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E-Business

Looking For Agility “As A Service”

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adebayo sanni, country managing director, Oracle Nigeria
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The drive for improved agility and more rapid deployment of services is a main concern for business leaders across virtually all industry sectors.

For their part, IT decision-makers are under increased pressure to make sure business solutions can deliver on these ambitions.

In its latest “Business Value Scorecard”, Forrester found that business leaders increasingly measure success by comparing what percentage of their IT-spend actually fuels innovation to how much just helps “keep the lights on”.

This view of success is undoubtedly a large driver behind the rapid rise of cloud computing in the past few years, and why the technology has today joined the enterprise’s formal IT portfolio.

In its many forms, the technology offers businesses a gateway to improved agility.

To add to this, vendors’ cloud offerings today have at once become more varied and more granular, which means discerning companies can pick and choose exactly from a large menu of business solutions to suit their needs.

The public cloud, in particular, has become popular with businesses seeking a cost-effective means to reduce their time-to-market for new services or quickly deliver crucial add-ons to customers using their existing offerings.

With customer satisfaction scores now serving as a measure of success for IT initiatives, it’s hardly surprising that the market for Software-as-Service (SaaS) cloud solutions is set to expand by 17 per cent each year up to 2018.

The public cloud has already earned a reputation as an enabler of service agility in a number of fields, with the healthcare industry serving as a prime example of this.

According to a recent survey, 67 per cent of healthcare institutions use SaaS cloud-based applications.

What’s just as notable, however, is what these organizations expect from the cloud. 45 per cent of respondents cited “speed to deploy new services” as a top measure of the cloud’s value to their business.

This fell only slightly behind the top measure – “improving technological capabilities” – which is of course the central purpose of any technology investment.

SaaS cloud solutions area also leading the pack in this regard by helping mid-sized businesses and expansion-oriented larger companies gain agility in the pursuit of their growth ambitions.

As they become more successful, businesses will need to build on the breadth and functionality of their IT systems.

SaaS applications allow organizations to very quickly make scale-appropriate upgrades and implement expansion packages developed specifically for their needs.

As a result, they can make the jump to the “next level” without the high costs and growing pains that have traditionally accompanied these expansions.

Of course, companies will continue to consume the cloud in different ways depending on their needs.

For example, while many financial institutions and government bodies do make wide use of SaaS, others may have specific requirements that make an in-house cloud platform more appropriate for some applications.

That being said, business agility takes many forms. By taking advantage of the variety of cloud platforms available to them today companies can actually gain a great deal of flexibility when launching new services.

Because SaaS applications from established vendors are built on the same heritage and technologies as those traditionally developed for in-house IT systems, companies can seamlessly transition between a public and private structure as they see fit.

Business leaders eager to launch new services quickly to stay ahead of the market can roll these out in the cloud in a matter of weeks, and then move them in-house if they want to keep valuable data or processes out of the public domain down the line.

The truth is that the debate over which cloud platform – SaaS, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, or one of the many other options available – is creating a lot of noise but has in fact become a moot point.

Ultimately, business leaders will make intelligent investment decisions as they always have – first determining what pain points they want to address and then choosing whichever cloud platform and add-on services they need to address these challenges.

For example, many businesses have already begun to create their own mobile applications to empower employees to work more collaboratively and productively using their connected devices.

Applications developers need the proper tools and resource libraries to build this software, and will fuel rising demand for Platform-as-a-Service cloud solutions in the coming years.

No matter what they want to achieve with the cloud, what IT leaders will notice is that the breadth and customization options offered by vendors today present them with a seemingly unlimited range of options to choose from.

With the level of flexibility and extensibility available to them, it will be up to business leaders to choose the most suitable cloud platform for their needs, and build on their investment by developing services and add-ons that will set them apart and help them remain agile no matter what the market throws their way.

By adebayo sanni, country managing director, Oracle Nigeria


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Nigeria CommunicationsWeek believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. So since 2007, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and how they affect lives.

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AI Slows Down some Experienced Software Developers, Study Finds

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Contrary to popular belief, using cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools slowed down experienced software developers when they were working in codebases familiar to them, rather than supercharging their work, a new study found.

AI research nonprofit METR conducted the in-depth study, on a group of seasoned developers earlier this year while they used Cursor, a popular AI coding assistant, to help them complete tasks in open-source projects they were familiar with.

Before the study, the open-source developers believed using AI would speed them up, estimating it would decrease task completion time by 24%. Even after completing the tasks with AI, the developers believed that they had decreased task times by 20%. But the study found that using AI did the opposite: it increased task completion time by 19%.

The study’s lead authors, Joel Becker and Nate Rush, said they were shocked by the results: prior to the study, Rush had written down that he expected “a 2x speed up, somewhat obviously.”

The findings challenge the belief that AI always makes expensive human engineers much more productive, a factor that has attracted substantial investment into companies selling AI products to aid software development.

AI is also expected to replace entry-level coding positions. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently told Axios that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs in the next one to five years.

Prior literature on productivity improvements has found significant gains: one study found using AI sped up coders by 56%, another study found developers were able to complete 26% more tasks in a given time.

But the new METR study shows that those gains don’t apply to all software development scenarios. In particular, this study showed that experienced developers intimately familiar with the quirks and requirements of large, established open source codebases experienced a slowdown.

Other studies often rely on software development benchmarks for AI, which sometimes misrepresent real-world tasks, the study’s authors said.

The slowdown stemmed from developers needing to spend time going over and correcting what the AI models suggested.

“When we watched the videos, we found that the AIs made some suggestions about their work, and the suggestions were often directionally correct, but not exactly what’s needed,” Becker said.

The authors cautioned that they do not expect the slowdown to apply in other scenarios, such as for junior engineers or engineers working in codebases they aren’t familiar with.

Still, the majority of the study’s participants, as well as the study’s authors, continue to use Cursor today.

The authors believe it is because AI makes the development experience easier, and in turn, more pleasant, akin to editing an essay instead of staring at a blank page.

“Developers have goals other than completing the task as soon as possible,” Becker said. “So they’re going with this less effortful route.”

 


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Firm Uncovers $500K Crypto Heist Through Malicious Packages

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Kaspersky GReAT (Global Research and Analysis Team) experts have discovered open-source packages that download the Quasar backdoor and a stealer designed to exfiltrate cryptocurrency. The malicious packages are intended for the Cursor AI development environment, which is based on Visual Studio Code — a tool used for AI-assisted coding.

The malicious open-source packages are extensions hosted in the Open VSX repository that claim to provide support for the Solidity programming language. However, in practice, they download and execute malicious code on users’ devices.

During an incident response, a blockchain developer from Russia reached out to Kaspersky after installing one of these fake extensions on his computer, which allowed attackers to steal approximately $500,000 worth of crypto assets.

The threat actor behind these packages managed to deceive the developer by making the malicious package rank higher than the legitimate one. The attacker achieved this by artificially inflating the malicious package’s downloads count to 54,000.

After installation, the victim gained no actual functionality from the extension. Instead, malicious ScreenConnect software was installed on the computer, granting threat actors remote access to the infected device.

Using this access, they deployed the open-source Quasar backdoor along with a stealer that collects data from browsers, email clients, and crypto wallets. With these tools, the threat actors were able to obtain the developer’s wallet seed phrases and subsequently steal cryptocurrency from the accounts.

After the malicious extension downloaded by the developer was discovered and removed from the repository, the threat actor republished it and artificially inflated its installation count to a higher number – 2 million, compared to 61,000 for the legitimate package. The extension was removed from the platform following a request from Kaspersky.

“Spotting compromised open-source packages with the naked eye is becoming increasingly difficult. Threat actors are using increasingly creative tactics to deceive potential victims, even developers who have a strong understanding of cybersecurity risks — particularly those working in the blockchain development field.

As we expect adversaries to continue targeting developers, it is recommended that even experienced IT professionals deploy dedicated security solutions to safeguard sensitive data and prevent financial losses,” commented Georgy Kucherin, Security Researcher with Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.

The threat actor behind the attack published not only malicious Solidity extensions but also another NPM package, solsafe, which also downloads ScreenConnect. A few months earlier, three additional malicious Visual Studio Code extensions were released — solaibot, among-eth, and blankebesxstnion — all of them have already been removed from the repository.


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NITDA Reaffirms Commitment to 95% Digital Literacy by 2030, as UBEC Pledges Collaboration

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DG NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa CCIE (left), receiving an award for an Ambassador of Basic Education from the ES UBEC, Hajia Aisha Garba (right)
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Kashifu Inuwa CCIE, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has reaffirmed the Federal Government’s unwavering commitment to achieving 95% digital literacy across Nigeria by the year 2030, with an ambitious milestone of 70% by 2027.

This disclosure was made in total alignment with the present administration’s priority areas of reforming the economy for sustained inclusive growth and accelerating diversification through industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing, and innovation.

Making this known during a collaborative meeting hosted by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Inuwa highlighted the government’s strategic prioritisation of human capital development as central to its national transformation agenda.

“We started this journey in 2023 when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came on board and he made it clear that economic diversification and inclusivity are part of the administration’s agenda,” he noted.

“And the president outlined this in 8 priority areas to achieve the vision, with priority number 7 specifically focused on accelerating industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing, and innovation,” he added.

Recognising the importance of digital fluency in achieving this agenda, he stated that NITDA is committed to investing in the digital empowerment of citizens through the development of the National Digital Literacy Framework (NDLF), a strategic blueprint aligned with international best practices.

He added that to tailor the framework to Nigeria’s specific needs, 6 core competency areas were incorporated to include device and software operations, information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, content creation, safety, and problem solving.

He explained that the framework would address all levels of digital fluency, from basic, intermediate to advanced levels, to make digital skills accessible to every Nigerian, from primary school pupils to working professionals.

According to Inuwa, despite data limitations, NITDA estimates that Nigeria’s digital literacy rate currently stands at 50%, up from 44% in 2021, based on extrapolations from the World Bank’s Better Life Report.

The NITDA DG disclosed that the agency has been working closely with the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) in developing a curriculum for digital literacy, which can be infused into formal education. Stating that the visit is a continuation of NITDA’s ongoing engagements with key education stakeholders, including the Federal Ministry of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC), and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), all aimed at advancing digital literacy across all levels of learning.

Inuwa also revealed ongoing collaborations with global platforms such as Coursera to train teachers using AI-powered lesson generation tools and provide scalable online training.

It is worth recalling that late last year, NITDA partnered with the Nasarawa State University in collaboration with CISCO in launching the Digital Learning for NSUK (DL4NSUK) initiative to enhance digital literacy in tertiary institutions, and equipping graduates with the skills needed to be digitally proficient and globally competitive.

While stressing that the entire process, from curriculum development to classroom delivery, would require a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, Inuwa said, “This is not a journey we can walk alone; we must bring everyone on board, education stakeholders, technology providers, state governments, and international partners.”

In response to the DG’s remarks, UBEC Executive Secretary, Hajiya Aisha Garba, confirmed that the Commission has officially received the digital literacy curriculum developed by NITDA and NERDC and has commenced internal review processes.

She acknowledged the curriculum as robust and forward-looking but stressed the need for simplification to suit early learners and teachers, citing challenges such as curriculum overload, limited teacher capacity, and inadequate infrastructure as key barriers to effective implementation.

She pledged that UBEC, in partnership with the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), will lead efforts to equip schools with computers and solar-powered infrastructure to support real learning.

“We’re committed to working with NITDA and NERDC to refine the curriculum, train teachers, and ensure effective delivery. Let us align the technical vision with grassroots realities to make a lasting impact,” she concluded.

To formalise the implementation of the meeting’s resolutions, a joint inter-agency committee was established to develop strategic plans that will ensure the effective rollout of the digital literacy initiative, to equip young Nigerians with the essential digital skills required to thrive in an increasingly dynamic and technology-driven global landscape.


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