23/02/2008 17:31 - (SA)
Google’s African search starts in SA
Dikatso Mametse
GOOGLE is planning to expand its footprint in Africa with new offices in South Africa, one in Kenya and some participation in the Rwandan online environment.
Africa and South America make the least use of Google’s search engine compared to the rest of the world.
Stafford Masie, the head of Google South Africa, introduced his company to the media this week, saying: “We want to light up Africa.”
The press conference had a casual feel with Masie, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, addressing the audience.
Perhaps this laidback attitude is one of the reasons why Fortune magazine wrote that Google was voted the best company to work for.
Some of the perks that Googlers – Google employees – working at the company’s headquarters in California enjoy is a free shuttle service to and from work.
If you refer a friend to work at the company, you get a cash reward, if you have a baby, you get a $500 (about R3 900) takeaway food voucher. You can also do your washing in the company’s laundry room. And there are more benefits – a childcare centre, a massage room, on-site doctors, if you feel ill. All these extras are available for free.
That’s enough to make anyone quit their job and become a Googler. Masie did. He left his job as managing director of IT company Novell to head Google in South Africa.
Masie spent four years as the head of Novell SA. He joined the company in 1996 as product marketing director, then as global business strategist for Novell Inc and then global corporate technology strategist in 2001. In 2003, he was made managing director of the company.
Born and raised in Eldorado Park, Masie says he and his peers grew up admiring the area’s gangsters and their lifestyles – money, flashy cars and women. He says that was all he knew.
Masie says the difference between him and his peers was that his father sent him overseas where he was exposed to a totally new way of life.
He began living a life that led him to becoming the South African head of a $157 billion global company.
He says the Google story plays into that by offering South Africa, Africa and the world a different perspective.
Masie is also a microlight pilot, a qualified private pilot and a scuba diver. He says the plan he and his team have for South Africa is to localise Google.
“We want to educate and empower every business so it knows how to build better websites and search engines. We want to show businesses how to get people online. Google can create revenue for people by helping them use our tools to create content . . . and then make money.”
Masie is referring to the Cape Town blogger who earns R3 million a month from Google by using Google’s Adsense offering.
Masie says Google has identified the mobile communications sector as having the biggest potential.
He says statistics from mobile operators show that 78% of cellphone users don’t have PCs and 80% of them will never have a PC.
Douglas Merrill, Google’s vice-president of engineering, was also at the launch. Neither of them would answer any questions about new products to be launched locally.
However, Merrill said Google still had a lot of work to do to support more languages to “know what other people in other parts of the world are saying about you”.
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