Willem Marais, chief business development officer at Liquid Telecom.

Liquid Telecom has partnered with Microsoft to deliver scalable cloud services in Africa.

The deal has been structured through the cloud solution provider (CSP) programme and will see the group's 50 000km fibre network supporting Microsoft Azure cloud growth in SA, Tanzania, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

"Liquid Telecom has been a partner of Microsoft for some time and already provides ExpressRoute services to Azure deployments in Europe," says Willem Marais, chief business development officer at Liquid Telecom.

"We continue to expand our partnership with Microsoft and have now joined the CSP programme to specifically offer a host of Microsoft services to enterprise customers across our entire network footprint."

The partnership will see Liquid Telecom offer products such as Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Office 365, Enterprise Mobility Suite and Windows 10 in the region for the first time.

According Marais, the group will also offer customers connectivity from upcoming Microsoft Azure servers in SA. "Microsoft announced in May that they will be deploying Azure in South Africa, so Liquid Telecom will also be offering customers connectivity and services from these deployments."

In May, Microsoft revealed plans to deliver Microsoft Cloud for the first time from data centres located in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with initial availability anticipated in 2018.

Liquid Telecom says the partnership will target enterprises and small businesses alike that are adopting cloud consumption, as well as the wholesale resale of services via channel partners.

To date, Microsoft has brought 728 000 small and mid-size enterprises online in the region, of which 500 000 are now utilising Microsoft cloud services while 17 000 are using the 4Afrika hub to promote and grow their businesses.

"Demand for cloud services is increasing exponentially across Africa as organisations look for greater agility, flexibility and security to grow their business," says Nic Rudnick, group CEO of Liquid Telecom.

"Through our extensive open access fibre network and integrated data centre capabilities in southern and eastern Africa, Microsoft and Liquid Telecom are better positioned to serve Africa's digital future, which increasingly belongs in the cloud."

Bruno Delamarre, MEA One commercial partner group lead at Microsoft, adds the adoption of smart, cloud-based solutions continues to gain traction across Africa and such partnerships prove to be beneficial to customers' IT strategies.