Vodacom's hosting business is gaining momentum, with the company entering a partnership with Microsoft to provide pay-as-you-go hosted solutions.
The companies announced the offering yesterday, at Microsoft's partner summit in Durban.
The deal will see Vodacom Business serve Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint from its recently-built R100 million data centre.
According to the announcement, plans for new cloud-based services, such as hosted Office Communications and Dynamics CRM, are in the pipeline.
Vodacom Business has been making waves since its launch, taking on the big boys, like Telkom. Earlier this year, Vodacom announced a multimillion-rand contract that entitles it to host engineering and management business BKS Group's systems.
The local data centre market has been slow to take off and many companies have been quiet about the numbers of customers that are being served.
Vodacom Business's decision to tack on the popular pay-as-you-go model may help it bring in the smaller businesses, which are looking for a cheaper solution.
According to Wally Beelders, executive director of Vodacom Business, the driving force behind the move is that modern businesses need more than phone lines and Internet connections.
“Voice over IP, Web hosting, e-mail, instant messaging, collaboration and managed security services - such as data backup and firewalls - are fast-becoming integral to business,” he says.
Beelders explains that most small and medium businesses understand the need for these solutions. “The challenge has long been price. Small companies cannot invest huge amounts in technology.”
He says there is also value for enterprise customers. “With fibre deployments and broadband becoming much cheaper and mail becoming commoditised, we can effectively outsource a large corporate's collaboration and messaging requirements more cost-effectively than they can.”
Mteto Nyati, MD of Microsoft SA, says: “In the current economic downturn, cost savings and productivity enhancements are more important than ever. Companies that invest in innovative solutions during that downturn look set to emerge strongly. We think this news will make a tangible difference.”
Vodacom Business says it does not plan to stay within South African borders, and hopes to expand the offering into West, East and Central Africa.
“With our acquisition of Gateway Communications, we now have a footprint in 40 countries. With the backing of Vodafone, we plan on aggressively tackling the African business market, offering them high-quality software-as-a-service business solutions at affordable prices,” says Beelders.
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