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South Africa: Innovation Key for SA Cloud SPs |
| Source: |
IT Web News |
| Source Date: |
Tuesday, July 01, 2014 |
| Focus: |
ICT for MDGs
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| Country: |
South Africa |
| Created: |
Jul 01, 2014 |
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"This makes it increasingly difficult for local cloud providers to compete. Africa is ripe with opportunity for public cloud solutions, and local service providers need to embrace innovation if they are to effectively position themselves in a competitive international market."
In an African context, he says, the public cloud is particularly applicable, considering the continent features a large population where small to medium enterprises (SMEs) form a major sector of business and only around 60% of these businesses currently have access to e-mail. Public cloud solutions enable these SME organisations to access cost-effective world-class services quickly and easily, without the need to finance expensive infrastructure.
"Public cloud offerings will give businesses in Africa access to robust, effective services on a ‘pay-as-you-use' basis, making access to solutions possible from anywhere, without the need for capital investment," states Skipp. "The public cloud brings datacentre-based technology within reach of a far broader market – anyone with an endpoint device – which means that the digital divide within Africa can be effectively bridged."
It's his view that cloud solutions will enable many organisations in Africa to compete on a global stage, from schools and universities to start-ups, innovators and business.
He adds, however, that outsourcing these services to an international public cloud provider not only removes the business from local service providers, it is also often not a viable option – privacy concerns around data and legislation requiring sensitive information to be kept within a country's border highlight the need for localised public cloud offerings.
"Local cloud providers cannot compete directly with large international providers if they hope to be successful," he says. "They simply do not yet have the critical mass to deliver these services as cost-effectively as established international providers, and duplicating the same services and solutions is counterintuitive – a case of re-inventing the wheel as it were."
Skipp believes that the opportunities for the African public cloud provider are practically endless, with everything from local language versions of Wikipedia, to IaaS, PaaS and SaaS presenting an opportunity.
"Bridging the digital divide in Africa and enabling local public cloud providers to become successful requires an innovative approach. The competitive edge will come from tailored solutions as well as value added services and applications that will bring the millions of African companies online to enable them to compete on a global stage," concludes Skipp.
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South Africa: Innovation Key for SA Cloud SPs Innovation is key to positioning local public cloud providers in a competitive international market says Ryan Skipp ICT solution sales and portfolio management at T-Systems in SA While South Africa may have been behind the curve regarding the uptake of cloud services this is slowly changing as bandwidth becomes more affordable and more available The debate now is not around whether or not the cloud is beneficial but where to implement cloud solutions and whether to use public or private services says Skipp Many local providers offer private cloud solutions to SA and Africa as a whole according to Skipp adding that international cloud providers also offer appealing public cloud options with cost-effective solutions for migrating areas such as e-mail and file sharing
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