Although Africa still lags behind other global markets in so far as the
adoption and application of Cloud computing services is concerned, there
are instances of double and even triple digit growth in some countries on
the continent. Research also supports the notion that there is a significant
increase in Cloud adoption within South Africa’s SME market and this
bodes well for further entrenchment of a Cloud services ecosystem in
Africa, claims Pamoja.
Albie Bester, CEO of Pamoja, refers to the 2014 SME Survey, conducted
by World Wide Worx, which has found that Cloud adoption within the
South African SME space has more than doubled between 2012 and 2014.
“The research also stated that twenty seven percent of the country’s small
and medium businesses are using Cloud services for business and this
number could double in the next two years. Our vision is to further
establish the Cloud services ecosystem across Africa to meet the
anticipated increase in requirements,” says Bester.
Pamoja is a leading Cloud services and content aggregation business
entity, and strategic arm leading Seacom’s entry into content aggregation
and Cloud computing services.
The Company is focused on driving increased adoption of Cloud services,
addressing traditional challenges and successfully replicating the Cloud
services model for the benefit of operators throughout Africa.
To this end the Company recently announced that it has deployed its
second Cloud platform at Liquid Telecom’s East Africa Data Centre in
Nairobi, Kenya.
“By integrating our platforms through the Seacom submarine cable
infrastructure we are able to firstly provide Cloud services with a regional
presence and secondly offer geographic redundancy to customers who
demand this,” Bester adds.
Backed by its existing and expanding operations across Africa, as well as
an increasing network of reseller partners, Pamoja continues to expand its
Cloud exchange across Africa.
“This is gaining momentum,” Bester confirms, “despite challenges such
as general understanding of the value of Cloud computing, security
concerns, data sovereignty and an ‘I want to see my data’ mindset.”
Bester adds that whilst general awareness of Cloud services and the
implications of migration in business has improved, there is still more
work to be done to help businesses extract maximum value from Cloud
and translate that into real business value.
“The ecosystem, which incorporates service providers, solution providers,
networks and application owners, is certainly evolving. Our role is to help
drive this process in order to unlock the potential that resides in Africa,”
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