In a 2005 article, Gregg Zachary asks "Could Africa become the next India?" The stimulus could be a combination of home-grown talent, improvements in education (both formal and informal), and investment by companies like Microsoft and Sun.

Faced with the daunting challenges of poverty, underdeveloped infrastructure, disease and civil war, few might consider the continent a budding technology hotspot. Yet over the last decade Microsoft Corp. has been investing money and resources to foster growth in the region and its efforts are starting to pay off.

"Obviously there is a significant gap between Africa and more developed countries, but I must admit it's one of the fastest growing regions in the world," said Jean-Philippe Courtois, chief executive officer for Microsoft in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

The continent is made up of relatively young countries -- in some, over half the population is between 25 and 30 years old -- and its leaders are looking to IT to narrow the development gap, Courtois said.

While Africa is nowhere near supplanting India as an outsourcing location, or China as a consumer market, five to 10 years from now that may start to change as governments in the region focus on hemming up the digital divide.

Interestingly, Microsoft and Sun are both doing work in Africa, and see it as both a potential future market and source of cheap programming labor, but are pursuing those opportunities in different ways:

From South Africa to Kenya, and along the Ivory Coast, the software titan [Microsoft] has been investing millions of dollars in offices, training centers, education programs and e-government projects to help bring developing communities into the digital age....

Rival Sun Microsystems Inc. also has a presence on the continent, with one office in South Africa serving the sub-Saharan region and another office in Egypt. Sun is not as active as Microsoft in partnering with African governments, as its focus is investing in the software developer market and promoting its Java programming language, according to Dumisani Mtoba, senior systems engineer at Sun's South Africa office.

"We are working to gain exposure and there is a growing Java ecosystem in the region, which delights us," Mtoba said.

The African market has grown significantly over the last few years, and there is a lot of interest in software development, according to Mtoba. Sun's challenge is to make sure that local developers are taught Java since they usually continue to program in the language they learn in school, Mtoba said.

Microsoft, on the other hand, is able to gain exposure for its .Net programming language through its broad work with governments and investment in training centers.

Sun has one center for Java training in a South African university, but its activities have been mainly focused on reaching the developer community.