the Diaspora4Jonathan channel at 3am, on 15th March.

MIT Sloan Africa Business Club presents it’s inaugural conference “Africa 2.0: Achieving Growth Through Innovation”.

In 2010, top African markets experienced a remarkable level of investment capital flow and exit activity as investors enjoyed returns of up to 36.5%.

As a result, several top economies within the African region have forecasted 2011 GDP growth rates over twice that of the United States.

According to The Economist, Ghana will enjoy the 2nd fastest GDP growth globally in 2011.

The confluence of these events provides a great backdrop to launch an Africa Business Conference at the MIT Sloan School of Management to spotlight ideas with the potential to shape the future of the continent.

The conference intends to bring together people working on ideas that will shape the African continent for years to come. The event will include a mix of speakers and panel sessions covering areas of innovation in Africa including Telecoms & Mobiles, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Healthcare and Energy.

Energy Panel will answer the question: With Africa’s growing energy demand in an increasingly carbon constrained age, what opportunities exist renewables?

Mobile Panel will answer the question: With half a billion mobile phones in the Africa, what firms are utilizing this infrastructure to deploy innovative solutions beyond voice service?

Finance Panel will answer the question: With most Africans still unbanked and without access to financial markets, what solutions are currently being developed for this market?

Entrepreneurship Panel will answer the questions: Why has an eco-system to support entrepreneurs yet to emerge in Africa? What are the constraints of developing a venture capital industry?

Technology Panel will answer the question: How is technology being adapted to creat value in Africa given the IT constraint on most of the continent?

The unifying theme will be a perspective on how today’s students and tomorrow leaders will impact the continent by putting ideas to work.

This event is scheduled for the 1st of April 2011 on the 6th Floor of the New MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Tickets are currently being sold between $40 to $60 at Event Brite until February 28th.

The event is scheduled to hold from Tuesday, Feb 8 – Thursday, Feb 10, 2011 at the MUSON Centre in Lagos, Nigeria.

At the forum, the emerging web entrepreneurs will interface with established technology business leaders in Nigeria including Austin Okere, Group CEO, Computer Warehouse Group; Florence Seriki, Group CEO, Omatek; Leo Stan Ekeh, Chairman, Zinox Technologies, among others.

Here are the invited panelists:

1. Ore Somolu, Executive Director, Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC).

2. Gbenga Sesan, Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN).

3. Juliet Ehimuan, GM, Strategic Business Unit, Chams Plc.

4. Adebola Oni, MD/CEO, NaijaMotivation.

5. Bode Pedro, MD, Veda Technology.

6. Uche Eze, Founder, BellaNaija.

7. Nkemdilim Uwaje, CEO, FutureSoft.

8. Saheed Adepoju, Co-founder, Encipher Group.

9. Tayo Oviosu, Co-founder, Pagatech.

10. Loy Okezie, Founder, TechLoy.

Since its debut in 2008, Technology Times Business Outlook Summit has become Nigeria’s must-attend annual ICT event where decision makers accross the ICT ecosystem converge every February to point the compass in the direction of the industry is headed.

You can join these young technology game changers at the Technology Times Outlook 2011 and discover how they intend to shape the tech space in 2011 and beyond.

Register online for free at www.tech360.com.ng.

Jobberman on mobile let’s you select and search for ‘Jobs By Category’, just as you can on the web. It also allows you to apply for the jobs listed, though you have to sign up or login. However, the mobile version does not have a search bar that allows for quick search by specific keywords.

The mobile version can be accessed via m.jobberman.com or mobile.jobberman.com from your mobile phone and on the web. Here’s what it looks like from a Blackberry device.

As the fastest growing online job portal in Nigeria, Jobberman places a high premium on job search that is relevant and up-to-the-minute.  Obviously, the job search market in Nigeria is saturated and needs a lot of innovation and strategy. Still, the job search industry is very exciting and potentially lucrative.

With strengths in technology, design, innovation and strategy, Jobberman seems to be the game-changer in the online job market. For example, when you are talking about Web 2.0 tools and social media solutions to searching and finding jobs in Nigeria, Jobberman.com is the place to go to.

In one of my recent discussions with Jobberman’s Co-founder, Ayodeji Adewunmi, he mentioned that their mobile version will come with SMS alerts and short codes in the delivery of job vacancies.

He also revealed that Jobberman is currently developing a blackberry app which in my opinion is smart, but would only attract a smaller audience given the fact that Nokia phones seem to be the most popular and widely used in Nigeria.

With almost 4000 jobs posted, over 1000 companies listed, 50, 000+ user base and 10,000+ CVs on its database in less than one year of launch, Jobberman.com is one of the job portals to watch in the African space.

You’ve probably heard of Internet words such as Facebooked, Googled, Youtubed, Twittered, Afrigator’d, Crunchbased and many others. Now you can add “Memeburned” to your Internet lexicon:-)

Here’s my own definition:

Memeburned is the act of being tech-fed with web-savvy insights and analysis from key thought leaders within the emerging market sector.

- Loy Okezie

Launched in April 2010, Memeburn (pronounced “meemburn”) is a technology site tracking innovation, social media, culture and business. Memeburn is particularly focused on telling the world startup news and tech entrepreneurs’ stories from the emerging market sector.

The site features topics such as Social Networking, Mobile, Media 2.0, Future trends, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Social Media, Advertising, Augmented reality, Open source, Gadgets, Startups, Design, Newspapers and lots more.

According to Memeburn founder, Matthew Buckland: “It [Memeburn] is going to be a Mashable/Techcrunch for emerging markets and will focus on SA and Africa”.

In April, its first month of launch, the site recorded almost 25,000 uniques and about 40,000 page impressions, according to Google Analytics and is now registered on Google News as a quality content provider, giving further exposure to articles. The site currently has about 80 contributors and I’m delighted to be one of them.

Interestingly, you can read my first piece on Memeburn about some of the hottest Nigerian startups to watch.

I think this is great exposure for startups and innovations from Nigeria and Africa, especially since Memeburn appears on Google News results which makes it widely read by local and global tech pundits, venture capitalists and more.

If you think your startup deserves a mention or feature, you can submit your startup here for review.

Do you feel embarrassed when asking questions to a doctor pertaining to your health. Many people do. Now what if you stumbled upon a site that makes it easy for you to obtain reliable answers to your health-related questions without any feelings of embarrassment?

DokitaSAYS.com allows you to ask health-related questions and get answers from real doctors. With a team of volunteer medical doctors, DokitaSAYS provides a single answer to each of the questions asked on the site.

The site which launched May 7, 2010 in beta version currently has 15 questions already asked by anonymous persons. The main aim of DokitaSAYS is to provide access to free and quality health-information that will help people everywhere live a more fulfilling life. They hope to open up a new opportunity for those that do not have access to quality health information to do so at no cost.

How DokitaSAYS works?

Ask your question in the box provided.

Volunteer Medical Doctors answer your question.

The answer is sent to you by email (for registered users only).

What’s Unique?

Unlike other sites where, an unlimited, often confusing answers are provided to questions, DokitaSAYS only provides one answer to a question. Obviously, this helps the user to make a decision instead of limping upon two or more different opinions. Besides, multiple answers to a particular question could be confusing at times. Also, DokitaSAYS helps protect your identity by asking any question anonymously. That way, you don’t feel embarrassed.

The site features user activity stream that shows questions that have been asked, popular questions, answered questions, unanswered questions, tags and a comment system that allows only login users (presumably, the volunteer doctors) to answer the questions. DokitaSAYS also features a Yoruba version. Dokita is the Yoruba word for Doctor.

In one year, DokitaSAYS hopes to have answered 1 million questions, directly and indirectly reached 10 million people, make the service available in 50 different languages, have 100,000 volunteer doctors and make a difference in the world.

The Upside

I’m not a techie-techie person but I think that DokitaSAYS is built under the Yii PHP framework. From my findings, the Yii framework is a high-performance component-based PHP framework best for developing large-scale Web applications. Yii also provides nearly every feature needed by today’s Web 2.0 application development and seems to be one of the most efficient PHP frameworks around.

The Downside

Although the site was founded by a Medical Doctor with expertise from esteemed volunteer doctors, the information provided do not take the place of a professional advice. While DokitaSAYS claims they trust the knowledge of their volunteer doctors, the answers provided does not in anyway represent a professional medical advice, counsel, diagnosis or treatment.

My thoughts

I think this is a cool service and resource centre for health-related matters. Although the site has just launched and doesn’t have any questions answered yet, it’s got huge potentials. I’m not sure whether the answers would be short and simple or in essay form like AskTheDoctor.com, but whatever the case, the fact that real doctors would provide one answer to each question is heartwarming.

Also, that questions asked would be done anonymously makes sense, since people would naturally not want to share their personal health issues in public. Granted, in order to get the right answer, the doctor needs to know you better, your allergies, your medication history and other related matters like AskTheDoctor.com that requires your personal information and medical background before you can ask a health question.

Finally, if managed well, DokitaSAYS could grow to become a great user-driven community of health-conscious people. A mobile version will be a good tool for quicker access to health information. Also, a cool directory of health centres in Nigeria browsed on the go as well as a health crisis tracking and management tool with real-time news updates on DokitaSAYS will be major hit.

With Twitter’s success in providing real-time information to users around the world, we’re left second-guessing what the future of the web would become. At the time of writing this, Twitter is the 11th most visited site in the world as well as in Nigeria, according to Alexa, with over 100 million users worldwide.

Last week, Yarnable.com, a new micro-blogging startup based in Sokoto, in Nigeria’s hilly northern region launched in private beta. For now, you need an invite code (yeah, like a VIP pass) in order to gain access to the platform.

Interestingly, I’ve got only 20 invites for the first 20 people that comment on this post and who are interested to sign up and test the platform.

Yarnable founder, Ahmad Mukoshy – also creator of the URL-shortener, Yrn.me – in a blog post announcing the private beta launch described Yarnable as “the long awaited 140 character based micro-discussion site that allow users to do more than just a typical conversation.”

While I’m impressed with the service, I’m yet to see something that could turn me away from Twitter or Gistcaster. Already, there are indications that Yarnable will look different and unique especially with the categories you can create for different topics.

What are the features?

Yarnable has a very cooool interface that makes you want to stay and keep talking (oh yeah…yarning). It also features Status Updates, Private Messaging, Discussion Boards and Topics, Private Board, User Profile, @mentions and some other features. No #hastags yet.

Users can generate discussions around Technology, Entertainment, Careers, Politics, Business and lots more which are neatly organized in the Yarnable’s discussion boards. For now, this feature is what makes Yarnable look different from Twitter or Gistcaster. According to Mukoshy, the private beta session will last a month and would be open to the public at BarCamp Nigeria 2010 on May 22.

Final thoughts

With an impressive amount of Nigerians and Nigerian companies already using Twitter, there seem to be a debate about Nigerian startups and tech entrepreneurs capitalizing on this rather than trying to launch their own version.

Dejo Fabolude, an industry analyst who blogs at Digital-Crossings.com suggested that “what we need is Nigerians using APIs to build new services on top of the well-known platforms.” While I agree with Dejo, my concern is about the business models these startups are adopting.

Twitter recently launched their ad platform which is officially called “Promoted Tweets” and already includes ad partners like Best Buy, Virgin America, Starbucks, and Bravo. Advertisers will be paying on a CPM basis initially, with plans to adjust the model once Twitter can better gauge how people are engaging with Promoted Tweets.

If Yarnable offers something unique, grow their user base, goes mainstream, possibly get funding, they might become the next big thing.