Pretoria, 01 Oct 2010
In a social responsibility initiative worth R50 000, Computer Assisted Telephony Systems (CaTS), one of a number of active business partners for IBM's Lotus Foundations Start solution - a version of Lotus specifically aimed at the small and medium enterprise business market - has provided software to a 140-student underprivileged school in Addulam, Secunda.
The software donation will now give the school access to up-to-date business software, including e-mail and Internet connections.
This was confirmed by Johan Grobler, MD of CaTS, who said the company had recently launched its social responsibility programme and will "be targeting schools with IBM's Lotus Foundations Start solution”.
"We are going to try and donate as much as we can to schools, or at least offer substantial discounts - but we are certainly going to be targeting the educational sector," he said.
The new 'sewn-off' IBM Lotus solution - which still comes with all the necessary features - is said to be around 50% cheaper then the "fully-fledged version", said Grobler.
“Addulam is not a big school, but most of the students are underprivileged, so this is a rewarding programme for us. We are also able to offer fairly hefty discounts to schools, including pre-schools, as IBM itself has an education drive and is offering its business partners 50% discounts on its software in some instances.
"So this is not purely a CaTS drive. We luckily are enjoying the support of a large IT player in the market, which gives us space to manoeuvre our prices and, in so doing, give back to the community. But with the Addulam school deal we are simply giving them the software - and installing it for free. It will be a big boon for the students," he said.
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