Everlytic is more connected to its business partners than ever before. This is after South Africa’s most trusted bulk communication platform company held its…
New Google head for South Africa
South Africa has a new Google boss.
Stafford Masie, the former head of Novell South Africa and a relative unknown outside IT circles, has been appointed the new South Africa Google head, reports ITWeb and Mail & Guardian Online.
It’s taken them a while to find the person. The job has been advertised for over two years via the Google website. I know quite a few people — mainly in the online media sector — who were interviewed for the job, and the option they went for, someone who works for a software company, is an interesting choice. At first glance it looks like a safe, but good choice. It probably gave Google comfort that they were appointing someone who worked for a local arm of a US-based company and had international experience in the IT sector. I’m also pretty sure I have an inkling of another South African who was offered the job, but didn’t get it, because I believe he was asking too much.
Tectonic reports that Masie has spent time working in the US and has been a key, and outspoken, figure in the open source and Linux movement in the country.
Given that Google’s strategy is all determined in the US — you would expect the local position to primarily be that of implementation with a strong sales function to push the use of Google adsense/adwords. After all Google is mainly an advertising agency these days if you go by where its revenue streams are derived from. And yes, it’s a search engine too.