Posted on by Miguel Granier

Cloud Services in Africa

Cloud-based solutions are spreading throughout Africa, boosting the ICT sector and offering opportunities for local business growth. Below are articles highlighting how cloud integration is impacting the continent.

How the Cloud Can Power Entrepreneurship and Urbanisation in Africa by Derek Kudsee on IT Web Africa

Africa has seen incredible economic growth in the past decade. Income has grown by 30% on the continent and six out of the world’s ten fastest growing economies are in sub-Saharan Africa. To continue this growth, the continent will have to overcome a few major challenges including the need for job creation and dealing with mass urbanization. Innovation will be the key to managing resources, delivering core services to the population and growing the job market.

Africa has an enormous opportunity to meet these challenges by taking advantage of cloud computing technologies. Cloud computing is not only changing the way business operates, but driving a new wave of job creation opportunities by boosting small and medium businesses. According to Derek Kudsee, COO of SAP Africa, “One of the clearest opportunities being created by the cloud is in the technology space, where more than 600 million cellphone-using Africans are hungry for local content, apps and services.” The cloud offers African entrepreneurs the opportunity to explore new business models and create their own applications while slashing the costs out of the process of starting a small business. Cloud can also play a role in solving urbanization and growth challenges Africa is facing by driving business agility and improving IT cost efficiencies for enterprises to expand consumer markets.

Azure in SA: SMBs Will Save and Innovate in the Cloud on BiztechAfrica

Small and Medium sized businesses (SMBs) can save up to 50% of their current technology investment by considering an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model for their business, making platforms such as Microsoft Azure a viable cloud alternative for businesses needing to innovate while cutting costs. The biggest challenge local small business face is the ability to scale their IT infrastructure to meet customer needs. The Microsoft Azure platform enables customers to build, deploy and manage their IT solutions, all while having the system securely hosted in a series of networked Microsoft-managed data centers.

A McKinsey study revealed that SMBs who look at the cloud or IaaS solutions have been able to reduce costs of their IT by 50%, making the cloud a must have solution. Furthermore, annual recurring revenue for Managed Services Providers is growing at 28% a year, highlighting that not only are people working in the cloud but that the growth of the IT industry is hinged on it.

CBS Africa Launches to Become the First Dedicated Cloud Brokerage Marketplace Supplier and Consultancy in South Africa on IT Web

Cloud Brokerage Services Africa (CBS Africa) is a new enterprise in the ICT industry which has launched to license and enable businesses throughout the continent to purchase and manage cloud brokerage marketplaces via Jamcracker’s platform. The company will focus on serving the African market. CBS Africa offers over 100 different cloud services through partnerships with world-class vendors including SoftLayer, an IBM Company. Service offerings include Go-to-Market Strategy Engagement, Operational Management Framework Strategic Engagement and Technical Support Services. Clients will be able to use Jamcracker’s Services Delivery Network (JSDN) to deliver pre-integrated third-party services, along with their own internal and partner services.

The launch of CBS Africa is an exciting development for the growing market sector. According to IDC analysts, public IT cloud services will have a compound annual growth rate of 23.5% over the 2013 to 2017 forecast period.

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