Microsoft’s presence in the African market can be traced to more than three decades ago. The technology corporation, which is popularly known for its Windows and Office software, among other services, has been trying to up the offerings of its business in the continent, and especially in Kenya with increased awareness around products such as Azure and the need for organizations to transition their services to the cloud. The corporation, which is also one of the global companies to have seen the need to set up data centres in Africa (Cape Town, SA), staged a meet in Nairobi yesterday that aimed shape the perception of and position of the organization as a thought leader for global best practices in data migration.
To put Microsoft’s need to push for additional adoption of cloud services, the local market, as well as South Africa’s has seen a jump from fewer than 50 percent of medium-sized and large companies to more than 95 percent in the past half a decade.
Obviously, this development is part of digital transformation that has become part and parcel of organizational strategies in the country. Microsoft wants to position itself as the go-to partner for businesses that are considering cloud computing as a way of managing servers, databases, and network analytics via cloud services. At the same time, the approach allows businesses to save on operational costs by paying for cloud services used. It has also been reported that organizations that have taken this route run their infrastructure more efficiently.
“We created our Azure cloud offering recognising that organisations that migrate to the cloud would require an ever-expanding set of cloud services to help them meet business challenges. The solution also allows organisations the freedom to build, manage, and deploy applications on a massive, global network using preferred tools and frameworks,” says Sebuh Haileleul Country Manager at Microsoft.
“And this is where a monumental factor comes into play – with Microsoft recently launching its first cloud data centres in South Africa. Going forward the latter will allow for faster, more agile business operations and provide access to next-generation technologies for the rest of the continent, including Kenya,” continues Haileleul.
