By James Ratemo
For the fourth year running, Kenyaweb, an Internet Service Provider, emerged the top web developer company of the year.
Picking the award during the Computer Society Annual Awards ceremony in Nairobi, Kenyaweb Marketing Manager Gerald Ongoro attributed the performance to support from clients.
He, however, said the company faces competition from emerging firms, who traditionally did not handle data and Internet provision.
He said mobile phone operators are now offering data transfer and Internet services — hence thinning out their turf.
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He called on Communication Commission of Kenya to ensure the licensing regime allows fair play and curbs unfair competition.
He said despite the fall in the prices of Internet connectivity, more users are yet to buy bandwidth. "This slows down any progress that should result from the landing of the fibre optic cable."
He said due to the hard economic times, end users are yet to start purchasing Internet bandwidth in bulk.
"End-users buy bandwidth in small quantities of about 256kb to 512kb," he said. We, however, hope that end users would purchase up to 3mb Internet capacity."
With cheaper and efficient bandwidth, Ongoro said small and medium enterprises are now integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the business including financial, information, security, and personnel management through computerisation of office systems.
Officiating the Wednesday awards ceremony was Local Government Minister Musalia Mudavadi who called on the ICT industry to assist the country achieve wider online presence.
He urged ICT specialists to exploit the undersea optic cable to help local authorities improve their operations and curb misuse of resources.
"This will empower local authorities with tools for greater transparency and accountability through improved financial management, operational functions and information flows to stakeholders as well as clients," he said.
Mudavadi said ICT eases the calculation of revenue inflows and outflows including receipting, payroll, cashbook, and bank reconciliations.
Local authorities have in the past been rocked with scandals that should have been prevented if ICT was integrated into the authorities’ accunting functions.
