Telkom today launched a solution designed to help small and medium-sized business - the engine of SA`s future economic growth - slash costs, improve efficiencies and improve economies of scale in current budget-sensitive conditions.
Telkom`s ReadyHost comprises four different types of pre-packaged solutions, each targeted to specific infrastructure requirements. Telkom`s Data Centre in Centurion, Gauteng, hosts customer applications in a secure environment, using contemporary management and monitoring systems which allows for proactive identification of potential risks in the data environment.
Telkom already hosts a number of corporate customers at its Data Centre, reflecting its market position in the multibillion-rand IT outsourcing market. Outsourcing has freed customers from the cost and complexity of the average heterogeneous enterprise environment.
The World Wide Worx SME Survey 2003 found that SMEs are spending a higher proportion of their turnover on IT each year. In 2001, 47% of SMEs spent more than 1% of turnover on IT. This rose to 48% in 2002 and 49 % in 2003. Small businesses were positive on the expected impact of future IT investments to improve their competitiveness.
"Telkom has the buying power, experience in the hosting environment and infrastructure to provide reliable, scalable and secure solutions to deliver the highest value proposition to customers. IT outsourcing is a pragmatic option, allowing companies to focus on their core business while an external business partner gets on with the job to help customers achieve their strategic goals," says Godfrey Ntoele, Managing Executive of Business and Government Markets at Telkom.
The new solution comprises four packages. ReadyHost Lite offers 1GB RAM and 30GB usable storage on one CPU. Growth offers 2 CPUs, 4GB RAM and 36GB usable storage, while Enterprise offers 4 CPUs with 8GB RAM and 180GB usable storage. The Enterprise Plus offers 8 CPUs, 16GB RAM and 219GB usable storage space.
Businesses will derive many benefits from the solution, including cost savings on hardware, servers, data centre facilities, software and human resources. ReadyHost also ensures best practices are appropriately applied to business infrastructure, and scalability improves the company`s agility and flexibility in competitive environments.
Says Ntoele: "The introduction of the new solution has given Telkom an edge in improving service levels, and offering customers products and integrated service offerings that materially improve business processes and enhance competitiveness."
Telkom has also partnered with professional and expert vendors to introduce the solution to the market. Vito Bonafede, Regional Director for Sun Microsystems Sub-Saharan Africa, says: "Sun has been working internally to deliver high performance computing solutions that reduce cost and complexity for our customers. We believe this initiative by Telkom is a contribution towards a similar goal - providing customers with the computing power and resources they need, but without the onerous task of managing those resources."
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