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In: Africa Focus, Features, News

Technology powerhouse HP has maintained its top position in the East African PC market, with shipment growth of 46% year on year, supported by strong commercial demand and improved run-rates during Q1 2011. The vendor remained very strong in the Kenya market but continued to struggle in Ethiopia and Uganda. Rival Dell came a close second in Q1, with more than 600% year-on-year growth, after an aggressive channel recruitment and revamped drive from mid-2010. Dell continued to benefit more than other vendors from the shift from the grey market to official channels, especially in Ethiopia and Uganda, where desktop sales increased significantly. Taiwanese headquartered vendor Acer was third in East Africa in Q1, with 200% year-on-year growth, mainly thanks to deals in the telecommunications space. This channel is expected to continue growing as telcos explore data services to supplement dwindling voice revenues.
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In: Africa Focus, Enterprise, Features, IT Services, News, SI Watch

Already recognised as a provider of infrastructure as a service from its Africa-leading data centres, South Africa-based SI Business Connexion has announced a new relationship, which sees it growing its presence in the SaaS environment. The SI has partnered with SIPCOM and is ready to deliver Microsoft-based communication and collaboration solutions, including Exchange, Lync with full Enterprise capabilities, and SharePoint, on the SaaS model. That’s because SaaS services are rapidly configurable, come at a low cost and provide flexibility to adapt to changing business circumstances. Business Connexion’s infrastructure as a service provides the same advantages for ‘hardware’-based services, such as computing power and storage capacity. Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Features, News, SME, Software

The Sage Group, a global business management software provider recently held a global online conference under the theme “Modernising ERP – A Vision for Growth,” to reinforce its strategy for Sage ERP X3, its business application suite for the midmarket. Guy Berruyer, CEO, Sage outlined his strategic plan for Sage’s growth in the upper midmarket, and reaffirmed Sage’s commitment to Sage ERP X3 as its flagship global ERP solution. New customers, partners and an enhanced solution have helped Sage ERP X3 achieve double digit revenue growth.Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Features, Hardware, News, Peripherals

“The electricity crisis has severely compromised key growth sectors.” This statement regarding power cuts in South Africa was reported by Bloomberg in August 2009. Jacques Liebenberg, product manager for Eaton Power Quality, AxizWorkgroup, said “Although South Africa is currently experiencing fewer power cuts, companies should still ensure they have a continuous power supply solution. By establishing an infrastructure that allows business continuation despite power cuts, power surges and blackouts as a result of lightning storms or base station malfunction, customers are able to minimise the negative effects on their operations.”
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In: Africa Focus, Enterprise, Features, Networking, News

Huawei, a global telecom solutions provider has announced the launch of its newly introduced Enterprise business sector, confirming its continued focus on the Egyptian ICT market. Huawei Technologies expanded into the enterprise business sector with a global mission to become the first choice ICT solutions provider across various public & private industries, including health, education, government, oil/gas, real-estate, transportation and banking. The Enterprise sector offers end to end solutions, in order to save energy and make processes more simple and less time consuming.Read More…

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PC-Ware South Africa, the South African subsidiary of PC-WARE, the leading manufacturer-independent ICT solution providers in Europe (software licensing, consulting on licensing agreements and software and IT asset management) signed an exclusive partnership agreement with Business Connexion that will see both companies extending collaboration activities in South Africa and the rest of Africa. Business Connexion will act as the operational fulfilment engine for PC-Ware, which will continue focusing on the sales and client engagements across shared clients. From an international perspective, PC-Ware will deliver the operational fulfilment activities for Business Connexion’s clients enjoying global footprints.Read More…

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Sage VIP Payroll has forged further alliance agreements with Omni-Africa, Acctech Zimbabwe and Quantum-Winpay, increasing VIP’s footprint in Africa, and specifically Zimbabwe, even further. The first VIP Premier Payroll system went live in February 2011 by means of a landmark alliance agreement with Omni Africa in Harare. Recognised as a leader in the payroll and HR management industry in Africa, VIP offers an innovative software solution that is customised to be country specific, taking into account the legislation and required statutory reports that are needed to run payroll and HR management software with confidence.
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In: Africa Focus, Features, News, Telecom

T-Systems South Africa announced the appointment of Giancarlo Fenderico as the Strategic Partner Manager. Fenderico appointment comes as company taking a more strategic, focused and aligned approach to its partner model in the country. Fenderico will, in the next two months, embark on a fact-finding mission, liaising with all stakeholders and partners to ascertain their immediate expectations and how T-Systems can address these – be it larger issues or smaller, daily challenges. Before joining T-Systems in the beginning of 2011, Fenderico was responsible for establishing and running the SAP Practice at Siemens SA. His career also includes a tenure at KPMG in the US, and Germany, again specialising in the SAP environment.Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Features, News

The PC market in East Africa strongly expanded in the first quarter of 2011, even as the worldwide PC market contracted and the pan-African market almost stagnated. According to a recent report by market research company IDC, East Africa (including Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Uganda) recorded a massive 76% growth in PC shipments and it further expects the East African PC market will further grow by about 35–45% in 2011 before cooling off in 2012.
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South Africa based distributor Drive Control Corporation (DCC) introduced the 2.5 TB and 3 TB versions to Western Digital AV-GP SATA hard drives, serving the audio-video (AV) market. The new 3.5-inch, WD AV-GP hard drives offer 24X7 reliability, low power consumption and unrivalled storage capacity for storage-intensive AV applications such as digital video recorders, video surveillance, single-drive media servers and external multimedia storage.
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In: Africa Focus, Features, News, Peripherals, Products

ProScan Media Products (PMP), a provider of labelling, coding and marking solutions to the southern African market, has introduced the latest Matthews I-Mark C84e continuous inkjet printer with touchscreen control, which is designed for fast and effortless operation in a multitude of applications. The new I-Mark C84e codes and marks intricate bar codes, expiration dates, logos and a wide range of other products, regardless of shape or texture. It allows for easy set-up and has a single control automatic shutdown.Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Features, News

As part of the IBM’s geographic expansion plans targeting key growth markets in Africa, IBM announced the opening of its office in Dakar, Senegal. The Dakar office is part of IBM’s West Africa operations and will allow the company to increase its level of service, and deliver more complex and high-value solutions such as cloud computing and business analytics. IBM will also be to deliver high-value solutions and services to meet the growing needs of clients in Senegal and West Africa, where the company is working closely with a number of business partners.
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