Google has announced partnerships with both the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure and the Kenya Education Network to provide both institutions with Google Apps such as Gmail, Google Calander, Google Talk, and Google Docs. The governments and educational systems of the two countries will begin to freely use the Google online applications to communicate and organize their data.
This all sounds well and good, and I'm all for supplying African nations with better technology, but aren't all these apps free already? I mean, what exactly is Google doing here that's so great ? It doesn't seem like they're providing, you know, computers connected to the Internet that are able to utilize these services or anything. It seems like that would be a lot more helpful than merely not charging for personalization of their services. It seems like it's merely an exclusive deal that benefits Google more than the institutions they're trying to get good PR by "helping" to me.