The penetration of mobile phones and mobile technologies in developing countries has led to innovative developments of various m-Health applications. These applications have proven the potential of mobile technologies for improving the quality of health care service in general and the fight against HIV/AIDS in particular. However, to achieve greater impact on the ground level (e.g. in an antiretroviral (ARV) treatment clinic) in a developing country's context, these applications have to be adopted and their utilization sustained. A study was undertaken to investigate sustainability and scalability challenges of mobile phone-based applications/projects for HIV/AIDS care in developing countries and the adoption and sustainability prospects of such m-Health applications in an ARV clinic in Pretoria. The findings presented here, are that from a care givers' and patients' perspective, adoption and sustainability of these applications is not merely dependent on the proposed technology's capabilities to enhance service delivery. Adoption and sustainability is however, mostly dependant on: (1) the care givers and patients' willingness and capability to incur any technological adoption and continuous use costs and, (2) their pre-conceived notions of government or sponsor-supported service provision.These technologies have the potential to improve access to health care services [43] particularly in developing countries where mobile phones are more prevalent than ICTs such as landlines, telephones and the internet [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. In these regions the healthcare system constantly faces challenges such as infrastructural deficit, resources shortages, tropical diseases and the burden of widespread diseases such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic [43]. The magnitude of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in developing countries combined with the contextual healthcare provision factors in many ARV clinics has raised the need to develop innovative ways to tackle the complexity that involves the provision of adequate health care in such circumstances.The exploration of the potential of mobile phones in the fight against HIV/AIDS has led to the establishment of mobile phone-based projects for HIV/AIDS care and the development of mobile phone-based applications for health care in developing countries such as South Africa, India, Rwanda, Peru, Uganda, etc [39]. These applications fall in the following utilisation areas: Education and Awareness, Remote Data Collection, Remote Monitoring, Communication and Training for healthcare workers, Disease and Epidemic Outbreak Tracking, and Diagnostic and treatment support [39]. White [42] and Fynn et al [11] note that these applications take advantage of the mobility and flexibility that mobile phones provide, in combination with other ICT technologies such as the internet and database technologies, the potential to overcome many of the barriers of distance and cost facing developing countries.Although these applications have proven the potential ...

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Free / Libre open source software (FLOSS/OSS) has gained increasing popularity and utilisation in commercial and governmental organisations. Universities like Harvard and Stanford now offer courses on open source as a business and also on how businesses can compete with open source firms. However, very little research has been published in regards to the influence of OSS on business strategies; the use of OSS as a viable business or its value proposition within a commercial entity. The business model, a powerful tool for extracting economic value from the potential of technological innovation, clearly plays an important role in the success of a business. In this paper we investigate the role of open source in the business models of Red Hat and IBM and describe how OSS has contributed to their success. A framework recently developed by some of the authors is used to evaluate and identify the key factors important to the integration of OSS strategies into traditional business models.

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