Stephen Newton took the reins at Google South Africa this month after the search giant’s previous SA Country Manager, Stafford Masie, resigned suddenly in March this year. Before coming to South Africa Newton was Google head of analytics and commerce for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).<\/p>\n
Newton said that he will focus on two key areas as the new head of Google SA: Access and Awareness-raising. “In South Africa, we want to educate people and businesses about the value of online, and online advertising. There are plenty of people who know how to run a business offline very well. We want to translate some of the technology jargon and to help them to understand the benefits of getting their business online,” said Newton.<\/p>\n
“For the 90% of the country’s population who can’t access the Internet through desktop computers, we are focusing on access. There is very high mobile phone penetration in South Africa, with 98% of people having access to a mobile phone. So, as elsewhere in Africa, we’ll also be thinking about how to provide better access to the internet with our continuing innovations in mobile technology,” said the new Google SA head.<\/p>\n
Newton’s predecessor told local Internet users in 2007 that Google was planning to establish a local presence in South Africa, bringing services like Gmail and Google Maps closer to local users. Since then Google has been mum on locally hosted services.<\/p>\n
Newton would not be drawn into discussions about locally hosted Google servers, only saying “We can’t give you any specific comment on the local hosting.” Newton did however add that “Fast, innovative products are crucial for our users and require significant computing power. As a result, Google invests heavily in technical facilities around the world and is constantly on the look-out for additional locations. However, we don’t comment on possible sites or locations.”<\/p>\n