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

South African based system integrator Gijima has acquired the South African BMC Business Service Management business from African Legend Indigo (AL Indigo). BMC, based in Houston, USA, is a global provider of business service management software. The highly-qualified BMC team has transitioned to Gijima to strengthen and complement Gijima’s own BMC skill set. There are now 74 BMC skills focusing on BMC solutions within Gijima. With the acquisition, Gijima becomes an elite partner to BMC, providing enterprise service management (ESM) and mainframe service management (MSM) solutions.Read More…

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In: Features, News, Storage

HP has appointed Chris Johnson as the Vice President for its Storage Division in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. HP Storage Division is part of the larger Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) group. Chris is responsible for the overall management of the business and will oversee all go-to-market and operational elements, including sales, supply chain, marketing, product portfolio planning, channel and partner resources, service and support, and finance. He will be based in the United Kingdom.
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In: Enterprise, Features, News

In a survey conducted at the SAP User Group Middle East (SUG-MENA) annual conference in Dubai, 100 percent of respondents agreed that the role of the CIO would become more strategically important in 2011 (compared to 86 percent of those questioned in November 2010 and 69 percent in March 2010). With regards to which innovations the company would most likely adopt as part of its business strategy business analytics was the most popular answer (30 percent), followed by on-device technology (26 percent), virtualization (24 percent), cloud computing (20 percent).Read More…

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In: Features, News, Security, SME

McAfee recently announced the launch of the SMB Specialization within the McAfee SecurityAlliance program (MSA) to enable partners to improve profitability while addressing the unique needs of SMB customers. McAfee SMB specialization is a program that enables partners to sell targeted security solutions to customers with less than 250 employees. By enrolling in this, partners can offer their customers email, web, data and endpoint security solutions, with on-premise or SaaS delivery models. Also, program partners can take advantage of a monthly billing option, a full range of enablement tools, turnkey marketing programs, and dedicated resources. Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Case Studies, Features

South African law firm, Adams & Adams, specialising in trademark and patent law and representing global brands throughout Africa, has successfully replaced its aging IT infrastructure, a strategic decision made to coincide with the launch of the organisation’s new corporate image and the move to its upmarket new premises in Lynnwood Ridge, Pretoria. The new HP servers, SAN and desktop PCs were all provided by Datacentrix, a provider of high performing and secure ICT solutions. The ever-growing commercial, property and litigation department of Adams & Adams ensures it delivers a holistic service to its clients.Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Features, News, Telecom

South African-based First National Bank (FNB) is seeing a rapid uptake of its cellphone banking services in Africa. According to the bank, it has recorded year-on-year growth of 376% in Zambia, 277% in Botswana, 204% in Namibia and 473% in Swaziland. Danny Zandamela, CEO of FNB Africa says: “When we introduced our cellphone banking solution into other African countries, sceptics were not convinced by this channel as being a successful financial offering. However, the numbers are seeing confirmation that the African continent is actually an ideal market for mobile banking services.”Read More…

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In: Features, News, Security

The first week of Olympic ticket payments has seen the continuance of cyber attacks, according to the latest information from Norton. Cyber criminals have employed tried and tested methods to target ticket hopefuls, including poisoned Internet search results and fake e-mail confirmations. Over 1 500 malicious Web links were identified when searching for common Olympic related terms such as “London 2012 stadium diagram”, “London 2012 stadium seating chart”, “London 2012 stadium map” and “London 2012 logo ideas”. Read More…

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In: Features, News

Oracle has announced that it is has entered into an agreement to acquire FatWire Software (FatWire), a provider of web experience management solutions.

Web experience management enables organisations to build and deploy a targeted and interactive online presence that optimises the interactions companies have with their customers. Increasingly, more companies have come to rely on their web sites as the most important channel for communication, marketing, customer engagement and commerce.
FatWire’s proven solutions provide organisations with the ability to deliver relevant customer content, build community engagement and drive site stickiness and loyalty.Read More…

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In: Features, News

At the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC), Kirk Skaugen, Intel Corporation vice president and general manager of the Data Centre Group, outlined the company’s vision to achieve ExaFLOP/sperformance by the end of this decade. An ExaFLOP/s is quintillion computer operations persecond, hundreds times more than today’s fastest supercomputers. Reaching exascale levels of performance in the future will not only require the combinedefforts of industry and governments, but also approaches being pioneered by the Intel Many Integrated Core (Intel MIC) architecture, according to Skaugen.
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In: Africa Focus, Features, Networking, News

South African based broadline distributor, Tarsus Technologies has confirmed the availability of an expanded range of networking products resulting from HP’s acquisition of 3Com, and has committed to securing new opportunities for the brand in the corporate, small business and home markets. “We’ve received a number of encouraging queries over the past couple of months,” says Peter Engelbrecht, HP networking product manager at Tarsus, “and we’re glad, now that the confusion is over and the relevant parties have been appointed, that we can begin capitalising on the numerous gaps in the local market for these new products.”
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In: Africa Focus, Features, News

Avnet Technology Solutions, a global distributor leader and part of Avnet, Inc has extended its focus on the fast growing African market by investing heavily in the resources with a dedicated team of highly skilled sales, technical, financial and marketing professionals to expand its footprint across the continent. Avnet is also expanding its portfolio of products, solutions and services for solution providers on the African continent. A recent IDC forecast states that IT spending on the African continent will grow by 10% to touch US$ 25 Billion in 2011. South Africa is expected to grow by 7.5% in 2011, while Egypt will continue to grow rapidly at over 15% and the spending in the rest of Africa will grow at 12% to go past US$ 10 Billion in 2011.Read More…

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In: Features, Networking, News

Juniper Networks has appointed Adrian Pickering to the role of area vice president, Middle East and Africa. Based in Dubai, Pickering will be responsible for driving sales and operations across the Middle East and Africa region for both service provider and enterprise markets reporting to Sean Dolan, senior vice president, EMEA. “I am joining Juniper Networks at a pivotal moment with strong sales, support and headcount in the region,” says Pickering. “Recent high profile customer deployments and increased investment in training and channel partners locally have provided great momentum and gives me a great platform to continue driving activity and expansion with my team.”Read More…